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Can youtube STEM videos from universities replace higher learning?

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rstofer:

--- Quote from: Rick Law on October 11, 2021, 08:28:54 pm ---I suspect a few years of interaction[/b] (4 for college alone and perhaps more), one would have heard and know of these kinds of view points (or facts if you prefer).  Lacking interactions with others and taking just a few on-line courses, many such important facts or view points would be missing.

--- End quote ---

The interaction is terribly important and the last year or so has been a struggle for many.  Things are loosening up and professor/student interaction is at least possible.  Zoom was not a great learning environment.  Sometimes remote learning covers continents not just city blocks.

Want to really know the material?  Hang around a semester beyond graduation picking up some other classes and then get hired by the university as a paid tutor.  There's no faking it when you have to teach it.  You need to bring your 'A Game'.

Kerlin:
Lets not get into practical Vs theory argument here, save that for the beginners section. I am never making another post there, its the inexperienced leading the inexperienced.
 
After a life long extended stretch of formal learning, except when I am working O/S, I offer my observations on formal class room learning.
I do find classroom interaction is distracting. I have seen some lecturers announce at the start "Save any questions for the end", I agree.

For me the key part of a good lecture is "The delivery", similar to the singers of the Frank Sinatra era who perfected the art known back then then as "Delivering the lyric".

A good lecturer can deliver a concept or idea, its an ability some have or gain from experience.
That's a very subtle art and one I don't fully understand and cant fully explain.
It seems that it is developed over time. Experienced lecturers show it straight up front.

One of the things which I have noted that is used by good lecturers and is in common with the singers and comedians - they use the pause.
I deliberately mentioned Alan Guth in my earlier post. In this case it was not for his knowledge or subject matter, it was mainly so that if the thread turned to it I could make this following point about the pause.
Watch him scribble away on the black board narrating the calculations, note how some times he steps forward, makes a point, pauses then looks at the class in way that enables him to look at every one in the class, he pauses till he feels they have digested the point made. Then when he feels the majority are with him he goes back to it. If he feels they are not with him then his experience tells him that and he then expands on it or goes back over it.
For me that is the one of the many signs of the master lecturer that I have observed and he has that, it does come across on line.
Just like the comedian timing, feedback and interpretation is important. Do you really want to interrupt a delivery like that with a question?

The pace that he delivers at is also spot on, won't put you to sleep, almost too fast - timing.
No accent, no drawl, easy to lip read and projects his voice, a very basic requirement that most don't have.
He is not one who needs to throw chalk dusters at students to keep them awake, ha ha.
He is not the only one I have seen. In my decades in Unis I have seen a few who operate at this level. We need more lecturers like that for on line learning.
 

rstofer:
As I see it, interaction includes out-of-class access; the ability of the student to go to the prof's office and ask a question directly.  Of course, the question has to show some insight and prior effort but good professors have no problem with direct student interaction.  That's what 'office hours' are for!

Then there are the TAs (Teaching Assistants) that conduct group learning sessions out of class.  And let's not forget the tutors!  In some cases they are paid (likely minimum wage) by the university and they better have the material down cold.  The students are stumbling over the very same questions the tutor stumbled over a couple of years ago.

None of these interactions were as successful under the Covid restrictions as they were before.  Thankfully, things are returning to normal.

Not all video classes were real-time.  Sometimes is was a video recorded days earlier and no student interaction is possible.  Not ideal.  Coupled with no tutors or TAs, last semester was pretty grim.

Stanford proved that real-time video broadcast lectures could work clear back in the late '70s.  The only difference between campus students and off-site students was that the campus students had microphones and could ask questions.  Not to worry, off-site students were normally working in the field and surrounded by practicing engineers.

There's another facet to online education in which the web is used beyond simple videos.  There is a written discussion of the material, there may be some short video clips on specific points but, more important, the homework problems have online solutions.  You do your work, pick the ABCD answer and, if you got it right, you can move on.  Otherwise, you now have the right answer, rework the problem to match.  Immediate feedback is very useful.  These programs can be highly interactive.

Cengage.com provides course access with the purchase of a textbook.

I could see the demise of universities.  Universities were forced to refine online learning and it worked out pretty well.  It seems that some universities see remote learners as another revenue stream and are beginning to embrace the concept.

Just_another_Dave:

--- Quote from: rstofer on October 12, 2021, 03:05:04 pm ---As I see it, interaction includes out-of-class access; the ability of the student to go to the prof's office and ask a question directly.  Of course, the question has to show some insight and prior effort but good professors have no problem with direct student interaction.  That's what 'office hours' are for!

Then there are the TAs (Teaching Assistants) that conduct group learning sessions out of class.  And let's not forget the tutors!  In some cases they are paid (likely minimum wage) by the university and they better have the material down cold.  The students are stumbling over the very same questions the tutor stumbled over a couple of years ago.

None of these interactions were as successful under the Covid restrictions as they were before.  Thankfully, things are returning to normal.

Not all video classes were real-time.  Sometimes is was a video recorded days earlier and no student interaction is possible.  Not ideal.  Coupled with no tutors or TAs, last semester was pretty grim.

Stanford proved that real-time video broadcast lectures could work clear back in the late '70s.  The only difference between campus students and off-site students was that the campus students had microphones and could ask questions.  Not to worry, off-site students were normally working in the field and surrounded by practicing engineers.

There's another facet to online education in which the web is used beyond simple videos.  There is a written discussion of the material, there may be some short video clips on specific points but, more important, the homework problems have online solutions.  You do your work, pick the ABCD answer and, if you got it right, you can move on.  Otherwise, you now have the right answer, rework the problem to match.  Immediate feedback is very useful.  These programs can be highly interactive.

Cengage.com provides course access with the purchase of a textbook.

I could see the demise of universities.  Universities were forced to refine online learning and it worked out pretty well.  It seems that some universities see remote learners as another revenue stream and are beginning to embrace the concept.

--- End quote ---

Remote learning opens the possibility to people who have a full time job to get a degree, making it an interesting option for universities. In Spain we have UNED since 1972, a university that just offers distance learning courses, and it works really well (I’ve seen the material from the physics degree that a friend was studying while we were studying our engineering degree and it was completely worth it). Additionally, distance learning is usually cheaper

Rick Law:

--- Quote from: Kerlin on October 11, 2021, 11:02:32 pm ---...
The pace that he delivers at is also spot on, won't put you to sleep, almost too fast - timing.
No accent, no drawl, easy to lip read and projects his voice, a very basic requirement that most don't have.
He is not one who needs to throw chalk dusters at students to keep them awake, ha ha.
He is not the only one I have seen. In my decades in Unis I have seen a few who operate at this level. We need more lecturers like that for on line learning.

--- End quote ---

Those are indeed pluses.  But, effectiveness of the delivery would depend highly on the composition of the students.  Students are not there to watch a professors' lecture delivery skills, they are (should be) there to absorb the content being taught.  So effectiveness of a lectures in my view should be: how much the student actually got out of it.

No doubt, some students are there because they must, and just want to get done with the course at minimal work.  They don't care about learning that specific subject.  They just want to pass it to meet requirements.  That skill of the lecturer may "shove" a little more into those students.   Interaction will not benefit those student one iota anyhow.  They are likely to disappear as soon as the lecture is over and by Q&A time, the lecture hall would be half-empty.

I was a teaching assistant (TA) almost half a century ago.  Then, professors do the lectures and (graduate students with a degree in the discipline) TA's do the teaching in smaller groups.  For the students who is there "just to get the course credits", there is not much one can do for them.  They are there just to get help to complete the class work.  For the students wanting to really learn, my experience is: a very effective way for the "wanting to learn" group is to start by asking the students questions.  Since they are students, likely they don't know the answer.  In that case, I ask for best guess and why.  Expanding from that answer and then engage the entire class in discussion.  That interaction help the students not just for the class material in question, that interaction helps the student in how to approach a problem and understand the related issues.  Most interesting is when students who really doesn't need help with the class work, but drop by just to further discuss the topic further at their own will.  An on-line course would have difficulty doing either, however, difficult != impossible.

These days, depending on university, TA isn't always graduate students (this is what I gathered from discussions with recently graduated from college).  They are upper-classman who had taken the course prior and may not even be majoring in the discipline they are "teaching".  They would themselves be rather limited in the scope of knowledge.  Interaction could be less beneficial but still should be of benefit.

Projected from the experience I discussed above to on-line learning:  For those who really want to learn, they will find ways to get the knowledge from further on-line research, or even on-line discussions.  For those who merely want the credits for graduation or pre-requisites, beyond the course credits, they would not gain much from having taken and passed the course.

So bottom line in my opinion with on-line learning, you get just what you put in.  Additional work (research on content) is require if you truly want to learn and gain a wider scope of the subject.  Otherwise, you got what just the on-line course has which would be a very limited view of a subject.

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