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> Let's stop teaching lectures to undergrads in medieval style in 500 person lecture halls Although I agree with this sentiment, you have to realize that the a

> Let's stop teaching lectures to undergrads in medieval style in 500 person lecture halls Although I agree with this sentiment, you have to realize that the alternatives are either a) worse, or b) don't scale. I prefer the ones that don't scale (small number of students in a class who get real continuous feedback and fully participate in the lecture). It works really well, but this model is enormously expensive compared to the 500 person lecture hall. 500 person lecture halls suck, but what's the scale-able, better alternative? MOOCs aren't the answer -- that's just the old 500 person lecture hall model with a pause button. Woohoo. Plus, it doesn't actually solve the real problem, which is that you need the humans running the course anyway. For a well-oiled machine of a course, maybe 10% of the actual time spent on teaching is spent in the classroom. And for non-well-oiled courses, creating the MOOC and keeping it up to date is a hell of a lot of up-front cost, and with a lot of risk. > and instead get them engaged in research as assistants right away. I can tell that you haven't worked with lots of undergraduate students on research projects. Most undergraduate students aren't ready to participate in research. Of those that are intellectually prepared, few have the grit/persistence required. Of those with the intellectual preparation and persistence, fewer still have the imaginative faculties to actually do research (as opposed to e.g. acting as a tech). This is true even in very applied areas. You'd be surprised how few CS undergraduates would succeed at implementing something as simple as an experimental change to a kernel or a tweak to an ML algorithm. At some point you simplify the research problem enough that it's indistinguishable from a course project or homework assignment. In fact, that's even where some course projects and homework assignments come from. But at that point, you're not "involving students in research", unless "doing homework or programming assignments" = "research" that is. > We need more science and less "publish or perish" politicians posing as professors engaged in grant grabbing. At times I have certainly felt this way about academia! But I could say similar rude things about every profession. > Tweed jacket welfare recipients if you ask me. There are ineffective people in every field, and most of them manage to stay more-or-less employed throughout their working years.

ip26 8y ago
The two of you must have had a different experience than I. At least for my classes, fundamental stuff that hasn't changed in decades was taught in big lecture halls- single variable calculus, physics & chemistry 101, etc. Then as you advanced in your discipline, class sizes shrunk, all the way down to 5-10 pupils in some of the most specialized classes, which was where the close interaction with the teacher was most valuable. Most undergraduate students aren't ready to participate in research. Of those that are intellectually prepared, few have the grit/persistence required. More indirectly, few have any kind of serious investment in the research. In college I volunteered to help on a plant study. I was assigned to meticulously clean dirt from dried plant roots and weight each plant. For like four hours at a time. Thousands of specimens. It needed to be done, but I had no investment in the project aside from general excitement, so I just didn't care enough to suffer the drudgery week after week.
- Izkata 8y ago
  Your experience matches mine in CS; the large lecture halls were only used by a handful of early required courses that bottlenecked the students, a basic prerequisite for a variety of other courses all done in smaller classrooms.
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  Yes, CS is a completely different beast for two reasons. First, our intro-level courses are fairly stable but nowhere near as stable as Calculus or Physics intros. If you don't change your intro for a decade, it starts to show. Whereas I'm pretty sure my children will take more-or-less the same calc course that I took, and my calc book was pretty indistinguishable from my mother's. To really emphasize the point, my mother's CS course was done on punch cards... And it's not just content. Student preparedness has been changing a lot lately. We reached "peak physics/calc" in high schools a long time ago (hell, my grandpa took calc in high school). But students showing up at university knowing how to program is relatively new for most institutions. Third, enrollments have been increasing exponentially (yus, really exponentially) year over year (yes, every year) for close to a decade now (yes, a decade). So. Yes, CS ed is very different from the more stable STEM fields, especially recently.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> Most undergraduate students aren't ready to participate in research. Part of the reason may be that most undergraduate students didn't enroll to university to do research; they came for the degree they need to have a shot at getting better-paying jobs. Reintroducing vocational schools and making university research-focused again could help increase research-readiness of undergraduates.
- Konnstann 8y ago
  I would argue that if you come to a university for science or engineering, you come to do research. whether that is through working in a lab or internships, extracurricular work is the most important factor in getting the high-paying job in your field. CS may be different, but all the recruiters I have talked to, and all of the people doing actual hiring don't care about the degree, they care about projects, and whether you are going into academia or industry, your undergraduate degree is not nearly enough to land a job.

ip26 8y ago

The two of you must have had a different experience than I. At least for my classes, fundamental stuff that hasn't changed in decades was taught in big lecture halls- single variable calculus, physics & chemistry 101, etc. Then as you advanced in your discipline, class sizes shrunk, all the way down to 5-10 pupils in some of the most specialized classes, which was where the close interaction with the teacher was most valuable. Most undergraduate students aren't ready to participate in research. Of those that are intellectually prepared, few have the grit/persistence required. More indirectly, few have any kind of serious investment in the research. In college I volunteered to help on a plant study. I was assigned to meticulously clean dirt from dried plant roots and weight each plant. For like four hours at a time. Thousands of specimens. It needed to be done, but I had no investment in the project aside from general excitement, so I just didn't care enough to suffer the drudgery week after week.

Izkata 8y ago
Your experience matches mine in CS; the large lecture halls were only used by a handful of early required courses that bottlenecked the students, a basic prerequisite for a variety of other courses all done in smaller classrooms.
throwawayjava 8y ago
Yes, CS is a completely different beast for two reasons. First, our intro-level courses are fairly stable but nowhere near as stable as Calculus or Physics intros. If you don't change your intro for a decade, it starts to show. Whereas I'm pretty sure my children will take more-or-less the same calc course that I took, and my calc book was pretty indistinguishable from my mother's. To really emphasize the point, my mother's CS course was done on punch cards... And it's not just content. Student preparedness has been changing a lot lately. We reached "peak physics/calc" in high schools a long time ago (hell, my grandpa took calc in high school). But students showing up at university knowing how to program is relatively new for most institutions. Third, enrollments have been increasing exponentially (yus, really exponentially) year over year (yes, every year) for close to a decade now (yes, a decade). So. Yes, CS ed is very different from the more stable STEM fields, especially recently.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> Most undergraduate students aren't ready to participate in research. Part of the reason may be that most undergraduate students didn't enroll to university to do research; they came for the degree they need to have a shot at getting better-paying jobs. Reintroducing vocational schools and making university research-focused again could help increase research-readiness of undergraduates.

Konnstann 8y ago
I would argue that if you come to a university for science or engineering, you come to do research. whether that is through working in a lab or internships, extracurricular work is the most important factor in getting the high-paying job in your field. CS may be different, but all the recruiters I have talked to, and all of the people doing actual hiring don't care about the degree, they care about projects, and whether you are going into academia or industry, your undergraduate degree is not nearly enough to land a job.