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I learned everything doing problem sets, and was completely lost during lecture. For every gifted undergrad who can integrate in real-time the lecturer's mater

I learned everything doing problem sets, and was completely lost during lecture. For every gifted undergrad who can integrate in real-time the lecturer's material, there are dozens if not hundreds of us normal folk who need to work things out at our own pace. With the advent of AI feedback systems, hopefully the western european notion of lecture becomes a thing of the past.

ghaff 7y ago
Non-interactive big room lectures can work but, in my experience, mostly by really top-notch lecturers especially for topics that are a bit less technical or, at least, not wholly math centric. One big issue I think is that the big lecture hall environment is something of an anachronism. There is something of a forcing function but, for the most part, with a modicum of production work, the video version can actually be more useful than the live one. (At conferences these days, which I mostly attend for the "hallway track" anyway, I find I usually prefer to watch the streaming feed than to be crammed in a room with 10,000 of my closest friends.)
- jimmyvalmer 7y ago
  The liveness is a separate issue which is open-and-shut. There are no real benefits to being physically present aside from the "theatricality" (in which case the topic has to be really nontechnical), and the benefits of pause/rewind are obvious. The lecture format is just plain wrong. I can only assume it gained popularity in european academia because printed publication was too costly, and because the royal society liked to dress up and feel self-important?
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >The lecture format is just plain wrong. I can't agree. I've been to many many non-interactive lectures and talks that were quite wonderful. It's a very different experience than just reading something. Of course it's not always better. But it's a wholly different experience. And I'm pretty sure it pre-dates European court life.
    - jimmyvalmer 7y ago
      Your conception of learning is quite distinct from the Asian one which is very clearly "pain is gain." The only lectures I emerged from where I felt "wonderful" were ones I completely understood -- that is, lectures in the humanities and arts in which I didn't have to flex a neuron.
      - friendlybus 7y ago
        Good lectures in the humanities are partly there to tell you why you know what you know and expand on that and reinforce it with a good structure built from knowledge. That doesn't require masochism or a sense of conscious pain to gain a benefit. Using pain as a single measure of learning is missing the mark. But yeah learning will always cost something, even if it's just time.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  The school model is a bit fascist. The youtube or video model is an interesting way for academics to propagate their ideas because only the people who actually want to be there, show up. The ability to get Q&A from a community of broad but like-minded people in their interest for the topic makes for an incredibly focused experience. Like being engrossed in a campfire horror story rather than being forced to listen to paint dry. The big problem with video, that makes me still value text based tutorials from the yesteryear (2000s), is that it's very hard to search for a particular sentence or string of information in a video. The varied pacing and delivery of information between speakers can get vary frustrating when you have to break your work flow to get to that exact moment in a video where the guy repeats what you want to hear inbetween ums and ahhs, and his 3rd time explaining a very basic concept. Text still allows the reader to be in control of the pace & is the most easily searchable for the right information, which is vital for maintaining focus & flow at work. Video needs to catch up to that, hopefully automatic transcription can save the day.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    People who create video and audio content should definitely consider getting transcriptions made. Automated transcriptions are still pretty mediocre but I get all my podcasts transcribed by humans. It's valuable for a lot of reasons: SEO, listeners who prefer to consume text, and myself for reusing material in other forms.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      If you mean getting your podcasts transcribed means you run a podcast, what is it?
      - ghaff 7y ago
        Innovate @Open is my relatively new one.

ghaff 7y ago

Non-interactive big room lectures can work but, in my experience, mostly by really top-notch lecturers especially for topics that are a bit less technical or, at least, not wholly math centric. One big issue I think is that the big lecture hall environment is something of an anachronism. There is something of a forcing function but, for the most part, with a modicum of production work, the video version can actually be more useful than the live one. (At conferences these days, which I mostly attend for the "hallway track" anyway, I find I usually prefer to watch the streaming feed than to be crammed in a room with 10,000 of my closest friends.)

jimmyvalmer 7y ago
The liveness is a separate issue which is open-and-shut. There are no real benefits to being physically present aside from the "theatricality" (in which case the topic has to be really nontechnical), and the benefits of pause/rewind are obvious. The lecture format is just plain wrong. I can only assume it gained popularity in european academia because printed publication was too costly, and because the royal society liked to dress up and feel self-important?
- ghaff 7y ago
  >The lecture format is just plain wrong. I can't agree. I've been to many many non-interactive lectures and talks that were quite wonderful. It's a very different experience than just reading something. Of course it's not always better. But it's a wholly different experience. And I'm pretty sure it pre-dates European court life.
  - jimmyvalmer 7y ago
    Your conception of learning is quite distinct from the Asian one which is very clearly "pain is gain." The only lectures I emerged from where I felt "wonderful" were ones I completely understood -- that is, lectures in the humanities and arts in which I didn't have to flex a neuron.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      Good lectures in the humanities are partly there to tell you why you know what you know and expand on that and reinforce it with a good structure built from knowledge. That doesn't require masochism or a sense of conscious pain to gain a benefit. Using pain as a single measure of learning is missing the mark. But yeah learning will always cost something, even if it's just time.
friendlybus 7y ago
The school model is a bit fascist. The youtube or video model is an interesting way for academics to propagate their ideas because only the people who actually want to be there, show up. The ability to get Q&A from a community of broad but like-minded people in their interest for the topic makes for an incredibly focused experience. Like being engrossed in a campfire horror story rather than being forced to listen to paint dry. The big problem with video, that makes me still value text based tutorials from the yesteryear (2000s), is that it's very hard to search for a particular sentence or string of information in a video. The varied pacing and delivery of information between speakers can get vary frustrating when you have to break your work flow to get to that exact moment in a video where the guy repeats what you want to hear inbetween ums and ahhs, and his 3rd time explaining a very basic concept. Text still allows the reader to be in control of the pace & is the most easily searchable for the right information, which is vital for maintaining focus & flow at work. Video needs to catch up to that, hopefully automatic transcription can save the day.
- ghaff 7y ago
  People who create video and audio content should definitely consider getting transcriptions made. Automated transcriptions are still pretty mediocre but I get all my podcasts transcribed by humans. It's valuable for a lot of reasons: SEO, listeners who prefer to consume text, and myself for reusing material in other forms.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    If you mean getting your podcasts transcribed means you run a podcast, what is it?
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Innovate @Open is my relatively new one.