How to be a creative thinker | Carnegie Mellon University Po-Shen Loh

Summary

Mathematician Po-shen Loh emphasizes the need for creative problem-solving in education, contrasting traditional rote learning with modern challenges posed by AI like ChatGPT. He discusses his journey from teaching diverse students to creating an ecosystem that unites educators, students, and actors to foster independent thinking. Loh's vision is to empower students to learn how to think critically and independently, preparing them for a future where AI is prevalent.

Takeaways

• 📚 The traditional educational system is evolving; where previously students learned to complete assignments and exams, they now must learn to assess and think critically about their work, especially with the advent of AI tools like ChatGPT.
• 🧑‍🏫 Po-shen Loh, a mathematician and professor, emphasizes the importance of problem-solving and original thinking in education, rather than just rote learning, which is crucial for adapting to the modern world.
• 🔄 The role of an individual in the world is shifting towards being a problem-solver, which necessitates learning to think independently and creatively.
• 🎓 Loh discusses his diverse teaching experiences, from the International Math Olympiad team to underprivileged schools, highlighting the broad spectrum of educational challenges he has encountered.
• 📉 He criticizes the current trend of test preparation and cramming, which he believes stifles creativity and the ability to think innovatively, instead of fostering a genuine understanding of subjects.
• 💡 Loh shares his idea of creating a platform for free educational content, which has been a work in progress, reflecting his entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to accessibility in education.
• 🌐 He discusses the development of an ecosystem that brings together various stakeholders, including students, educators, and even actors, to create a scalable and mutually beneficial educational model.
• 🤝 Loh believes in the win-win-win approach, ensuring that all participants in his educational model benefit, which is crucial for its scalability and success.
• 🎭 The incorporation of improvisational comedy and acting skills into the teaching methodology is highlighted as a way to enhance communication and engagement with students.
• 🎓 His educational philosophy is to teach students how to think, not just what to think, with the ultimate goal of making students self-sufficient learners who can tackle any subject.
• 🚀 Loh envisions a future where students learn to grade their own homework and develop their own ways of thinking, which is essential in a world increasingly reliant on AI and automation.

Q & A

What is the fundamental difference in learning according to Po-shen Loh's perspective?

The fundamental difference is that while traditionally people went to school to learn how to do homework and exams, today everyone needs to learn how to grade the homework, implying the importance of developing one's own way of thinking rather than just solving problems.

Who is Po-shen Loh and what are his roles?

Po-shen Loh is a mathematician, a math professor at Carnegie Mellon University, a social entrepreneur, and the national coach of the US International Math Olympiad team.

What is the creative problem Po-shen Loh presents involving six matchsticks?

The problem is to arrange six matchsticks to form four triangles, each with sides of equal length to the matchstick. The solution involves creating a pyramid shape with three matchsticks as the base and the remaining three forming the sides and peak of the pyramid.

What is the main challenge Po-shen Loh sees in the current education system?

The main challenge is that the current system focuses on test preparation and cramming, which hinders students' ability to invent and think creatively.

What is Po-shen Loh's approach to education and training?

His approach is to help as many people as possible learn how to solve questions they haven't seen before, emphasizing the development of mental flexibility and original thinking.

Why is it important for students to be able to think outside the box according to Po-shen Loh?

It's important because it prepares students to solve new and unique problems they will encounter in the world, which cannot be solved by simply memorizing or repeating what they have learned.

What is the concept behind the ecosystem Po-shen Loh created?

The ecosystem unites different types of people, such as high school students, math experts, and drama professionals, to contribute in ways that benefit everyone, creating a win-win-win situation.

How does Po-shen Loh's ecosystem address the pain points in education?

It addresses the pain points by providing a platform where high school students can learn from experts, math enthusiasts can polish their skills, and drama professionals can earn part-time income while sharing their passion.

What is the goal of the curriculum in Po-shen Loh's live program?

The goal is to teach students how to think by covering specific topics like algebra, geometry, combinatorics, and number theory, which are designed to challenge and develop their problem-solving skills.

How does Po-shen Loh define success in the context of his work?

Success for him is not just about making money but convincing a large number of people to enjoy being thoughtful and to embrace the challenge of learning how to think creatively and independently.

What is Po-shen Loh's advice for people in the new world of AI?

His advice is that everyone should be a bit of an entrepreneur, embracing the opportunity to create value in the AI-driven world, which will be central to societal survival and flourishing.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Evolving Role of Education and Problem-Solving

Po-shen Loh, a mathematician and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, discusses the shift in educational focus from rote learning to problem-solving and critical thinking. He emphasizes the importance of learning to grade homework and think independently, as reliance on AI like ChatGPT will increase. Loh's experience ranges from teaching the International Math Olympiad team to working in schools lacking resources, revealing the broad challenges in education. He critiques the current test preparation industry, which he believes stifles creativity and invention in students.

05:03

🤝 Building an Ecosystem for Collaborative Learning

Loh outlines his vision for an educational ecosystem that addresses multiple pain points: the need for students to learn math, the desire of skilled individuals to contribute, and the practical needs of actors seeking part-time work. He draws a parallel to his own experience in improvisational comedy classes, which improved his communication skills and inspired him to integrate drama skills into education. This approach not only scales the educational model but also ensures a win-win situation for all parties involved, including high school students who are integral to the system.

10:03

🚀 Embracing Entrepreneurship and the AI Revolution

In the final paragraph, Loh discusses his philosophy on learning and entrepreneurship. He advocates for continuous challenge and avoiding repetition, suggesting that AI and tools should handle repetitive tasks while humans focus on developing their thinking skills. Loh shares his experiences interacting with diverse groups to understand their needs and limitations, which has informed his approach to creating value. He encourages everyone to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset to thrive in the AI-driven future, emphasizing the importance of creating value and enjoying the thoughtful process.

Keywords

💡Homework Grading

Homework grading refers to the process of evaluating and providing feedback on students' assignments. In the context of the video, it symbolizes a shift in educational paradigms where individuals are expected to not only solve problems but also assess and understand the solutions. The script mentions that 'today, everyone needs to learn how to grade the homework,' indicating the importance of critical thinking and self-assessment in learning.

💡Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is the ability to analyze issues and devise solutions. The video emphasizes the role of individuals in the world as problem solvers, suggesting that the world now requires a large-scale approach to learning how to think critically and come up with innovative solutions. An example from the script is the matchstick puzzle, which requires creative problem-solving to form four triangles with six matchsticks.

💡Mathematical Thinking

Mathematical thinking involves logical reasoning and the application of mathematical concepts to solve problems. The video discusses the importance of teaching students to think for themselves rather than just solving given problems. The script mentions that the goal is to teach students how to 'come up with their own way of thinking,' highlighting the significance of mathematical thinking in fostering independent problem solvers.

💡Educational Paradigm Shift

An educational paradigm shift refers to a significant change in the approach to education. The video discusses how the traditional model of learning is evolving, with a focus on teaching students to think independently and creatively. The script indicates a 'huge difference' in the way people learn and apply knowledge, moving away from rote learning towards a more dynamic and analytical approach.

💡International Math Olympiad

The International Math Olympiad (IMO) is a prestigious competition for pre-college students, showcasing their mathematical skills. In the video, the speaker mentions his role as the national coach of the US IMO team, emphasizing the high level of mathematical thinking and problem-solving required in such competitions. This highlights the video's theme of nurturing analytical and creative thinking in students.

💡Test Preparation

Test preparation refers to the process of studying and practicing for exams. The video criticizes the current trend of test preparation and cramming, where students are exposed to a vast number of potential exam questions, reducing their capacity for surprise and innovation. The script describes this industry as 'unfortunately' leading to a reduction in students' chances to 'invent', indicating a negative impact on creative thinking.

💡Mental Flexibility

Mental flexibility is the ability to adapt and think creatively in response to new or changing situations. The video speaker reminisces about his experience in math competitions in the 1980s, where new problems were seen as opportunities to practice mental flexibility. This concept is central to the video's message, advocating for an educational approach that fosters adaptability and creative problem-solving.

💡Social Entrepreneur

A social entrepreneur is someone who applies entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to bring about social change. The video speaker identifies himself as a social entrepreneur, indicating his commitment to creating educational solutions that have a positive impact on society. His ventures aim to 'create value' and 'generate enough money to create the impact,' aligning with the goals of social entrepreneurship.

💡Scalability

Scalability refers to the ability of a system, process, or idea to handle growth. In the video, the speaker discusses the challenges of scaling educational solutions to reach a larger audience while maintaining quality. He mentions the need for an 'ecosystem' that brings together different types of people to contribute, emphasizing the importance of scalability in delivering educational impact.

💡Improvisational Comedy

Improvisational comedy, or improv, is a form of theater where performers spontaneously create scenes without a script. The video speaker shares his experience of taking improv classes to improve communication and make math more engaging. This concept ties into the video's theme of fostering creativity and adaptability, as improv requires quick thinking and innovative responses.

💡Ecosystem

In the context of the video, an ecosystem refers to a complex network of interconnected parts that work together to create a balanced and self-sustaining whole. The speaker describes creating an 'ecosystem' that unites various stakeholders, such as students, educators, and actors, to contribute to educational outcomes. This ecosystem aims to address multiple pain points and create a 'win-win-win' situation for all involved, illustrating the speaker's innovative approach to education.

Highlights

The shift from learning to do homework and exams to learning how to grade homework reflects a significant change in educational focus.

The increasing reliance on AI like ChatGPT for problem-solving emphasizes the need for human adaptability and creativity.

Po-shen Loh's introduction as a mathematician, professor, social entrepreneur, and coach of the US International Math Olympiad team.

The creative problem-solving example using six matchsticks to form four triangles with equal sides.

Loh's diverse teaching experience from the International Math Olympiad to schools lacking math teachers.

The traditional purpose of school math tests being to assess listening and practice skills.

The prevalence of test preparation and cramming in math competitions, which may hinder students' ability to think innovatively.

The importance of creating educational content that is financially sustainable to ensure impact and influence.

Loh's initiative to create a website for free explanations of math and science topics, highlighting the challenges of scaling such a project.

The development of a business model involving recorded teaching sessions by Loh, which generated revenue.

The realization that live human interaction with experts is highly valued in education, despite the scalability challenges.

The innovative ecosystem Loh invented, uniting various contributors to create a win-win-win situation in education.

The integration of improv comedy and acting skills into teaching to enhance communication and engagement.

The importance of ensuring that high school students' contributions are valuable and justifiable to their parents.

Loh's vision for scaling the educational model to reach a significant portion of US high school and middle school students.

The focus on teaching subjects that develop problem-solving and analytical skills rather than rote learning.

The philosophy of using math competition problems as a tool for teaching original thinking rather than memorization.

The goal of the educational model is to empower students to learn independently and not rely on classes for every stage of life.

The analogy of software engineers using StackOverflow to emphasize the importance of quick and analytical thinking in the AI era.

Loh's personal approach to learning and understanding different backgrounds by engaging with a variety of people.

The value of customer discovery through direct interaction with parents and students during Loh's math talks in public parks.

The concept of social entrepreneurship and its focus on solving customer problems as quickly as possible, as opposed to maximizing lifetime value.

Loh's definition of success as convincing people to enjoy being thoughtful and the importance of entrepreneurship in the AI era.

Transcripts

People used to go to school to learn how to do the homework and do the exams.

Today, everyone needs to learn how to grade the homework.

This is the huge difference because someday if you want to do anything

in the world, the first thing you will do is you will ask ChatGPT.

The role of a person in the world is going to be to solve problems.

So that's why what the world needs now is a large scale way for everyone to learn

how to come up with their own way of thinking, not just how to do the problems.

Hi, I'm Po-shen Loh. I'm a mathematician.

I'm a math professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

I'm a social entrepreneur, and I'm also the national coach of the US

International Math Olympiad team.

If you have six match sticks, how can you

put them so that they make four triangles?

Four triangles where the side of the triangle

is the same length as the matchstick.

So if you have six of them, you might start putting

three of them like this okay.

But then you only have three more.

Now what? Okay.

It turns out that the answer is that you take the three matchsticks like this,

and then you use one more up here, and you put it down like a pyramid.

That's thinking outside the box. If you if you can call it that.

Because this is not just on a piece of paper anymore, it's still six matchsticks

or six toothpicks, but it's not what you were thinking of.

I've done lots of different kinds of teaching.

I teach people all the way from the International Math Olympiad team.

I will also go to schools and teach sixth grade in schools, where unfortunately,

there might not even be any math teacher for the whole seventh grade.

So I go and cover the entire range of education.

I find this to be very interesting because that helps me to learn

what the challenges are.

The whole point of a school math test is to see whether or not you listened

and you practiced.

In fact, all the math competition problems in the US and also in many parts

of the world are of this type.

Which is why today, the way that I approach education and training

is to try to help as many people as possible learn how to do those questions,

which they won't have seen before.

But I want to emphasize the reason I've been doing a lot of work on this nowadays

is because when I was doing math competitions in the 1980s,

the way you got good at it was by thinking every problem which was new was a chance

to practice mental flexibility.

Today, unfortunately, there's a huge industry around test

preparation and cramming where people try to help students get high scores

on these strange math questions by showing you all of the strange math questions

that you might possibly see.

And that involves studying for many, many, many, many hours,

so that the hope of the parents is that when the students see the test questions,

they are never surprised that they have done everything many, many, many times.

By the way, as you may know, this causes students to have to go to school

and after school and so many others.

It's actually very bad for the student, but even worse, it takes away

the student's chance to invent.

Money doesn't buy you happiness, but money is important for impact and influence.

So in fact, it's very important that the things that we build

are capable of generating enough money to create the impact.

This just happens to be what drives me.

Ten years ago, I had this crazy idea that maybe if we made a website that would

collect people's ways of explaining math and science topics, then maybe people

would explain the math and science topics and it would be free, and everyone

would be able to learn math and science.

And I remember thinking, oh, that can't be very hard.

We'll be done with that in a few months.

I'm glad I thought that because I'm still working.

So I had this whole thing called XP. We were making a website

with free explanations, but that didn't actually have a business model of its own.

It wasn't generating money, so I had to find some way to support all of that.

In 2019 and April, we started creating our own version of that in the United

States of America, where we took charge of filming me teaching, and then we

had a product which consisted of me teaching math that people could watch

recordings of, and they would pay for it.

And this, this made some amount of money.

But then this one, we still found there were pain points.

And finally, about two years ago, I realized, you know what?

What people really want is to have a live human experience

with somebody else who is an expert.

The only problem is that's quite rare and hard to find.

And there's also another challenge, which is that ideally that person

you're talking to is friendly.

If the person knows a lot but is not friendly,

that's actually not useful either, right?

This is the hardest thing to deliver in education because it's the least scalable.

Of course, in entrepreneurship world we always think about scalability.

And yes, you can find one brilliant coach who teaches ten students or maybe even 20,

or maybe even even 100.

That's a small scale compared to the size of the world.

And then that's when I suddenly realized I can make a giant win, win win situation.

So the main thing that I do now is an ecosystem.

It's actually an ecosystem that I invented, which unites many different

types of people to all contribute in ways where everyone is winning.

One pain point, which was for the people learning math.

Then the second pain point was from the people who are very,

very strong at math already, from which building the EC would be even better.

Although I do want to emphasize this is helping them finish up

to become extraordinary.

And the thing that made me realize the key that made me realize I could put

everything together, was an experience that I had about five, six years ago,

which is that I also took improvizational comedy classes myself, improvizational

comedy classes, our acting classes.

And I was doing that because I was trying to learn how to communicate better,

to get more people interested in math.

But I realized that even a math nerd like me can take those classes and then

become able to talk to a few more people.

So then I realized, let me add that.

And then I walked over to our drama department, and I found out that actually,

there are lots of people who have extraordinary drama skills

who are actually, indeed very interested in paid part time jobs

to help to coach the high school students.

So that's the third pain point.

The third pain point is there are people who absolutely love what they're

they're passionate about what they're doing in the acting and drama world.

But there's a practical need, which is, well, how to find a stable,

part time job, flexible hours that they can use to support their

passions so suddenly win, win, win.

We have all three lined up. And that's why this thing scales.

Actually, the everyone winning is very important

because I work with high school students.

And so in our in our company, any time anyone wants to ask high school students

to do anything, my answer to my employees is always that thing you want to ask

that high schooler to do.

Can we explain to their parent why?

For a very busy high school student, that thing is the best thing

they can do with their time.

If I cannot explain that, they're not doing it.

So this is the discipline that we run it to.

This is this is how strongly we make it a win win situation.

We will never have a high school student doing something unless I

could explain myself to their parent.

We suggested for your daughter to do this because it's

really good for her to do this.

The thing is, beforehand it was hard to imagine there would be a way to do that

until the answer became oh yeah, because while doing this, they will get to

learn from a Broadway or Hollywood quality actor or actress that's going to help them

become extraordinarily successful now.

But you see, this took eight years to come up with, two more years to scale.

The speed at which we grow is purely just based on how long it takes for people

who have middle school children to realize that, oh, there are these classes here

where the class looks as good as a Twitch gaming stream, and it's taught

by math geniuses who are smiling.

You know, these are things that people could not imagine that you

would put all together at the same time.

And as people discover this, they actually switch over.

They start joining our classes.

Then we can bring more high school students.

And the scaling power this can go to is we.

I estimate that this easily could grow to 100,000 high school students

in the US. That's 1% of the US high school students teaching

about a million middle school students.

If you look at our live program, it looks a little strange because you'll

see that the only subjects that we teach is a pretty small number algebra,

geometry, combinatorics, number theory.

Why do we cover these?

We cover these because these are a curriculum

that teaches you how to think the.

Only way to do that is by giving them questions that they have never seen

in school before.

So I need to find a source of problems that you will not see in school.

Actually, that turns out to be the middle school math competition curriculum,

because the people making those problems were trying to make problems

that you don't see in school.

But the difference between the way we do it and the way that lots of the training

centers do it, is that we are trying to use those as opportunities

to make you able to practice the thinking, instead of just showing you doing

the question that way enough times.

So the answer is the topics that we cover specifically chosen,

because that will be enough to teach a student how to generate their own idea.

Our philosophy is if you finish all of that, you will discover

that you can learn anything.

Our goal is not to make it so that we have classes for you

for every year of your life.

Our goal is to make it so that as fast as possible, you don't need any classes

from anyone ever again.

Today.

Everyone needs to learn how to grade the homework.

This is the huge difference because someday if you want to do anything

in the world, the first thing you will do is you will ask ChatGPT.

Let me make this analogy stronger.

If we look at any good software engineer, most good software engineers,

if they're given a task that they have never done before, the first thing they do

is to think about some similar problems and search on StackOverflow to see

examples they don't expect that will give them the whole code they need to write,

but they use this to research what kinds of technologies might be useful.

But as ChatGPT suggests, the solutions they need to be quick thinkers and

analytical thinkers to understand whether or not what ChatGPT said is correct.

So that's why what the world needs now is a large scale way for everyone to learn

how to grade homework, for everyone to learn how to come up with their own way of

thinking, not just how to do the problems.

My general philosophy is when you are learning, you should keep challenging

and you should not be repeating.

In the real world, when you're doing a task.

If it's repetitive, you should get ChatGPT to do it, or a calculator to do it,

or a computer to do it.

But in order to know how to control those well in the real world,

you need to learn how to think.

And that's the purpose of the learning process.

What I do for fun is I like to meet and try to understand people whose

backgrounds I don't fully understand yet.

This is actually what I do for fun. This is also why we're talking right now.

I happen to be talking to you in New York City.

The way I got here overnight is I took the bus, the overnight bus.

You know, some people don't take the overnight bus because who knows

who you're taking the bus with.

But for me, I'm actually not scared by that.

That's just called real world.

You can't understand the real world unless you actually start going

into various parts of the real world.

I think my message of how to create value is you cannot create value

if you don't interact with people.

You cannot just theoretically think about the value.

And the more people, the more you can understand.

People of different backgrounds understand means, have some idea

of how they tick, what are their needs, what are the limiting factors?

What do they want to do?

The better you are at modeling this, the more effective you will be

at coming up with a solution.

I started going to city after city after city giving math talks in public parks.

I actually set a schedule.

I put a schedule on my website, and I said, I'm going to go to all these

cities, and people could just sign up to show up for the talks.

And at the beginning, people were wondering, Will anyone show up?

But actually there would be like 50 to 100 people

showing up at these talks in parks.

And by the way, that was a fun journey because in order to do that,

I was traveling around from park to park with all the AV equipment, speakers

and everything to be able to have a stage in park shelters all around the US.

But while doing that in a inadvertently, that was customer discovery because I was

able to suddenly interact with and talk to thousands of parents and students,

which started to make me realize what kind of challenges people had.

And that's why just a probably about 1 to 2 months after that,

the big idea came the big idea of, oh, we can actually have all these

middle school students who I've met.

They can all learn how to think all at the same time.

While these people who are brilliant become extremely polished

so that someday later in their careers they can be really successful.

So that was that was the idea.

It was like, somehow you cannot really find pain points

if you're not seeing people.

That's also why with a lot of the work that I do, I will go into schools, right?

I love to work on education, and I do it in a way where even just last night,

I was writing to somebody who is involved with a large network of schools

and their schools, I believe, serve students who are also disadvantaged.

Now, instead of just putting money or putting resources from my side,

what I said is I'm very interested.

Can we arrange for me to go into some of your schools and teach sixth grade?

What I'm explaining is that the way I do anything, if I want to work in a sector,

I go and myself step in and start doing the work and see what happens.

And this is actually how I came up with all these ideas, because actually

the ideas that I'm doing are all things I've personally experienced myself.

I've experienced being a math person, taking acting classes.

I've experienced being a person, learning how to think, taught by somebody

who knows a lot of things and also smiles.

So all the different parts gave me these ideas.

Now I can understand why you identify you as a social entrepreneur.

Yeah.

We're not doing a very good job of maximizing lifetime customer value.

If our goal is to solve the customer's problem as fast as possible.

But this is what we want to do, right? This is the social entrepreneurship.

This is also why, if you ask me, what is my definition of success?

My definition of success is not just that we make a ton of money.

My definition of success is if we manage to convince

a huge number of people on this earth to enjoy being thoughtful, then I want.

I love the fact that entrepreneurship is about creating new things.

So the message that I've been sending in my entire tour is that this new world

of AI is going to be a Wild West.

There will be lots and lots of new opportunities.

The people who will be the most successful are the ones who are

very good at creating value.

Actually, in my public talks I tell everyone.

Everyone should be a bit of an entrepreneur.

They can be an entrepreneur, or they can even be an entrepreneur,

which is a word in English that we sometimes use to describe making

new things within an organization.

But the whole concept of creating value is actually going to be central

in helping the society survive and everyone flourish as we go forward

into this age of AI, into this new world.