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The Problems With Online Math Classes
dcollins writes "As a college instructor specializing in statistics, I felt compelled to survey one of the massive-enrollment online education courses that are all the rage these days. This summer, it seemed a perfect opportunity when Udacity unveiled Introduction to Statistics by founder Sebastian Thrun (of Google autonomous car fame). Having taken the entire course through to the final exam, my overall assessment is: It's amazingly, shockingly awful. Some nights I got seriously depressed at the notion that this might be standard fare for college lectures encountered by many students during their academic careers. I've tried to pick out the Top 10 problems with the course structure and address them in detail."
The author puts forth very few actual problems with online math classes in general; his article focuses on one particular course (Udacity Statistics 101) and gives us a top 10 list of problems with that course. None of these problems are intrinsic to online courses, except perhaps the lack of natural feedback that one does get when teaching a class face-to-face, allowing for continuous improvement of the course material.
In other words, the author bases his assessment of online math courses on a sample size of 1. ("Based on my review of the Udacity Introduction to Statistics course, I see some compelling strategic advantages for live in-class teachers, that will not be soon washed away by massive online video learning.").
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
It's a very clear article about the one course he took. At no point does he claim it a general critique of the medium. That's being propagated by the /. headline on the article.
I'm not sure what the larger lesson, if any, is at all - except the old standard, "Content is King". Cool new technology and celebrity professor alike are worthless if not presented with a well-written, well-rehearsed, well-produced content. Combine the production values of, not so much million-dollar-a-minute national TV ads, but just the production values of local TV news - where a team of several work all day on each half-hour produced - and it would be a whole different experience.
What bewilders me about most teaching is that it isn't ALL at least that good - what other content in our world is tested on live audiences so repetitively? There should by now be wide agreement on what kinds of topics and approaches and sequences work best for something like basic stats.
> Listen, man, I'm glad this worked for you. But it's a one way communication channel.
So are most lectures. OK, there's a bit of interaction (most with the students who you are "illegally" collaborating with on take-home assessment), and the lecturer might explain stuff in office hours, but universities rely on most of their students not wasting too much lecturer time. Just look at student-teacher ratios.
FTA (yeah, I scanned it) ost of the issues seem to be "Thrun is a shitty stats teacher". It's like all the teachers who say "Khan can't teach math, he's a bad math teacher". I'm sure they have issues - no teacher is perfect. And I'm sure a good stats lecturer / math teacher can do a slightly better job. But both Thrun and Khan are generally bright people who know their subject, and good speakers, so they are pretty good teachers.
I don't think that offline courses (the way they are run these days - badly) have much of an advantage over online ones. And I don't think the current teachers doing well-known online courses are below average (though there's probably quite a few teachers who could do better).
Really, have you seen most undergrad courses that are filled with dozens, even hundreds of students. There is pretty much nothing beyond a token level of 2-way communication.
As an online instructor of math and physics, I agree completely. If you're going to do it right, it takes a big investment of time. Also, since our class sizes are no more than 15 students, they get a lot of individual attention, probably more than average in a traditional classroom. The training our institution requires prospective instructors to go through makes very clear that it's not an easy way to make a buck. I've been told only about 6% of applicants make it through the process. Now without doubt there are some bad online instructors and there are schools whose priority it is to crank as many students through as possible, regardless of whether they belong there, but don't get the impression all online education is like that.
I teach a blended class at a very large university (Blended = Students have the choice of online or offline). While both sets of students get the exact same assignments, same quizzes and the same readings, students who attend in person average one full grade higher than those who do not.
It comes down to two things :
- Being in front of your prof will build a relationship with him/her and generally you will get more out of the class. That being said, students are just as able to hide away in a live class and not participate.
- Being online only, makes you study only the subject from the point of the material. Very rarely do I get questions from students, or really any exploration of tangential subjects. The barrier to ask impromptu questions is much greater online. Also, because of a delayed response, it may not be as timely. Again, I've had online students ask more questions than what was asked in class, but that was an abnormally. Rarely do the questions asked online get posted in a public manner so all students can benefit from the response.
The massively online classes (like the one talked about in the article) exacerbate those issues... How do you ask a question to the instructor? If they only provide forums, sometimes other students will answer them for you -- but they are not necessary qualified. How can a student bring up tangential topics that may enhance the class?
It's a different style of learning. You learn the material that is expected of them, and that is it. You know the principals of X, but you may not know how they relate (and its up to you, on your own research to find it).