Does the Institute have Teachers?

Instead of teachers or AI that tell a student how to learn, the Collins Institute utilizes a novel "pull" model. This is done through our instructor market. When a student decides what they will be tested on, they also choose how to obtain the information they need. In addition to books, videos, and other asynchronous learning materials, students will be able to choose an instructor to review the topic with them.

The Instructor Market

"Pull" Not "Push" Teaching

Instructors have no say in the testing process, leading students to choose instructors based on personality fit and effectiveness. If an instructor is ineffective at helping students learn the subjects they must tackle in a time-efficient manner, students stop choosing them. Unpopular instructors are quickly cycled out of the system, improving the quality of our instructors at a rapid rate when contrasted with the traditional educational system.
Our model incentivizes instructors to stay up to date with the latest research on how to best convey information because there is no teachers union or bureaucracy to be gamed. Instructors can only win by conveying knowledge in an effective, engaging manner.

Learning Their Place

In the extant school system, students are randomly assigned dictators over domains of learning: Individuals who tell them how to learn, maintain massive influence over their futures, and have the power to make their lives miserable over any perceived slight. That students had to learn to submit to a serendipitous bureaucracy to succeed in these systems was historically seen as a feature, not a bug. Do we want the world leaders of tomorrow to be taught that the only path to success involves submission and blind obedience?

We grant students ownership over their own improvement.

benefits of an instructor Market

Learning how to Learn

This system does not privilege teachers over a book, Wikipedia article, or YouTube video. It teaches students to proactively learn in the manner that suits them best, mixing and matching diverse sources of information. While some students will rely heavily on instructors, others will not use them at all and others still will use them to provide added support in certain difficult subjects.

To master the Institute, students must first master themselves. While studies show we retain very little of what we memorize for tests (less than 15%), the systems we develop for seeking out information and self-improvement stick with us for life.

Learning How to Teach

As the Institute grows, a large portion of our instructor pool will be comprised of current students and recent graduates. We structure our pool of instructors this way based on research that highlights the effectiveness of teaching as a method to reinforce information that was recently learned. It also insures that students are engaging with young, innovative instructors who were recently in their exact position. Nobody knows better than the student what works and what doesn't in the Collins Institute environment. 

The Proctor System

In addition to instructors, the Institute has proctors that monitor students' progress and help them reason through strategies for self improvement when they are struggling. The top priority of a proctor is to ensure the mental health and safety of our students. We consider our student's social goals and strategies to be just as important as their academic ones.

Once a week, students meet with their proctors to discuss their evolving goals for both the short and long term. In these meetings, students discuss with proctors the types of people they want to become, why, and how they might get there.