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Back to Reinventing School for the AI Era | Joe Liemandt, Gagan Biyani & Erik Torenberg, with Joe Liemandt & Gagan Biyani.

How Much Do Alpha School Kids Learn in Two Hours?

Joe Liemandt says kids at Alpha School learn twice as much in two hours a day as sitting in class for six hours and doing homework. Cognitive science, learning science, and LLMs make it possible to build a learning engine that teaches kids 10 times faster than a teacher in front of a classroom. Instructional design and delivery has not changed for 100 years.

Alpha makes three commitments to the kids. The first is love of school. Surveys returned last week show 90-some percent of the kids say they love school. 50% of the kids at the school would rather go to school than go on vacation, and one campus is at 65%. A school has to stay lovable across 12 years.

The second commitment is the academic block. Two hours a day cover the academics, and the kids learn more. Compounding at twice the pace of another school puts students in the top 1%, no matter where they start, given time.

Grokipedia·Alpha School·Joe Liemandt

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Reinventing School for the AI Era | Joe Liemandt, Gagan Biyani & Erik Torenberg ·

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More from this episode

  1. What Do Alpha School Students Do After Two Hours of Academics?Joe Liemandt says the rest of the Alpha School day is for life skills, not more class time and not an early dismissal.
  2. How Does Alpha School Make Kids Love School?Joe Liemandt says Alpha School redesigns the school day so kids love school more than vacation, and the key to a child's happiness is high standards.
  3. What Is the Horowitz and Andreessen Academy?Gagan Biyani says the Horowitz and Andreessen Academy is a college-age school built by redesigning education for the AI era, with Alpha School as the model…
  4. Why Does Motivation Matter More Than the College Lecture?Gagan Biyani says learning is about 90 percent motivation, so college should be driven by what moves an 18-year-old: building things people will use, earning…
  5. Do Families Regret Skipping Alpha School?Joe Liemandt says families who skipped Alpha now regret the choice. They thought the traditional path was the safe path, and it was not.
  6. What Did Joe Liemandt's Dad Say About Dropping Out?Joe Liemandt's dad called him a moron in Forbes for dropping out of Stanford, then reversed himself two years later and called the dropout the greatest thing…
  7. How Fast Does AI Let Students Learn?Joe Liemandt says AI lets students fill their heads with knowledge 10 times faster, so the expertise part of school no longer takes long.
  8. What Does Founders School Guarantee Its Students?Joe Liemandt says Founders School, Alpha School's high school for students who spend those years building businesses, guarantees a student will start a…

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