Expanded rules for Learning/Teaching

[EarthStone]

As some of you will recall, I run a long-running (coming up on 3 years with many more to go) low-powered (started -100 points, now up to 30, yes positive 30 points), kids (started 8 years old, now around 14) set in a huge fantasy city in a campaign of my own (and collaborative with the players) design.

They keep track of the time they spend using/learning various skills to explain and justify how and when they put points into a skill. This is NOT getting extra points (as per B292) but instead using those rules to show how and why they've learned the skills they've acquired.

They've gotten old enough (and finally have enough spare coin!) that they've taken to hiring instructors to teach them things. And I've found I'm not happy with the bare bones system that exists. ... So I expanded on it.

Below is what I've come up with so far. I welcome your feedback, ideas, criticism, critiques, input, and general comments.

Learning skills:

Book rules:
200 hours learning per 1 point
On the job 4 hours = 1 hour learning, max 8 hours per day (2 hours learning / day full time, 1 hour / day part time)
Self teaching 2 hours = 1 hour learning, max 12 hours per day
Regular teacher skill 12+ 1 hour = 1 hour learning, usually max 8 hours per day
Intense training w/ teacher skill 12+ & higher skill & more points in skill plus best equipment possible & you HT 12+ and costs x4 regular teacher 1 hour = 2 hours learning, max 16 hours per day

Breaking this out into extended rules:
Discard the general max hours per day rules. It makes no sense that “fatigue limits learning hours per day” for on the job but not for other forms of learning. Based on the skill being learned, max hours per day is based on the average of the stat used and HT with a +4 if going through extreme training. Thus Stephen Hawking studying math can go for 12 hours (IQ 18 + HT 6 = 24/2 = 12) but a soldier in boot camp with drill sergeants ‘encouraging’ them can go for (ST 12 + HT 12 = 24/2 = 12) +4 ‘encouragement’ = 16 hours before collapsing.

Change the time required to be consistent to make our math easier going forward. 800 hours casual time spent to gain 1 point is the base of all calculations. Self teaching gets a x2 multiplier thus taking 400 hours. Regular teaching gets a x4 multiplier thus taking 200 hours. Intensive training gets a x8 multiplier thus taking 100 hours.

‘On the job’ is also equivalent to casual time spent doing various activities for 800 hours. A kid spending evenings playing catch with his dad, a pick-up game each week with his friends, practicing & playing games on the weekends with his junior team, & watching the professional games on TV could put 1 point into Sports(baseball) in a years time. Likewise a college student will likely pick up a point in Carousing during their first year away from home… maybe two points if they join a fraternity, because likely that’d count as having a teacher, see below.

Self teaching is only as effective as your willpower to pursue your studies. For every 100 hours spent in self-study roll Will to see how dedicated you’ve been. If failed, each point of failure = -10% effectiveness. Thus failure by 4 = 60% effectiveness and only 60 hours were spent on self study of the chosen subject. (The lost time can count towards Casual time at other ‘fun’ activities like carousing, sports, etc.). Success by 5 gives a +3 on the next 100 hours self study roll (“Oh, that’s fascinating! I’ve got to know more about it.’) while a critical success gives automatic success on the next roll. Critical failure has no penalty other than loss of time based on the margin of failure… but might inspire a Will check to see if it is a subject the PC really wants to learn. Single Minded can give a +3 bonus to this but at the cost of -3 reaction penalty during any non-serious social interaction during this time. (“Hey man, lighten up. It’s a party!” … “I really should be studying. Why did you drag me here?”)

Regular teaching is only as effective as the teacher, the resources, and the students willingness to cooperate. If you are passively resisting the teacher (like a modern-day bored school kid doing the minimum to get through school) use the Will roll as described above in Self-teaching modified by the success (not failure) of the teachers skill roll. Thus a weak willed student who is easily distracted from study is more likely to learn if the teacher is able to skillfully motivate them. Otherwise, if you are generally willing to learn, no Will roll is necessary as the teacher will provide motivation and keep you on track.

The effectiveness of the teacher is based on the their experience (points) in the subject, effective skill of the teacher with the subject, the resources available to help them teach, and their skill at teaching others effectively. An expert in a subject who is bad at teaching can waste your time just as much as a great teacher who knows little to nothing about the subject.

First of all, in order to teach something, you should know at least as much about the subject as your student to be effective. If you know less about it, you can still be of use by providing a different view point on it and guiding their efforts. Professors teaching doctoral students who are researching entirely new subjects do it all the time.
Experience (points) difference Teacher vs Student
-4+ = -4 teaching skill
-1-3 = -2 teaching skill
0 = no change teaching skill
+1-3 = +1 teaching skill
4+ = +3 teaching skill

Next, a teacher who can demonstrate a higher skill with the subject can lead by example, inspiring learning from the student. Having a lower skill is no penalty. Michael Phelps swimming coach doesn’t need to swim himself in order to be a great instructor.
Effective skill difference Teacher vs Student
0 = +0
+1-2 = +1 teaching skill
+3 or more = +2 teaching skill

Lastly, regardless of the task, it’s all about having the right equipment. This affects the teachers skill level as per B345.
Improvised = -2 (-5 for technological skills)
Basic = no modifier
Good = +1 teaching skill
Fine = +2 teaching skill
Best = +TL/2 teaching skill (modern day means +4)

Teaching skill defaults to IQ-5, so even if someone knows nothing about teaching, if they’re at least average IQ, just the fact that they’re putting in an effort, will allow the student to not have to make Will rolls to keep from getting distracted. Anything better than that can only add to their effectiveness. Actual skill above 15 does not speed learning by the student but It can offset penalties. If higher than 15 use an effective skill of 15 before adding bonuses.

Effective Teaching skill:
5 = x2 (as self teaching but no will roll needed)
6 = x2.25
7 = x2.5
8 = x2.75
9 = x3
10 = x3.25
11 = x3.5
12 = x3.75
13 = x4
14 = x4.5
15 = x5 (max possible without teaching bonuses)
16 = x5.5
17 = x6
18 = x6.5
19 = x7
20 = x7.5
21+ = x8 (the maximum ‘normal’ learning rate possible)


A few examples:

Billy, in a modern public inner-city school with budget problems, is motivated to learn so he can get out of there thus no Will roll is needed. He spends 36 5-day weeks in school each year. Classes are an hour long each. His teacher was hired with minimal funding (skill 11) and basic equipment (no modifier). The teacher does know more about the subject (+1) and has more skill in it (+1) giving an effective skill of 13 and a x4 modifier so in a year he can put one point into a skill.

His cousin who goes to a prep school with teachers skill 12, highly educated (+3), more skilled (+1), and good equipment (+1) for a total effective skill of 17 giving a x6 modifier. His classes cover more material than Billy studies and in two years of school he can put 3 points into a skill

Billy’s older sister went into the military to get away from home. She’s going through boot camp getting intensive training. They’ve got great instructors (skill 14), highly educated, (+3), more skilled (+2), and fine equipment (+2) for a total effective skill of 21 giving a x8 modifier.

Homework
Going back to Billy, during a 36 week school year, at least one week is wasted with non-teaching stuff. If his class meets 4 times a week for 35 weeks, that’s 140 hours. So, how do we justify him putting a point into the skill? Homework. Teaching doesn’t only happen in the presence of the teacher. Call it homework, lab work, practice time, study group, whatever, you can get the teaching bonus for as many hours of self-study as you get actual instruction. Any additional time spent counts as self teaching. Billy spent 60 hours doing homework over the year bringing him up to 200 hours at x4 modifier = 800 hours to learn a skill.

Individual vs group instruction
A teacher who concentrates on a single pupil can be more effective than if instructing an entire auditorium of students. Bonuses or penalties are based on a number of students = to skill level of teacher
+2 = 1 student
+1 = 1/2 skill level
+0 = up to skill level
-1 = up to 1 1/2 skill level
-2 = up to twice skill level
-3 = up to three times skill level
-4 = up to four times skill level
etc…

Assistant instructors
A teacher can have assistants who help carry out their lesson plan. Each assistant can lower the penalty for teaching too large of a group (having more will not generate a bonus). That’s actually what happens in Billy’s classes. His teacher skill 11 is faced with a class of 30 students but has 2 TA who help run the class, grade homework, etc.

[whswhs]

Is there a reason you aren't using the expanded rules in GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School? I mean, it's one thing if you didn't find them suited to your needs, but I hate to see GMs reinventing the wheel. Nearly all of the points you raise are covered there.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Is there a reason you aren't using the expanded rules in GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School? I mean, it's one thing if you didn't find them suited to your needs, but I hate to see GMs reinventing the wheel. Nearly all of the points you raise are covered there.

I second this.

[EarthStone]

<checks my files for list of GURPS PDFs>

<checks W23 for list of GURPS PDFs>

<headdesk>

How the devil did I miss that one?

<Downloads PDF>

Never mind folks. Nothing to see here.

Thanks.

(...although I'm gratified to see that I came up with many of the things mentioned in it)

[onetrikpony]

Mind if I carry on the thread?

For a while I've been thinking about coming here to complain about the amount of time it takes to learn some most of the skills. In my experience it doesn't require months of time on the job to learn most of the skills I know and can teach, these would be DX (easy) skills.

Does back to school deal with alternate time frames for learning certain types of skills?

I also like the changes (loosening up) of the role and effect of the trainer in the OP. "professional teachers" with skill 12 are more rare than hen's teeth in my experience.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

Does back to school deal with alternate time frames for learning certain types of skills?

I also like the changes (loosening up) of the role and effect of the trainer in the OP. "professional teachers" with skill 12 are more rare than hen's teeth in my experience.

I'm not sure why you need alternate time frames. The standard guideline is 200 hours of being supervised by a teacher gives you your first point in a skill. With a 40 hour week, that's five weeks.

Back to School does provide a simpler method of accounting, where you roll once a month for how many hours of learning you gained that month. On a good roll you'd get that 200 hours in one month; on a bad roll it would take you a second month. That's a system that avoids accounting for learning week by week or hour by hour.

It also has rules for teaching by people who have lower levels of Teaching skill, or even default skill, so long as they have only one or two students, which in my experience is fairly typical in work environments.

[onetrikpony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm not sure why you need alternate time frames. The standard guideline is 200 hours of being supervised by a teacher gives you your first point in a skill. With a 40 hour week, that's five weeks.

I agree with that for most academic skills. But this runs counter to my experience with Easy and Average DX skills.

a. I don't think you need to be supervised by a teacher with the teaching skill at 12 to learn an (E) DX skill at DX+0; (50% chance of success under moderate stress)

b. I don't think it takes 5 weeks to learn an (E) DX skill at DX+0 even without supervision.

I've taught guys (and a couple of wives) to do what I do with fair competence in less than months and without full time supervision. Those things would be auto mechanics, construction trades and equipment operation. I don't really want to get in a discussion about combat arts but they're not that hard to learn at a level that gives a person competence that is 50% more effective than the average Joe.

No one needs direct instruction to learn most Easy level skills; area- knowledge?, current events?, Carousing? Carpentry, Jumping, Lifting (A?). There literally isn't 400 hours worth of instruction that would only give a person HT+0 skill in lifting. (my wife has a couple of different certifications as a trainer and agrees strongly.) What about brawling? IMHO you can gain fair competence in Brawling at (DX+0) in about 15 minutes spread across about 10 fights.

On the other hand I've tried to learn higher maths (intensively!) several times and still can't do it without looking at a text for a few hours.

I can make house rules but I'd still like to have something in print to point at when I say yes/no concerning judgements on what requires how much time.

(edit) concerning my comment above; before someone suggests that I have some sort of teaching skill--most of those involved would strongly disagree. (including my wife) :D Heh.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

I've taught guys (and a couple of wives) to do what I do with fair competence in less than months and without full time supervision.

This idea, that "formal study" means that you have a teacher supervising what you do throughout your study time, is not what Back to School says, and to the best of my judgment, it is not what the Basic Set assumes.

The Basic Set puts a college semester at 21 weeks (unrealistically long, but let's grant it and do the analysis) and a typical course at three hours a week in the classroom. That's 63 weeks, far short of the 200 hours you need to gain a point. But the Basic Set lets a college semester course give you a point. If you go with 3 hours of work for each class hour, that's 189 hours; 4 hours of work makes it 252 hours—either of which is close enough to approximate 200 hours. But obviously you are not being personally supervised by your professor or TA all of that time, nor even sitting in a classroom with them! Therefore, the Basic Set must be assuming that if you meet regularly with an instructor, you are doing "formal study" even if the majority of your work is hitting the books or practicing, by yourself or with another student who's equally ignorant.

As for individual variability, I picked up a book containing a math review for adults when I was in third grade, and after reading that section, I could do arithmetic and some first year algebra (I didn't get quadratics that early). On the other hand, I had a couple of quarters of shotokan when I was in college, and at the end I had no more martial arts skill than when I started, and the instructor had never suggested that I take the exam for the first belt. Different people find learning different things easy or hard.

The GURPS rules are intended to be a gamable average. If you want more than that, the first thing I'd suggest is looking at the rules for how Talent affects learning.

[onetrikpony]

um... What???
I wouldn't choose to argue with you but I'd just point out that; per GURPS, Shotokan is a (HARD) skill, and I agree.

Originally Posted by whswhs

This idea, that "formal study" means that you have a teacher supervising what you do throughout your study time, is not what Back to School says, and to the best of my judgment, it is not what the Basic Set assumes.

That's a fair interpretation. I may have been mislead by these quotes:

Originally Posted by b292

You can use bonus character points to increase your skills and techniques. Each point is the equivalent of 200 hours of learning....

and

Originally Posted by b293

Every hour of instruction by a professional teacher counts as one hour of learning. A “professional teacher” is someone with Teaching skill at 12 or higher.

Which I read to mean that you need 200 hours of instruction by someone with a teaching certification to gain a point in a skill or it's going to take even LOOOONGER to earn that first point in Current Events, IQ (E). For instance, you'd have to watch the news or listen to the radio for 400 hours before you could answer; "which celebrity couple is getting a divorce", or "how many points did the DOW fall last monday" with 50% accuracy under duress. (Assuming IQ 10 ;)

As for individual variability, I picked up a book containing a math review for adults when I was in third grade, and after reading that section, I could do arithmetic and some first year algebra (I didn't get quadratics that early). On the other hand, I had a couple of quarters of shotokan when I was in college, and at the end I had no more martial arts skill than when I started, and the instructor had never suggested that I take the exam for the first belt. Different people find learning different things easy or hard.

I understand the concepts on b171,172. Skill levels are relative and Attributes are important. Shotokan is not Brawling even if the effects of their application are equivalent at lower levels. Carpentry is not Engineering.

Pretty much all Easy skills are skills that people learn in practice (on the Job) and IRL those skills rarely (if ever) require instruction by someone who has any skill at teaching to practice at competent levels. Outside of combat skills (and liberal arts programs) it is rare that any of the Easy skills are actually taught by "Teachers"

Many Easy skills are practiced with utility that ends at a fairly low level of functionality. That functionality to be assumed by harder skills that *should* require direct and qualified instruction. Area knowledge to Geography, Carpentry to Architecture, Electronics Repair to Engineering and also; Brawling to Shotokan (IMO not that I've ever been involved in Shotokan I still have respect for the art.)

My point there, is that MAYBE some Average or Hard skills require 800 hours of practice under a qualified instructor to gain a level. Easy skills just do not require 800 hours of instruction (and certainly not 3200 hours--a friken year-and-a-half of OJT practice) to increase your facility by 12% (that would be 4 points cost x 200hrs instruction or 800 hours OJT to improve from skill 11 to 12) If I had a guy on the job who couldn't learn to do his work in about a 10th of that time he'd get about 3 hours of OJT before I ran him off.

I'm realizing as I write this that the term "point" on b292 may be more nebulous than I thought. I read the basic set to mean 200 hours of learning per Character Point as written in the quote posted above. But I think I read your post as "point" = +1 to skill. This mollifies me slightly.

I'm pretty sure 200 hours of learning per point does not mean Point of skill. If you could clear that up for me it would be much appreciated.

[Refplace]

The 200 hour thing is only an approximation and definitely more for the frist point than later.
Most GMs (if not all) let you buy up skills during game without a teacher, especially if you used it in play.
And for what its worth I agree with Bill in that those 200 hours of instruction do not have to be one on one nor even have the instructor present.
Normal teaching requires a lot of self study and work after all. I think the key is that the teacher is monitoring progress (including tests) and providing direction and correction as needed. at least for basic teaching. More intensive modes are described in Back to School and other prior books.