I think the system would need more in the way of study groups than you’re envisioning—maybe even study groups that meet in person. And while multiple choice and short answer tests could be graded by computers, papers shouldn’t be.
We don’t actually disagree; I was envisioning lots of study groups (hopefully including many that meet in person), and you’re obviously correct that computers wouldn’t be able to grade anything too complicated. I just didn’t communicate this effectively, since I was pressed for time.
I think it’s important, if you’re doing in-person study groups, that each student should have to answer questions in front of the rest of the class—put them on the spot, both to wake them up and as an incentive to study so they don’t look bad.
Here’s a sketch of how a college professor teaching Intro to Newtonian Physics could revamp the class to get it half-way to educational heaven:
The lectures are online, taught by someone who’s really good at lecturing. There must be a way to play the videos at high speed. The 1.4x speed on BloggingHeads is about right, I think.
Each week, students are assigned a set of topics to cover. These topics have associated lectures, readings, and (non-graded) homework problems. There may be some online short-answer quizzes to force people to keep up a reasonable pace.
There are once- or twice-weekly discussion sections, where two things happen. Students ask any questions they’ve been wondering about; and they have to do problems. One way that works in this particular class is to put students in groups of one or two, give them sections of blackboard, and ask them to solve particular problems from the book. If they didn’t watch the lectures and study, they will embarrass themselves in public. This also gives the opportunity for teachers to see what the problems are and help out.
The class has got to have a discussion forum, preferably something minimally-painless, like the Reddit code with LaTeX math support, or a phpBB forum. And it’s part of the teachers’ job to participate. When I took physics, the forum was painful crap, but even then it got used to great effect. People actually had voluntary discussions of physics! And the teachers’ help on the homework problems was nice.
One hard homework problem per week, graded by hand. This should take two or three hours for decent students, and really force them to think.
Notice how much less time the teachers spend preparing lectures, and how much more convenient this is for everyone, since there are only one or two scheduled class times per week, and neither of those is an enormous faceless lecture section. This also offers a third option for students who would otherwise choose between coming to lectures and maybe falling asleep, or staying home and sleeping.
Now, this isn’t the whole of my grand vision. It doesn’t have any provision for students to proceed at different speeds. It doesn’t necessarily allow for students to choose between different sets of lectures, or different textbooks, though that would be straightforward to add. The lectures don’t necessarily come with interesting notes and Wikipedia links, though they could.
But I think this would be a big improvement on the current system, which is hella clunky and unpleasant.
I think it’s important, if you’re doing in-person study groups, that each student should have to answer questions in front of the rest of the class—put them on the spot, both to wake them up and as an incentive to study so they don’t look bad.
What’s a good level of challenge for some would lead to paralyzing anxiety for others. One advantage to a mostly online system is that students can choose classes with policies that suit the way they learn.
They could perhaps commit to a certain question-asking discipline when signing up for the course?
Most students want to do well (in far mode), but may have trouble actually working. Incentives vary from student to student, so let the student pick those they think would work for them.
I think the system would need more in the way of study groups than you’re envisioning—maybe even study groups that meet in person. And while multiple choice and short answer tests could be graded by computers, papers shouldn’t be.
Other than that, I agree with what you’ve said.
We don’t actually disagree; I was envisioning lots of study groups (hopefully including many that meet in person), and you’re obviously correct that computers wouldn’t be able to grade anything too complicated. I just didn’t communicate this effectively, since I was pressed for time.
I think it’s important, if you’re doing in-person study groups, that each student should have to answer questions in front of the rest of the class—put them on the spot, both to wake them up and as an incentive to study so they don’t look bad.
Here’s a sketch of how a college professor teaching Intro to Newtonian Physics could revamp the class to get it half-way to educational heaven:
The lectures are online, taught by someone who’s really good at lecturing. There must be a way to play the videos at high speed. The 1.4x speed on BloggingHeads is about right, I think.
Each week, students are assigned a set of topics to cover. These topics have associated lectures, readings, and (non-graded) homework problems. There may be some online short-answer quizzes to force people to keep up a reasonable pace.
There are once- or twice-weekly discussion sections, where two things happen. Students ask any questions they’ve been wondering about; and they have to do problems. One way that works in this particular class is to put students in groups of one or two, give them sections of blackboard, and ask them to solve particular problems from the book. If they didn’t watch the lectures and study, they will embarrass themselves in public. This also gives the opportunity for teachers to see what the problems are and help out.
The class has got to have a discussion forum, preferably something minimally-painless, like the Reddit code with LaTeX math support, or a phpBB forum. And it’s part of the teachers’ job to participate. When I took physics, the forum was painful crap, but even then it got used to great effect. People actually had voluntary discussions of physics! And the teachers’ help on the homework problems was nice.
One hard homework problem per week, graded by hand. This should take two or three hours for decent students, and really force them to think.
Notice how much less time the teachers spend preparing lectures, and how much more convenient this is for everyone, since there are only one or two scheduled class times per week, and neither of those is an enormous faceless lecture section. This also offers a third option for students who would otherwise choose between coming to lectures and maybe falling asleep, or staying home and sleeping.
Now, this isn’t the whole of my grand vision. It doesn’t have any provision for students to proceed at different speeds. It doesn’t necessarily allow for students to choose between different sets of lectures, or different textbooks, though that would be straightforward to add. The lectures don’t necessarily come with interesting notes and Wikipedia links, though they could.
But I think this would be a big improvement on the current system, which is hella clunky and unpleasant.
What’s a good level of challenge for some would lead to paralyzing anxiety for others. One advantage to a mostly online system is that students can choose classes with policies that suit the way they learn.
They could perhaps commit to a certain question-asking discipline when signing up for the course?
Most students want to do well (in far mode), but may have trouble actually working. Incentives vary from student to student, so let the student pick those they think would work for them.