This article is part of a series towards building the ethos of sci2pro.com.
In my earlier essay, I argued that impactful learning is both gradual and social. Today, I want to add another layer to that argument: real learning depends on real-time feedback.
This may seem obvious, but it has radical implications—especially for how we design learning in a world increasingly leaning on digital platforms. The more I observe online courses, YouTube lessons, and massive Zoominars, the more I see a humongous blind spot: they block feedback.
Let me explain.
Imagine you post a training video to YouTube. It’s well-written, well-edited, and technically accurate. Learners from across the world click, watch, and nod along. But here’s the problem: if something you say is unclear, misleading, or just plain wrong, no one can stop you mid-sentence.
They can’t raise their hand. They can’t furrow their brows in confusion. They can’t say, "Wait, that doesn't make sense." And worse still, they might not even realise they’ve misunderstood. The error — your error or theirs — silently persists.
In fact, this is precisely what I experienced when I watched the following well produced video on Bayesian statistics.
The creators seem to only have memorised a couple of definitions and examples––nothing more. I came away from the video completely lacking in any intuition. The authors of this video have over 200,000 subscribers and over 80 videos (as of the publication of this article). Therefore, you can imagine how many people have been 'served' by this well-meaning video.
Contrast that with a physical room. You see eyes glaze. You hear hesitation. You notice a pause when you ask a question. You adapt. You rephrase. You realise what you thought was clear was not. And so, the teaching becomes better, because the feedback loop is alive.
Even Zoom, often praised for bringing people together, mutes the learning process. The screen hides facial cues. The size of the audience deters questions. The chat window creates delay and distance. A Zoominar is not a classroom. It is a broadcast.
And when you remove feedback, you remove the possibility of iterative clarification, which is the very essence of teaching.
Teaching is not about saying things clearly. It is about discovering what wasn’t understood, and trying again.
The danger of asynchronous learning is not that it’s digital. It’s that it assumes content equals clarity. But no matter how beautifully produced a lesson is, if no one can signal confusion, then nothing can be improved. The system becomes self-sealing. Errors become permanent.
This is why I believe in live, in-person, feedback-rich learning. It's not nostalgic. It's pedagogical. The classroom is not just where teaching happens. It's where learning is negotiated.
If we are to prepare people for the complexity of work and life, we must stop pretending that one-way teaching is enough.
Learning is a dialogue, not a download.
This is not a rejection of technology. It is a rejection of pedagogical blindness.
Let us teach in ways that invite misunderstanding to reveal itself—and then do the sacred work of turning confusion into clarity.
That is real education. That is what we choose to build.