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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."
Some teachers who have tried using Khan Academy in the classroom (I read about it offline so no link, sorry) said they thought the best advantage wasn't that the presented material was better but that it freed them up from presenting the information so they could give more personal assistance.
Imagine that in maths class rather than the teacher standing at the board for 30 mins explaining an example they could let a small group watch the video while helping another small group who just finished watching it. Alternatively the time freed up could be used to customise homework to stretch those at the top and bring up the quality of those at the bottom.
Finally add additional functionality on and allow access to the vids at any-time and anyone struggling with 'integration' could look back over that video description, perhaps access an online/skype-esque tutor service and/or post what they are stuck on for the teacher who could arrange very brief one-to-one sessions to address specific issues.
I think way too much focus on these courses is on how they 'replace' teachers. Sure there is some scope for that but I think we can get far more benefit by augmenting classroom teaching.
After having read the initial round of comments regarding this posting, I have to say I'm disappointed that the /. crowd isn't somewhat more circumspect regarding the author's effort. He took the time to survey a course he's qualified to critique by both his background (Masters degree) & experience (teaching at NYU). He offered valid points regarding the instructional design, execution and attention to detail by Thrun (who was most likely hired by Udacity more for his name than anything else). The majority of posts in response seem focused on defending the promise/potential of online courses, in general, rather that dealing with any insight the author offered.
Too bad.
I've had the pleasure of trying to teach, and I've been worked with professionals involved in developing online educational materials as well as one who headed a company that delivered professional training courses over a private proprietary network. My own teaching attempts were probably mediocre (it was en education research project exploring the use of virtual reality systems in classrooms & we did an intro to the tech, 3D modeling and attempted to facilitate 'world building' (focused on allowing students to present a limited curriculum they were learning concurrently in a traditional classroom).
What I learned is that professional educators are responsible for an incredibly diverse set of activities and knowledge that go well beyond the subject matter. Online course should IMHO be treated as professional presentations. You can't just wing it, was obviously the case for Thrun's Udacity course. (I say obviously taking for granted that Collins critiqued Thrun accurately).
All the elements of good instructional design have to be present and course materials that support the curriculum need to be included, ESPECIALLY for online courses because students don't have the immediacy of classroom contact with the instructor or their virtual fellows.
I've heard great things about Khan Academy, though I haven't spent any time 'attending' classes 'there'. The distinguishing characteristics I've heard applauded most center on the love for the communication of the materials. Some people have that gift others don't. But if a group like Udacity gets together to attempt a parallel to the efforts of someone who has the gift, it's important they make sure that the presentations they deliver are well thought out, well presented, accurate and constructed in such a manner as to meet the needs of people with various learning styles.
The web, in this regard, holds greater potential than television, but it will rarely be delivered by people who don't take the time to polish their efforts.
Apparently Udacity and Thrun failed in this attempt.
I took Prof. Thrun's & Prof. Norvig's course, "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" when it was first offered. I'm pretty big on self-study, and I rely on instructors to provide efficient direction (a syllabus, specific reading material), a mechanism for self-evaluation (exercises, means to validate results, etc), and finally, a source of answers when I have questions. In a perfect world, online courses seem to be a good fit for my personal needs, so I dove in with relish.
However, I found some of the same general problems the blog post referenced;
- the content (speech, writing) was often sloppy and confusing, it did feel unplanned.
- concepts that were introduced were not explained in their entirety.
- the vocabulary used to describe a new idea was fairly mutable, or inconsistent.
- there were often instances requiring sizable leaps of intuition combined with formal mathematical knowledge to complete exercises which had previously only been provided in a "fill in the numbers" format in previous examples.
In addition, I found no clear mechanisms for self-evaluation. We had to wait a week just to see the results of previous tests, etc. I also thought the quiz interface was childish and poorly done, but that's mostly just a look and feel issue.
I also took Prof. Ng's "Machine Learning," class at the same time. In contrast, I found that Prof. Ng provided:
- Writing was clear, dialog was polished, vocabulary was explicit.
- Concepts were introduced, explained (in both a practical and intuition-focused form), demonstrated and expanded upon.
- Exercises were given to students in the form of example data, algorithms to implement, and with additional suggestions on how to 'play' with them to produce different results and gain an intuitive grasp of the information. Unlimited resubmission of exercises with an automated grading system made evaluation of different mechanisms simple.
- Quizes were more polished.
I felt like I got a lot out of his class, well more than the AI class.
I feel that the difference between the two was pretty obvious. Prof. Thrun was teaching as if he had a live audience in front of him, and did not modify his instruction style for the lack of interactivity. On the other hand, Prof. Ng taught in a way that minimized the deficiencies of video learning, while leveraging the benefits of online, automated instruction.
In conclusion, I don't think the AngryMath blogger is correct in the assumption that live, in-person instruction is needed. In fact, I'd say the opposite was shown: the closer you get to the style of live instruction, the worse it seems to be to me, and more so when it's online. Of course, I have specific needs from education, and others may prefer different styles.
This is very true, but his conclusion at the very bottom is what struck me as the true problem
or to put it another way
I'm a high school math teacher (currently on lunch break :) ), and I'm always struck by the number of people who assume that what I do (minus classroom management and discipline) is just standing up and sayin' stuff. Good lessons and good assessments take time to create and deliver. You have to screw up for a few lessons (or years) before you figure out how to do it right, and "right" is whatever works best for your personality and your students' needs. Teacher education helps a little, but it's really just practice.
It also explains why experienced teachers are sometimes hesitant to draw up something new: it isn't necessarily laziness; good lessons are a lot of work. Every year, I work 50-60 hours a week trying to improve what I already have. This year, I've decided to try flipping my classroom, and I'm working harder than I did as a newbie teacher recording/editing/uploading my lessons to the intertubes. I'm also unmarried with no kids (ie. soul-crushingly lonely), so I have that kind of time to put into it. When you have 2 kids that need to be taxied to 5 places after school, time is short.
The problem I have with this professor's review of the online course is this: He would find the *exact same problems* in most real-world colleges. The stuff he described like the instructor giving poor real-world examples, straying from the syllabus (or only covering 3/4 of it due to running out of semester), et cetera are the EXACT same problems I encountered at the two universities I attended.
For example I had a professor who routinely "lost his way" when solving some long complicated problem. Another who mumbled into the blackboard and nobody had a clue what he was talking about. Another who routinely showed-up ten minutes late, passed out photocopies of his notes, and then told us to review them. (And on and on and on.) So really what this reviewer observed is not a problem with online professors but a problem with poor-quality professors in the brick-and-mortar system as well.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"