8 ms·

It should be noted that such a slick class has had the priviledge of being granted the kind of institutional suport which is extremely rare across higher educat

by nanna 6y ago

It should be noted that such a slick class has had the priviledge of being granted the kind of institutional suport which is extremely rare across higher education today, at least in the West. Being allocated the same module for 13 years? Having it be the only module you teach? Having an entire production team at the ready? It's a mistake to think this is one man's achievement, and a model to universities everywhere of the kinds of quality that can be achieved if they give their staff a break from the endless restructurings, precarity, admin, overwork and burnouts that characterises the vast majority of their situations.

AlexCoventry 6y ago
What's the institutional incentive to switch up the teacher of a module?
- randcraw 6y ago
  Usually it frees up the prior instructor to a) teach a more advanced course or one that's closer to their research interests rather than teach the same beginner level course over and over, or b) conduct research, which is why most tier 1 research uni profs took the job anyway. Most major research uni profs are obliged to teach 2-3 courses per semester. Most would prefer to teach fewer or more advanced courses. Only those who love to teach revel in intro courses, and from what I've seen, that's less than 10% of profs at big name research-driven schools.
  - wastedhours 6y ago
    > that's less than 10% of profs at big name research-driven schools From my experience that extends quite a bit further than that too even for a university that wasn't research heavy. I'd argue about half of my lecturers at university back in the day saw Level 1 classes not only as a hassle, but had active disdain for teaching them.
    - nogabebop23 6y ago
      Which is totally backwards, as these classes are the point of contact where energetic, motivated new students get that magical passion that pushes them into an entire life in the field. When I was in grad school and expressed a desire to focus on teaching, primarily 100 & 200 level courses my supervisor said "that's the punishment we reserve for those who are failing in their research". Totally crushed my desire to work at converting tangential students into future leaders in our field.
  - auxym 6y ago
    > Most major research uni profs are obliged to teach 2-3 courses per semester. IME, that's a heavy courseload. At the university where I work (not as faculty), it's closer to 1 course per semester on average. Maybe 2 occasionally, but that leaves very little time for research.
    - bachmeier 6y ago
      Your profile says you're a mechanical engineer. At research universities, 1 course per semester is typical in engineering departments. That's definitely not the case across all departments.
      - joshocar 6y ago
        I'm also an ME, but I have a masters degree in Marine Science. The professors in my graduate program usually only taught one class a semester, some only one a year. From my experience it very much depends on the university. Some schools are much more focuses on teaching and others on research.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
swyx 6y ago
well said. Prof Malan has achieved a great deal, for sure, but he does have that rockstar air to him which usually turns out badly when/if the press someday turns on him. also i guess worth pointing out that it's win-win for Harvard to be giving this kind of support, with the attendant marketing it drives and the implication that if you take this class you can be the next Zuck.
- bmitc 6y ago
  I must be the odd one out because I couldn't jive with the course's presentation style when I tried to take it to see what the hype was all about. It felt like Joel Osteen was trying to teach me computer science. I don't mean to be flippant and don't read too much into that comment (it's just what came to mind), but it's just that the slicked up, overly produced style just turns me off from learning. I much prefer a calmer environment and a lecturer that seems like I could have a relaxed conversation with. The course feels like it's selling me something. I also don't understand why the course seems to cover everything and the kitchen sink. It covers a rather wide swath of material and programming languages. It's my personal learning and teaching style that courses should be more focused and concise. The course content also seems very trendy and software engineering job-oriented, and I think learning should be removed from trends. My fear is that students will come out of the course with a very narrow view of computer science such that they think C, Python, HTML/CSS/JS, SQL are the only games in town. Are MLs (SML, Ocaml, F#) or Lisps/Schemes mentioned at all in this course? I don't even see the point in teaching C as an intro language anymore. Python as well, which has nothing going for it as a language aside from library support and industry use. I'd be interested in how both students and other professors at Harvard feel about the course's success given their experience in courses that follow.
  - kyawzazaw 6y ago
    there are additional sections where they broke off into smaller groups. It is selling you into the world of computer science, a window into it. This could be further seen by its spin-off courses for different audiences. > My fear is that students will come out of the course with a very narrow view of computer science such that they think C, Python, HTML/CSS/JS, SQL are the only games in town. It's an "intro" course. In fact, this intro course covers way more than what colleges in the US do for an intro course. > Are MLs (SML, Ocaml, F#) or Lisps/Schemes mentioned at all in this course? Nope, and why should they be? > C as intro language David Malan answers this here: https://qr.ae/pNsCkQ https://qr.ae/pNsCkQ
Duller-Finite 6y ago
Yes, this was noted in the article, which certainly does not proclaim that the CS50 model is the one that all universities and courses should be adopting. "Malan’s contract at Harvard allows him to focus almost exclusively on CS50; even the research he publishes centers mainly on the class...Malan’s method of remote teaching is not easily replicable; CS50’s pyrotechnics would not be possible without an unusually deep well of resources and his own fanatical commitment"
marianov 6y ago
I think states could produce such quality lessons, for free. The ROI of these would be enormous if proper internet access given to schools and households. Why have 10.000 poor versions of a lesson accross the country instead of teachers or parents guiding classes based on curated, great online classes? Gilbert Strang comes to mind as an example of great explanations without the TV Show production quality. I wish my country did something like Khan Academy but for more subjects, and in Spanish
- Avicebron 6y ago
  I wish there was a huge push into Khan academy, but for more advanced topics e.g. graduate level with clear course structure. I really think this could feed into a rich ecosystem of free, online distributed research and publications. Ideally that could lead to public grants and funding for research outside of the university system. Maybe one day.
  - MiroF 6y ago
    This seems so obviously important to me and yet there is pretty much no will to do it in the government.
    - Avicebron 6y ago
      Yeah...I really don't understand the government's deliberate strangulation of research and positive advancement. Part of the prosperity of the 20th century was driven by a flood of funding into technological innovations of multiple fronts. It's a shame it took a war to bring it on, but it was so obviously beneficial it looks stupid not to acknowledge it.
      - dayvid 6y ago
        My guess is that most politicians don't come from STEM backgrounds, mostly law or public policy so they don't see the inherit value in it.
bakuninsbart 6y ago
I'm studying CS in Germany at a relatively prestigious institution, and I've gotta say that this online semester has been by far my most productive. Usually I have big problems juggling work, personal life (in 3 different countries) and university education, with everything moving online this has been far easier. Cutting out a 2 hour daily commute has given me a substantial amount of freetime, and the ability to rewatch lectures, pause them, make a coffee in between etc. has given me a much deeper understanding of the topics covered this summer. An online university would have probably been a better fit for me in the first place, but at the time I didn't want to do it due to the reduced prestige associated with it.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  I just graduated from a top ten computer science program in the world. The department recorded all the lectures. By the time you got to the upper level classes completely booked 200+ person lecture halls would have less than 50 students show up because everyone watched online. The recording system allowed you to watch at 1.5 or 2x speed and skip to the next slide when someone asked a stupid question. The math department had a similar system for the calculus courses except they modeled the schedule around MIT's and just posted the MIT lectures that corresponded to each class.
  - bsder 6y ago
    > By the time you got to the upper level classes completely booked 200+ person lecture halls would have less than 50 students show up because everyone watched online. I don't know whether to blame the professor or the students here--my gut feel is to blame the professor. I taught at a far less "prestigious" university and that wasn't my experience. I used to record all my CS lectures and practically all my students showed up anyway. And I never took attendance. Even when I had a "marketing and sales" guy come in to deliver a lecture for me (because, let's be fair--a significant fraction of CS students are going to wind up in non-tech roles so students need exposure to that side, too), practically the whole class showed up. It completely stunned the poor presenter flat who expected that maybe one or two students would show up and instead wound up with a full house. If good students regularly aren't showing up for lectures, the person delivering the lecture needs to do some serious soul searching and fix the content of the lecture.
bsder 6y ago
> Having an entire production team at the ready? THIS. So much. Having just done an online talk, I can tell you that the audio-visual stuff was BY FAR the most annoying. More expensive webcam, add way more lighting to my office, get an expensive lavalier mic (highly recommended for lectures--earphones with boom mics drive me nuts as the monitoring has enough delay to be annoying--probably could remove that with a $500 audio interface that has DSP monitoring), learn OBS, realize my laptop has nowhere near the power necessary to drive OBS, build a new Desktop machine outfitted for video (that barely even notices OBS), relearn OBS now that it works beautifully, realize that I don't know even a fraction of OBS but have to get things done, record the lecture, and finally have it presented in potato-cam because the people running the thing have laptops with less power than mine and can't playback the hi-res video I sent them. The lecture maybe took 40 hours to do. Maybe. The A/V--probably 120+ hours. And probably will take another 120+ the next round because I'll be more capable with the tools.
- akman 6y ago
  This begs to normalized and sold as a package for both providers and consumers.
  - bsder 6y ago
    The problem is that this effectively requires that you set up all the equipment in a place and make people come to that. Not a great thing in the middle of Covid. However, once Covid passes, perhaps WeWork should try this with all their real estate to avoid going bankrupt.
    - akman 6y ago
      That's an interesting idea with WeWork. I'd think that despite variations in environments in a home, there are either 1) enough accommodating tools to normalize (e.g., lights that have a variety of settings) or 2) the majority of the processes required to handle the variations are figured out (e.g., in consistently poor lighting, you need package B instead of package A). I see some hardware packages for home studios going on sale, but nothing to the level of hardware/software integration necessary for the most effective online instruction/discussion.
_jwilde 6y ago
Yep. Tufts had a professor who was nationally recognized for incredible intro CS lessons: https://www.computer.org/profiles/benjamin-hescott https://www.computer.org/profiles/benjamin-hescott They denied him tenure: https://tuftsdaily.com/news/2017/08/29/professor-computer-science-ben-hescott-denied-tenure-students-alumni-respond-negatively/ https://tuftsdaily.com/news/2017/08/29/professor-computer-sc...
- unishark 6y ago
  Malan is a "Professor of the Practice". That means teaching only. There may be some kind of job security for such teaching roles, but it's not a tenured nor tenure-track title. Usually just a fixed contract you have to repeatedly renew like visiting professor (but possibly with less degree requirements).
notadonut 6y ago
Why are we doing these "privilege" callouts? What does this add to the discussion? Should Malan apologize? Should the New Yorker apologize for him? Individuals are regularly used metonymically to represent a larger system. And those systems need a "face", because without it we don't care about the story.
- NineStarPoint 6y ago
  You’re too used to privlage being used as a pejorative I think. It’s highly relevant that if a school admin wanted to use Malan’s work as an example to base some classes off of, that they can’t just throw a teacher at their normal course load and expect anything close to that level of work. I know many teachers in the public school system who’s admins don’t seem to realize how difficult a good online syllabus is to put together, and those administrators could do to be reminded that you need to put a lot of resources behind someone if you want quality work from them. It’s not a bad thing that Malan has the privilege to be in a position where he can successfully focus on perfecting a single class. In fact it’s fantastic for us all that he’s doing this work. It’s just important to acknowledge the privileges he has so we don’t look at normal teachers and say “if you only tried a bit harder, couldn’t you do something like this?” It’s not just about effort and intelligence, it’s also about the resources that are put behind the educator.

by nanna 6y ago

AlexCoventry 6y ago

What's the institutional incentive to switch up the teacher of a module?

randcraw 6y ago
Usually it frees up the prior instructor to a) teach a more advanced course or one that's closer to their research interests rather than teach the same beginner level course over and over, or b) conduct research, which is why most tier 1 research uni profs took the job anyway. Most major research uni profs are obliged to teach 2-3 courses per semester. Most would prefer to teach fewer or more advanced courses. Only those who love to teach revel in intro courses, and from what I've seen, that's less than 10% of profs at big name research-driven schools.
- wastedhours 6y ago
  > that's less than 10% of profs at big name research-driven schools From my experience that extends quite a bit further than that too even for a university that wasn't research heavy. I'd argue about half of my lecturers at university back in the day saw Level 1 classes not only as a hassle, but had active disdain for teaching them.
  - nogabebop23 6y ago
    Which is totally backwards, as these classes are the point of contact where energetic, motivated new students get that magical passion that pushes them into an entire life in the field. When I was in grad school and expressed a desire to focus on teaching, primarily 100 & 200 level courses my supervisor said "that's the punishment we reserve for those who are failing in their research". Totally crushed my desire to work at converting tangential students into future leaders in our field.
- auxym 6y ago
  > Most major research uni profs are obliged to teach 2-3 courses per semester. IME, that's a heavy courseload. At the university where I work (not as faculty), it's closer to 1 course per semester on average. Maybe 2 occasionally, but that leaves very little time for research.
  - bachmeier 6y ago
    Your profile says you're a mechanical engineer. At research universities, 1 course per semester is typical in engineering departments. That's definitely not the case across all departments.
    - joshocar 6y ago
      I'm also an ME, but I have a masters degree in Marine Science. The professors in my graduate program usually only taught one class a semester, some only one a year. From my experience it very much depends on the university. Some schools are much more focuses on teaching and others on research.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

swyx 6y ago

well said. Prof Malan has achieved a great deal, for sure, but he does have that rockstar air to him which usually turns out badly when/if the press someday turns on him. also i guess worth pointing out that it's win-win for Harvard to be giving this kind of support, with the attendant marketing it drives and the implication that if you take this class you can be the next Zuck.

bmitc 6y ago
I must be the odd one out because I couldn't jive with the course's presentation style when I tried to take it to see what the hype was all about. It felt like Joel Osteen was trying to teach me computer science. I don't mean to be flippant and don't read too much into that comment (it's just what came to mind), but it's just that the slicked up, overly produced style just turns me off from learning. I much prefer a calmer environment and a lecturer that seems like I could have a relaxed conversation with. The course feels like it's selling me something. I also don't understand why the course seems to cover everything and the kitchen sink. It covers a rather wide swath of material and programming languages. It's my personal learning and teaching style that courses should be more focused and concise. The course content also seems very trendy and software engineering job-oriented, and I think learning should be removed from trends. My fear is that students will come out of the course with a very narrow view of computer science such that they think C, Python, HTML/CSS/JS, SQL are the only games in town. Are MLs (SML, Ocaml, F#) or Lisps/Schemes mentioned at all in this course? I don't even see the point in teaching C as an intro language anymore. Python as well, which has nothing going for it as a language aside from library support and industry use. I'd be interested in how both students and other professors at Harvard feel about the course's success given their experience in courses that follow.
- kyawzazaw 6y ago
  there are additional sections where they broke off into smaller groups. It is selling you into the world of computer science, a window into it. This could be further seen by its spin-off courses for different audiences. > My fear is that students will come out of the course with a very narrow view of computer science such that they think C, Python, HTML/CSS/JS, SQL are the only games in town. It's an "intro" course. In fact, this intro course covers way more than what colleges in the US do for an intro course. > Are MLs (SML, Ocaml, F#) or Lisps/Schemes mentioned at all in this course? Nope, and why should they be? > C as intro language David Malan answers this here: https://qr.ae/pNsCkQ https://qr.ae/pNsCkQ

Duller-Finite 6y ago

Yes, this was noted in the article, which certainly does not proclaim that the CS50 model is the one that all universities and courses should be adopting. "Malan’s contract at Harvard allows him to focus almost exclusively on CS50; even the research he publishes centers mainly on the class...Malan’s method of remote teaching is not easily replicable; CS50’s pyrotechnics would not be possible without an unusually deep well of resources and his own fanatical commitment"

marianov 6y ago

I think states could produce such quality lessons, for free. The ROI of these would be enormous if proper internet access given to schools and households. Why have 10.000 poor versions of a lesson accross the country instead of teachers or parents guiding classes based on curated, great online classes? Gilbert Strang comes to mind as an example of great explanations without the TV Show production quality. I wish my country did something like Khan Academy but for more subjects, and in Spanish

Avicebron 6y ago
I wish there was a huge push into Khan academy, but for more advanced topics e.g. graduate level with clear course structure. I really think this could feed into a rich ecosystem of free, online distributed research and publications. Ideally that could lead to public grants and funding for research outside of the university system. Maybe one day.
- MiroF 6y ago
  This seems so obviously important to me and yet there is pretty much no will to do it in the government.
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    Yeah...I really don't understand the government's deliberate strangulation of research and positive advancement. Part of the prosperity of the 20th century was driven by a flood of funding into technological innovations of multiple fronts. It's a shame it took a war to bring it on, but it was so obviously beneficial it looks stupid not to acknowledge it.
    - dayvid 6y ago
      My guess is that most politicians don't come from STEM backgrounds, mostly law or public policy so they don't see the inherit value in it.

bakuninsbart 6y ago

I'm studying CS in Germany at a relatively prestigious institution, and I've gotta say that this online semester has been by far my most productive. Usually I have big problems juggling work, personal life (in 3 different countries) and university education, with everything moving online this has been far easier. Cutting out a 2 hour daily commute has given me a substantial amount of freetime, and the ability to rewatch lectures, pause them, make a coffee in between etc. has given me a much deeper understanding of the topics covered this summer. An online university would have probably been a better fit for me in the first place, but at the time I didn't want to do it due to the reduced prestige associated with it.

colinmhayes 6y ago
I just graduated from a top ten computer science program in the world. The department recorded all the lectures. By the time you got to the upper level classes completely booked 200+ person lecture halls would have less than 50 students show up because everyone watched online. The recording system allowed you to watch at 1.5 or 2x speed and skip to the next slide when someone asked a stupid question. The math department had a similar system for the calculus courses except they modeled the schedule around MIT's and just posted the MIT lectures that corresponded to each class.
- bsder 6y ago
  > By the time you got to the upper level classes completely booked 200+ person lecture halls would have less than 50 students show up because everyone watched online. I don't know whether to blame the professor or the students here--my gut feel is to blame the professor. I taught at a far less "prestigious" university and that wasn't my experience. I used to record all my CS lectures and practically all my students showed up anyway. And I never took attendance. Even when I had a "marketing and sales" guy come in to deliver a lecture for me (because, let's be fair--a significant fraction of CS students are going to wind up in non-tech roles so students need exposure to that side, too), practically the whole class showed up. It completely stunned the poor presenter flat who expected that maybe one or two students would show up and instead wound up with a full house. If good students regularly aren't showing up for lectures, the person delivering the lecture needs to do some serious soul searching and fix the content of the lecture.

bsder 6y ago

> Having an entire production team at the ready? THIS. So much. Having just done an online talk, I can tell you that the audio-visual stuff was BY FAR the most annoying. More expensive webcam, add way more lighting to my office, get an expensive lavalier mic (highly recommended for lectures--earphones with boom mics drive me nuts as the monitoring has enough delay to be annoying--probably could remove that with a $500 audio interface that has DSP monitoring), learn OBS, realize my laptop has nowhere near the power necessary to drive OBS, build a new Desktop machine outfitted for video (that barely even notices OBS), relearn OBS now that it works beautifully, realize that I don't know even a fraction of OBS but have to get things done, record the lecture, and finally have it presented in potato-cam because the people running the thing have laptops with less power than mine and can't playback the hi-res video I sent them. The lecture maybe took 40 hours to do. Maybe. The A/V--probably 120+ hours. And probably will take another 120+ the next round because I'll be more capable with the tools.

akman 6y ago
This begs to normalized and sold as a package for both providers and consumers.
- bsder 6y ago
  The problem is that this effectively requires that you set up all the equipment in a place and make people come to that. Not a great thing in the middle of Covid. However, once Covid passes, perhaps WeWork should try this with all their real estate to avoid going bankrupt.
  - akman 6y ago
    That's an interesting idea with WeWork. I'd think that despite variations in environments in a home, there are either 1) enough accommodating tools to normalize (e.g., lights that have a variety of settings) or 2) the majority of the processes required to handle the variations are figured out (e.g., in consistently poor lighting, you need package B instead of package A). I see some hardware packages for home studios going on sale, but nothing to the level of hardware/software integration necessary for the most effective online instruction/discussion.

_jwilde 6y ago

Yep. Tufts had a professor who was nationally recognized for incredible intro CS lessons: https://www.computer.org/profiles/benjamin-hescott https://www.computer.org/profiles/benjamin-hescott They denied him tenure: https://tuftsdaily.com/news/2017/08/29/professor-computer-science-ben-hescott-denied-tenure-students-alumni-respond-negatively/ https://tuftsdaily.com/news/2017/08/29/professor-computer-sc...

unishark 6y ago
Malan is a "Professor of the Practice". That means teaching only. There may be some kind of job security for such teaching roles, but it's not a tenured nor tenure-track title. Usually just a fixed contract you have to repeatedly renew like visiting professor (but possibly with less degree requirements).

notadonut 6y ago

Why are we doing these "privilege" callouts? What does this add to the discussion? Should Malan apologize? Should the New Yorker apologize for him? Individuals are regularly used metonymically to represent a larger system. And those systems need a "face", because without it we don't care about the story.

NineStarPoint 6y ago
You’re too used to privlage being used as a pejorative I think. It’s highly relevant that if a school admin wanted to use Malan’s work as an example to base some classes off of, that they can’t just throw a teacher at their normal course load and expect anything close to that level of work. I know many teachers in the public school system who’s admins don’t seem to realize how difficult a good online syllabus is to put together, and those administrators could do to be reminded that you need to put a lot of resources behind someone if you want quality work from them. It’s not a bad thing that Malan has the privilege to be in a position where he can successfully focus on perfecting a single class. In fact it’s fantastic for us all that he’s doing this work. It’s just important to acknowledge the privileges he has so we don’t look at normal teachers and say “if you only tried a bit harder, couldn’t you do something like this?” It’s not just about effort and intelligence, it’s also about the resources that are put behind the educator.