Joe Liemandt

I'm a sixth grade teacher.

I'm doing sixth grade lessons.

The magic, and this is what AI tutor can do, is say, look, I don't know what happened.

It was COVID.

Whatever happened, you were on holiday.

You missed those lessons.

You don't know this fourth grade material.

I'm just going to give you this fourth grade lesson, even though age-wise you're in sixth grade.

And the reason you've been struggling in sixth grade material is because you didn't know this fourth grade concept.

If you're doing fractions and you haven't mastered division, you're going to sit there and say, God, this fraction problem is really hard.

But the real issue is, well, just go back and learn your division, and then the fraction is going to be easier.

Most of knowledge is hierarchical, where it's based on foundation.

Algebra is basically advanced fraction manipulation.

Fractions is multiplication and division.

And you can just keep going down the tree where you have to actually learn bottom-up and have mastery.

One of the big concepts of learning science is you need to master material, not just know parts.

What does mastery mean?

Mastery means, think of a sports analogy.

Have you mastered the basics?

How good are you?