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I'm a professor at a US university. The honest answer (at least at the university level) -- probably we don't. From what I can tell, there's very little enthus

I'm a professor at a US university. The honest answer (at least at the university level) -- probably we don't. From what I can tell, there's very little enthusiasm for online education, on the part of either professors or students. Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen. For a dissenting perpsective, read Joshua Kim's columns at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/users/joshua-kim https://www.insidehighered.com/users/joshua-kim He is a big cheerleader for online education and for major changes to university education. Personally, I don't really buy his arguments -- but his posts are extremely well written and he does work full-time at a university, so you might find him more persuasive than I do. If remote university education becomes widespread, then I expect innovations to largely come from outside the existing system. Universities are weird workplaces, and the incentive system does not really encourage large-scale innovation. That said, it seems that startups like edX, Coursera, etc. have not really been successes. So I'm skeptical that big changes are coming soon.

slykar 6y ago
Coming from a different country I don't really know why remote is not the default option. Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise. The worst part is that you have to spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week like this and then you still need to find online materials to actually learn the thing. Some people have to work too. Did I mention 2 hours of commute time every day?
- FuckButtons 6y ago
  My lived experience of pre recorded video lectures is they are a poor facsimile for the real thing for 3 main reasons. 1) I can’t ask questions - dynamically engaging with the material during the lecture is far more important for retention than making a perfect set of notes so not having that engagement really reduces your learning. 2) attention span / investment - taking notes amongst your peers who are also doing the same is easier and more enjoyable than doing the same on your own, something that is easier to do takes less of my mental energy which is my most precious resource when I’m trying to actually learn. 3) lack of peer interaction - most of the learning experience that is really beneficial long term isn’t about you having 100% recall on demand of every detail you were taught but how to use the ideas to solve actual problems. Much of that comes through practice and experimentation with your peers, which simply doesn’t work via zoom.
  - randcraw 6y ago
    True, but Q&A makes up a tiny fraction of most lectures I've attended, and attention span can be improved by shortening the duration of each lecture. However, I'd agree that lack of dynamic peer interaction is a big problem with video-based instruction that hasn't yet been fixed. I've seen attempts to address this like Piazza where students can post questions or answer others', but text-based forums lack graphical or temporal cues that many concept demand. Maybe some sort of multiuser video supplement might help, where the question poser could snip the time mark of a puzzling section from the lecture or an illustration from another video and refer to it in source so others could visualize with a click the point being asked?
- onion2k 6y ago
  For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise. People shouldn't just accept this sort of thing as normal. You're paying (in the US or UK anyway) a lot of money for a degree level education. That means it needs to be fit for purpose, and if you're not learning then it isn't. You need to stop the lecturer and ask them to go over the point you didn't understand, or ask for additional time after the lab, or at a push, make a complaint to the course leader that the lecturer isn't teaching you well enough. Learning to stand up for yourself and ask for what you need is a big part of the university experience.
  - Kinrany 6y ago
    > Learning to stand up for yourself and ask for what you need is a big part of the university experience. You're not graded on standing up for yourself. In this area universities are not different from standing in line or negotiating a job offer.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - slykar 6y ago
    Education is "free" (paid by taxes) where I come from (Poland). Private universities are not very popular. > People shouldn't just accept this sort of thing as normal It's not "normal", but it's the norm. It's not the fault of the professors, because the truth is they should not teach in the first place, but the education system requires them to. > make a complaint to the course leader that the lecturer isn't teaching you well enough. There's no such thing here as the course leader. Most of the time you have a prof. responsible for the theory and another one for the practice. You can complain to the dean (what multiple students did), but there's no replacement or no one cares. I don't want to put any blame on the teachers here. I see this as a systemic issue.
    - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
- bachmeier 6y ago
  You need to find a new university. If your courses are "Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters" then your professor is incompetent or lazy.
  - slykar 6y ago
    > You need to find a new university Chances are you will have a similar experience. I'm not speaking about a single professor. I'm speaking about 9 out of 10. I'm not blaming professors tough. My friends have similar experience at other universities in Poland. Friends who went to German universities have a completely different experience. They actually use some LMS, provide online recordings of the classes and spend 1/3rd of the time at university.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  > Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! My wife is a professor. What you say is true for some students. But for some students it appears that paying attention is much harder when it is a video vs the same material presented in a live lecture. I can't fully explain it, but "I struggle to pay attention to video lectures" is a surprisingly common response from people who have been strong students in prior years.
  - jrumbut 6y ago
    Can't pay attention to video lectures at the best of times is part of it, but I also think being consistently understimulated causes people to shut down the learning process.
  - randcraw 6y ago
    I've attended both kinds of credit-granting uni courses, and I agree that watching a recorded video is indeed less involving. But video is also so much easier than a live lecture to stop, rewind, repeat, or play 50% slower/faster that I can't conclude either is clearly superior. I'd say superiority mostly comes down to the quality of the instruction — clarity, good organization of fundamentals, then broad and deep enumeration of concepts that build meaningfully on those fundamentals. In my experience, few professors value teaching enough to master it. When one does, I'd very much like to be able to attend such a lecture. Maybe the best of both worlds is to deliberately supplement primary content with outstanding reference material like Kahn Academy or Three Blue One Brown. Being able to drill down on difficult concepts from multiple perspectives is often a great way to resolve obstructions in any kind of teaching method.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  > Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! Ok. That's a win for remote. Now my turn: how easy is it to gauge the mood of your entire class, turn to the person next to you and whisper a question or look at their notes? Go for coffee with classmates afterwards to discuss? Pull the lecturer aside or knock on their door later that day if you're stuck? Meet older students and grad students who can help you and inspire you? People made the same "it's the future" argument for remote education when MOOCs launched. PG argues that uni's will still survive because they are certificate authorities. Both are wrong. Peer learning is where it's at. And it's being immersed in that environment 24/7 that makes universities such special places. The learning goes beyond your set classes too - it's social, physical, it's relationships, it's hobbies and past-times and networks that will be the foundation of your identity and your life. What we're talking about is that vs yet another Zoom call.
  - aloisdg 6y ago
    In my country, most classroom have an unofficial facebook group or discord channel. My little sister (20y) organizes zoom call for her own group of classroom friend to work together. They work but also chitchat, comment world politics, social issue, etc. It is awesome to assist.
  - bitstan 6y ago
    I think when VR technology improves a bit more it'll be the superior learning experience. Imagine learning history interactively. Don't just read about Julius Caesar being stabbed, why not stab him yourself? You could explore physics in a sandbox environment. Learn geography by going there. Practice theater by performing. Grabbing a cup of coffee is fun but so is hopping into a game of virtual paintball.
    - isaacgreyed 6y ago
      I'm not really sure if actually doing something will be effective for say learning history. I think of all the odd activities teachers had me do, and I kind of wish they just told me the story, but I'm a guy who now listens to history podcast so may just be personal. Also think of all the odd physics demonstrations and I'm not sure they really often enhanced my knowledge more than a gif would of especially versus the expense. Does anyone know of any research around this area?
- polishdude20 6y ago
  I feel like the misery of online education comes from the lack of consistency. One professor may drone on and on for a few hours during the lecture and have no "showmanship". Another may refuse to put his lectures online and demands that you he there at 8:30 am to watch the lecture live and only live. Some professors just refuse to change with the times. Too many educators want to try and fit an in-person education style into an online format. That's the wrong way to go about it.
- watwut 6y ago
  > Coming from a different country I don't really know why remote is not the default option. Purely online courses have large failure rates - even when students pay and are comparable to in person ones. For whatever reason, people do better in person course and do badly in online ones.
- sdevonoes 6y ago
  I kind of agree. Among all the professors I had when I did my bachelor, perhaps one or two were worth listening to in person (because you could interrupt them and ask questions if needed. They really knew their subjects and were good communicators). All the knowledge the other professors were broadcasting was vastly inferior in comparision to reading the top two books (from cover to cover) for their given lecture.
- asdff 6y ago
  >For labs it's not like you get any help either. That's never been the case in any of my lab classes from multiple departments. The whole reason you have TAs is so you can ask questions constantly and get instant feedback. Stuck on something during a lab? Flag down the TA and they will set you right. Drop your test tube full of precurser during organic chemistry lab on the floor? No worries, the TA appears moments later with an aliquot of precurser to give you so you can proceed with the lab exercise. Motion detector not working during physics lab? The TA gives you a new one out of the equipment closet or helps you troubleshoot the lab software. I actually taught a remote version of a lab class this semester and it was horrible. You can't learn lab techniques by watching videos and slideshows or using various virtual lab simulation programs; you gotta get your hands on these things. You wouldn't know how finicky a western blot is until you've accidentally ripped your gel cracking it out of the precast case trying to transfer it to your membrane; all you get on the virtual format is 'be careful,' rather than training sufficient to start work in a research lab immediately.
  - randcraw 6y ago
    Yeah, it's tough to learn cadaver-based anatomy at home too.
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
  >Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters But is that the default, common experience? I'm asking seriously: I finished my bachelor's 30 years ago and my master's 15 years ago and that has never been my experience. Our professors were actual people we talked and interacted with, even the boring ones. And they made an effort to teach. Now, I didn't go to a huge "research" university, where I hear it's common to get profs who have no interest in teaching, but what you describe isn't remotely like what I encountered.
  - randcraw 6y ago
    Yeah, the best classes I've attended began with you reading material (textbook or papers) before lecture, then revisiting that content during lecture. Ideally the prof devises a lecture agenda where discussion revolves around subtleties in the material, both clarifying Q&A and implications and exceptions and to the material. Appreciating the context and relevance of your research-based material adds a lot to appreciating how it changed the status quo.
- godot 6y ago
  I went to a University of California some 15-20 years ago for undergrad and none of your 4 points are true in my experience. > Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. It's not an awful experience, in fact, you can often ask questions during or after lectures. It also has the benefit of being similar to the stage of life you just came from (high school, for most students), so you're not switching to a different mode of learning. > For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise. All labs sessions I've had always had a TA present. I've gotten countless help from the TAs during lab sessions. The only times they're not there is if you start early or stay late and they've left. TAs also lead discussion sections. In general they are a huge help and it's their job to help students because a professor can't always be there. > The worst part is that you have to spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week like this and then you still need to find online materials to actually learn the thing. Some people have to work too. This is simply false. I was a full time student and took a full 15+ units per quarter (which is more than average) and it was barely 2-3 hours of lecture a day on average over 5 days, plus ~1 hour of discussion section per day on average. Most of the rest of time is intended to be for homeworks, studying, lab sessions, etc. Maybe I'm too old and times were different, but we've never had to find online materials to accompany anything we learned over classes, in all of my classes (computer science or others). Everything we needed was included in textbooks, notes from the professor, or discussed in lectures/classes. Also, I know I might be of the minority opinion here, but I actually did find much of the knowledge from computer science classes helpful for future work (been a software engineer for 15 yerars now). > Did I mention 2 hours of commute time every day? I don't know what it's like outside the US, but in the US it's common for students graduating high school and going to college to leave their hometown and rent an apartment in their new college town. Commutes are typically under 15 minutes by bike/walk/bus in my college town. You could live literally in any part of that (small) city and be within 15 minutes from campus one way or another.
- ska 6y ago
  For what it's worth, your experience is not universal.
- ivan_ah 6y ago
  > [...] a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! You forgot to mention the most important thing -- the ability to change the playback speed to create the "cognitive load" level engaging for you. This chrome plugin has been a tremendously useful for my learning https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-controller/nffaoalbilbmmfgbnbgppjihopabppdk?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro... Video speed control during playback is like a impedance-matching transformer between the "bitrate" of the lecturer and the listener.
- twoslide 6y ago
  It's not really about the most efficient, easily consumable delivery of information from point A to B. Students are really "consuming" a bundle of knowledge, skills, experiences, credentials, reptutation and social networks. There's not much incentive to move online (Prof at a UK university)
ddoran 6y ago
Kudos for stating your position but also presenting an opposing view. HN, heck the world, needs more of that.
bachmeier 6y ago
US university professor too. I agree with this: > Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen. There's no substitute for in-person education. For years, I heard from the online education cheerleaders that online can be better. Online can be a quality experience, but you can't build the same relationships, develop the same comfort with asking questions, or deliver the same set of intangibles in an online setting. That said, I think hybrid classes are probably better. Some material is better taught in an async fashion. The big limitation of in-person education is that you have no choice but to schedule a fixed block of time for meetings. The flexibility of async means students can go through certain types of material at the right pace for themselves. > it seems that startups like edX, Coursera, etc. have not really been successes These options aren't university classes. They're the next generation of textbooks.
- gibspaulding 6y ago
  > These options aren't university classes. They're the next generation of textbooks. Totally off topic, but if students were already paying $300 for a paper calculus book, I shudder to think of the extortion we'll see over the virtual, multimedia,cloud-optimized, probably-built-in-Adobe-Flash monstrosity that will be the "next generation of textbooks".
  - asdff 6y ago
    Not to mention the university library has a couple copies of that $300 textbook on reserve for you, so if you were doing your studying at the library anyway there isn't any reason to shell out. I would even take pictures of salient chapters with my phone if I really needed to take the content home. Online only, there would be no avoiding those mandatory fees. Libraries don't have homework codes on reserve.
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  > Some material is better taught in an async fashion. Based on the experience of teaching this semester by multiple colleagues, the problem, of course, is that students will not consume that material at all. If you try to do short quizzes to ensure they watched it, they will cheat, or just take the grade penalty. The problem with online is that the the modicum of shame present in offline classes that forces them to pay some attention, is almost completely gone.
anewaccount2021 6y ago
Exactly. For k-12 this year will be the end of lockdown.edu. Parents will go into revolt otherwise. The government can't afford a scenario that pits working parents against the primary target cohort of covid (old and obese) because the electoral prospects are frightening. Stay-at-home schools means stay-at-home parents and the implications of eighteen more months of income-by-stimulus isn't on anyone's radar
toshk 6y ago
I feel like the biggest value is a hybrid version: the standard curriculum online and smaller classes offline. The large group lectures I've always felt were a waste of time. The lecturers just explain what's in the book anyway and most of them, except for a few natural talents, are boring as hell. And I always felt I read faster then they speak. Most university lecturers hardly get educated in how to teach, and most of them also don't care, the consider it the duty of the student to pay attention. A lot of time and money could be saved to move many of the standard curriculum to a online video / textbook course. I feel like the true value is in the smaller work groups where one gets direct feedback on your work. This is something that the online universities are not able to recreate. And of course making friends, discussing, building a network, having time to think, sports, hanging out. So a hybrid might improve the quality of the courses while giving a chance to optimize the offline experience.
stareatgoats 6y ago
There is a substantial amount of inertia in the educational system: knowhow, routines, supporting systems, teachers and professors that have been tailormade for the brick-and-mortar type of educational systems that have been the norm since the beginning of the last century, or earlier. This inertia naturally causes some friction against the trajectory towards remote education- but not yet to the level of putting up a fight. But expect this conflict deepen just as it has with news media, as the financial foundation of traditional educational systems slowly erodes in favor of the (coming) much more flexible and cheaper online systems.
nvarsj 6y ago
Have you heard of OMSCS? The online revolution is already happening. Many schools are moving to copy the model. I've been in OMSCS for almost 5 years now. I can assuredly say that remote university education works incredibly well. Even better than in person in many respects. Not only that, but I truly believe it is vital to ensuring equal access to high quality education. The current university system with 5% acceptance rates, 40k / year college fees, is untenable and just exacerbates class division. It's an antiquated system, and the move to fully remote degrees can't happen soon enough.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Two comments: First, what's OMSCS? Could you supply a bit more detail rather than just "have you heard of it"? What is it? What's good about it? Second, 5% acceptance rates are not typical of "the current university system". That's only a few "elite" schools. 40k/year may be more typical, but you can easily find less than half that.
  - mbil 6y ago
    OMSCS is Georgia Tech's Online CS Master's program[0]. I'm starting my ninth class this term. Here's my take... Pros: - video lectures are generally pretty polished, and include animations and other visual aids to help build intuition - the course material is mostly high quality. this is the same material that on-site graduate students are presented, and the graded projects are challenging. - there is opportunity to interact with other students and TAs: online message board, video office hours, unofficial Slack, etc. - flexible enough to schedule around a full-time job - inexpensive compared to in-person programs (the entire program with 10 courses is $7-$8k) Cons: - quality of materials, TAs, and organization can vary from course to course and term to term - harder to build relationships / network than in-person programs - it's course-based by default. you can pursue a research-based degree but it's nonstandard. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tech_Online_Master_of_Science_in_Computer_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tech_Online_Master_of_...
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
TuringNYC 6y ago
>> I'm a professor at a US university. The honest answer (at least at the university level) -- probably we don't. >> From what I can tell, there's very little enthusiasm for online education, on the part of either professors or students. This isnt surprising -- you are probably polling people inside the system -- what about the many more people who cant join the system? I'll bet they have a very different opinion. The US educational system, especially graduate education, is a game of money. Even those graduate students who are on grants are only the lucky ones who don't have sufficiently large family obligations to fulfill and can therefore stay on a graduate grant. Think of how many people need to work at their parents' shop, have to take care of a grandparent, sick elderly parents at home, those who are also caring for younger siblings, those w/o sufficient disposable income to sit around at quads sipping lattes. Consider all the people who couldn't pay to play that game. I'm sure they would love an alternative. Also consider the opposite problem -- people with money who do not want to take off two years (without income) to get a graduate degree, or worse, move their families to one of several key cities with top universities. They would also like an alternative that is mostly remote.
- 1auralynn 6y ago
  I think this is correct. Students who thrive in a lecture environment make it to Universities. Professors who are fantastic lecturers get jobs at Universities.
- NationalPark 6y ago
  Aren't the people inside the system the ones you should be listening to most? You talk about surivivorship bias in university students, but I think it's a lot more likely that the survivorship bias is really, "people who value education". That is, the people currently in traditional university are by and large the majority of the people in whatever hypothetical online next-gen education system you're imagining. I think it's really unlikely there are a whole lot of geniuses for whom school, "just doesn't work". I've met a lot of people who think of themselves like this, and honestly, they're usually just stupid or lazy. High achievers figure out ways to take advantage of the systems that are in place, they don't admit defeat and blame "the system" for their failure.
pacbard 6y ago
To build upon this answer a little bit, people want to go back in person not for the educational reasons but for social reasons. While you can learn in an online format and (with enough work/investment) make the experience similar to in-person classes, you cannot replace the social aspects of college with an online environment. US colleges have been moving from a learning experience towards a social experience build on to of learning (see, for example, https://www.nber.org/papers/w18745 https://www.nber.org/papers/w18745). My university was in person last fall but classes mostly online, students still socialized (e.g., partied) even if health recommendations were strongly recommend against it.
Taylor_OD 6y ago
> That said, it seems that startups like edX, Coursera, etc. have not really been successes. So I'm skeptical that big changes are coming soon. In what way are you measuring success here? They have not replaced traditional education/colleges but its very likely that a larger percentage of the people on this site have purchased and learned something from a online technical course.
personlurking 6y ago
Personally I've always wanted to see two things in education, or rather one thing in two parts: to be able to verbally "test out" of a written exam or even an entire semester-long class. This can be handled over Skype/Zoom, if need be. That is, allow students to have a discussion with the professor to see if they know the test material. If so, "great, here's your grade". Same with entire semester classes ("great, here's your 3 credits").
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Why verbally? Would the ability to take an exam without sitting the course satisfy you?
  - personlurking 6y ago
    I would guess that a verbal one-on-one exam would show the professor who understands the material vs who doesn't, but also who actually understands it vs who just used rote memorization. The latter comparison might end up being a distinction without a difference, as far as grading goes. But, were I the professor, I'd be interested to see how many of my students are understanding the material on a holistic level. This is my bias, though, because I'm way more interested in knowing why something occurred (and its relationship to other events) vs that it occurred on [insert date] and involved [insert individuals].
- Geee 6y ago
  That sounds like cheating.
randomsearch 6y ago
Anecdata from major UK university: students _hate_ remote teaching and want to go back to lectures ASAP.
- jon889 6y ago
  When I was at uni a few years ago, I ended up skipping most of my lectures and watching them online instead, worked better for me in that I could watch them at a time that suited me better, watch at 2x speed, go back and rewatch things I didn't understand. Compared to cramming into a lecture theatre with 200 other students in some cases. That said tutorials and labs being in person were pretty essential, I wouldn't have liked to do that remotely. Probably a combination that varies for different people is the best.
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    Perhaps, but for certain in this anecdata (hundreds of students), it is overwhelmingly the case that the students do not have your preference. May not be representative.
qmmmur 6y ago
My biggest realisation was seeing students undergo a realisation that the information is the least important bit about university. Now that its all so digestible, repeatable theyve either realised theyre not that talented/important/capable and that a lot of what makes a successful graduate is personal skills, applying themselves, being strategic and attitude.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
What is your take on "inverted" classrooms? My perspective from talking to younger people (I haven't been a student for decades) is that traditional classrooms were better for some learning styles than others. Inverted classrooms are better for some students that had trouble with the normal approach, but are worse for students who thrived under the normal approach. It's not a clear net win in terms of "helping more people". But that's my experience from talking to a very small sample. Do you have an opinion?
User23 6y ago
Counterpoint: WGU's set your own pace online learning is absolutely fantastic for responsible adults who want to grind out a regionally accredited degree fast and affordably. They built their system remote only from the start.
pisteoff 6y ago
> From what I can tell, there's very little enthusiasm for online education, on the part of either professors or students. Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen. This is probably true from a faculty and student position. However, as an IT person for a university, nothing would get me to quit faster than being forced back into the office. I would leave this job in a heartbeat and go make WAAAAAAY more working a remote job in industry. Given current hiring freezes, budget shortfalls, and low, uncompetitive salary ranges, I don't think universities are in a position to lose many IT personnel. I'm not the only staff member who thinks this. Universities should prepare for a mass staff exodus if they try to get us back on campus.

slykar 6y ago

Coming from a different country I don't really know why remote is not the default option. Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise. The worst part is that you have to spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week like this and then you still need to find online materials to actually learn the thing. Some people have to work too. Did I mention 2 hours of commute time every day?

FuckButtons 6y ago
My lived experience of pre recorded video lectures is they are a poor facsimile for the real thing for 3 main reasons. 1) I can’t ask questions - dynamically engaging with the material during the lecture is far more important for retention than making a perfect set of notes so not having that engagement really reduces your learning. 2) attention span / investment - taking notes amongst your peers who are also doing the same is easier and more enjoyable than doing the same on your own, something that is easier to do takes less of my mental energy which is my most precious resource when I’m trying to actually learn. 3) lack of peer interaction - most of the learning experience that is really beneficial long term isn’t about you having 100% recall on demand of every detail you were taught but how to use the ideas to solve actual problems. Much of that comes through practice and experimentation with your peers, which simply doesn’t work via zoom.
- randcraw 6y ago
  True, but Q&A makes up a tiny fraction of most lectures I've attended, and attention span can be improved by shortening the duration of each lecture. However, I'd agree that lack of dynamic peer interaction is a big problem with video-based instruction that hasn't yet been fixed. I've seen attempts to address this like Piazza where students can post questions or answer others', but text-based forums lack graphical or temporal cues that many concept demand. Maybe some sort of multiuser video supplement might help, where the question poser could snip the time mark of a puzzling section from the lecture or an illustration from another video and refer to it in source so others could visualize with a click the point being asked?
onion2k 6y ago
For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise. People shouldn't just accept this sort of thing as normal. You're paying (in the US or UK anyway) a lot of money for a degree level education. That means it needs to be fit for purpose, and if you're not learning then it isn't. You need to stop the lecturer and ask them to go over the point you didn't understand, or ask for additional time after the lab, or at a push, make a complaint to the course leader that the lecturer isn't teaching you well enough. Learning to stand up for yourself and ask for what you need is a big part of the university experience.
- Kinrany 6y ago
  > Learning to stand up for yourself and ask for what you need is a big part of the university experience. You're not graded on standing up for yourself. In this area universities are not different from standing in line or negotiating a job offer.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- slykar 6y ago
  Education is "free" (paid by taxes) where I come from (Poland). Private universities are not very popular. > People shouldn't just accept this sort of thing as normal It's not "normal", but it's the norm. It's not the fault of the professors, because the truth is they should not teach in the first place, but the education system requires them to. > make a complaint to the course leader that the lecturer isn't teaching you well enough. There's no such thing here as the course leader. Most of the time you have a prof. responsible for the theory and another one for the practice. You can complain to the dean (what multiple students did), but there's no replacement or no one cares. I don't want to put any blame on the teachers here. I see this as a systemic issue.
  - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
bachmeier 6y ago
You need to find a new university. If your courses are "Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters" then your professor is incompetent or lazy.
- slykar 6y ago
  > You need to find a new university Chances are you will have a similar experience. I'm not speaking about a single professor. I'm speaking about 9 out of 10. I'm not blaming professors tough. My friends have similar experience at other universities in Poland. Friends who went to German universities have a completely different experience. They actually use some LMS, provide online recordings of the classes and spend 1/3rd of the time at university.
UncleMeat 6y ago
> Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! My wife is a professor. What you say is true for some students. But for some students it appears that paying attention is much harder when it is a video vs the same material presented in a live lecture. I can't fully explain it, but "I struggle to pay attention to video lectures" is a surprisingly common response from people who have been strong students in prior years.
- jrumbut 6y ago
  Can't pay attention to video lectures at the best of times is part of it, but I also think being consistently understimulated causes people to shut down the learning process.
- randcraw 6y ago
  I've attended both kinds of credit-granting uni courses, and I agree that watching a recorded video is indeed less involving. But video is also so much easier than a live lecture to stop, rewind, repeat, or play 50% slower/faster that I can't conclude either is clearly superior. I'd say superiority mostly comes down to the quality of the instruction — clarity, good organization of fundamentals, then broad and deep enumeration of concepts that build meaningfully on those fundamentals. In my experience, few professors value teaching enough to master it. When one does, I'd very much like to be able to attend such a lecture. Maybe the best of both worlds is to deliberately supplement primary content with outstanding reference material like Kahn Academy or Three Blue One Brown. Being able to drill down on difficult concepts from multiple perspectives is often a great way to resolve obstructions in any kind of teaching method.
randomsearch 6y ago
> Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! Ok. That's a win for remote. Now my turn: how easy is it to gauge the mood of your entire class, turn to the person next to you and whisper a question or look at their notes? Go for coffee with classmates afterwards to discuss? Pull the lecturer aside or knock on their door later that day if you're stuck? Meet older students and grad students who can help you and inspire you? People made the same "it's the future" argument for remote education when MOOCs launched. PG argues that uni's will still survive because they are certificate authorities. Both are wrong. Peer learning is where it's at. And it's being immersed in that environment 24/7 that makes universities such special places. The learning goes beyond your set classes too - it's social, physical, it's relationships, it's hobbies and past-times and networks that will be the foundation of your identity and your life. What we're talking about is that vs yet another Zoom call.
- aloisdg 6y ago
  In my country, most classroom have an unofficial facebook group or discord channel. My little sister (20y) organizes zoom call for her own group of classroom friend to work together. They work but also chitchat, comment world politics, social issue, etc. It is awesome to assist.
- bitstan 6y ago
  I think when VR technology improves a bit more it'll be the superior learning experience. Imagine learning history interactively. Don't just read about Julius Caesar being stabbed, why not stab him yourself? You could explore physics in a sandbox environment. Learn geography by going there. Practice theater by performing. Grabbing a cup of coffee is fun but so is hopping into a game of virtual paintball.
  - isaacgreyed 6y ago
    I'm not really sure if actually doing something will be effective for say learning history. I think of all the odd activities teachers had me do, and I kind of wish they just told me the story, but I'm a guy who now listens to history podcast so may just be personal. Also think of all the odd physics demonstrations and I'm not sure they really often enhanced my knowledge more than a gif would of especially versus the expense. Does anyone know of any research around this area?
polishdude20 6y ago
I feel like the misery of online education comes from the lack of consistency. One professor may drone on and on for a few hours during the lecture and have no "showmanship". Another may refuse to put his lectures online and demands that you he there at 8:30 am to watch the lecture live and only live. Some professors just refuse to change with the times. Too many educators want to try and fit an in-person education style into an online format. That's the wrong way to go about it.
watwut 6y ago
> Coming from a different country I don't really know why remote is not the default option. Purely online courses have large failure rates - even when students pay and are comparable to in person ones. For whatever reason, people do better in person course and do badly in online ones.
sdevonoes 6y ago
I kind of agree. Among all the professors I had when I did my bachelor, perhaps one or two were worth listening to in person (because you could interrupt them and ask questions if needed. They really knew their subjects and were good communicators). All the knowledge the other professors were broadcasting was vastly inferior in comparision to reading the top two books (from cover to cover) for their given lecture.
asdff 6y ago
>For labs it's not like you get any help either. That's never been the case in any of my lab classes from multiple departments. The whole reason you have TAs is so you can ask questions constantly and get instant feedback. Stuck on something during a lab? Flag down the TA and they will set you right. Drop your test tube full of precurser during organic chemistry lab on the floor? No worries, the TA appears moments later with an aliquot of precurser to give you so you can proceed with the lab exercise. Motion detector not working during physics lab? The TA gives you a new one out of the equipment closet or helps you troubleshoot the lab software. I actually taught a remote version of a lab class this semester and it was horrible. You can't learn lab techniques by watching videos and slideshows or using various virtual lab simulation programs; you gotta get your hands on these things. You wouldn't know how finicky a western blot is until you've accidentally ripped your gel cracking it out of the precast case trying to transfer it to your membrane; all you get on the virtual format is 'be careful,' rather than training sufficient to start work in a research lab immediately.
- randcraw 6y ago
  Yeah, it's tough to learn cadaver-based anatomy at home too.
HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
>Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters But is that the default, common experience? I'm asking seriously: I finished my bachelor's 30 years ago and my master's 15 years ago and that has never been my experience. Our professors were actual people we talked and interacted with, even the boring ones. And they made an effort to teach. Now, I didn't go to a huge "research" university, where I hear it's common to get profs who have no interest in teaching, but what you describe isn't remotely like what I encountered.
- randcraw 6y ago
  Yeah, the best classes I've attended began with you reading material (textbook or papers) before lecture, then revisiting that content during lecture. Ideally the prof devises a lecture agenda where discussion revolves around subtleties in the material, both clarifying Q&A and implications and exceptions and to the material. Appreciating the context and relevance of your research-based material adds a lot to appreciating how it changed the status quo.
godot 6y ago
I went to a University of California some 15-20 years ago for undergrad and none of your 4 points are true in my experience. > Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. It's not an awful experience, in fact, you can often ask questions during or after lectures. It also has the benefit of being similar to the stage of life you just came from (high school, for most students), so you're not switching to a different mode of learning. > For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise. All labs sessions I've had always had a TA present. I've gotten countless help from the TAs during lab sessions. The only times they're not there is if you start early or stay late and they've left. TAs also lead discussion sections. In general they are a huge help and it's their job to help students because a professor can't always be there. > The worst part is that you have to spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week like this and then you still need to find online materials to actually learn the thing. Some people have to work too. This is simply false. I was a full time student and took a full 15+ units per quarter (which is more than average) and it was barely 2-3 hours of lecture a day on average over 5 days, plus ~1 hour of discussion section per day on average. Most of the rest of time is intended to be for homeworks, studying, lab sessions, etc. Maybe I'm too old and times were different, but we've never had to find online materials to accompany anything we learned over classes, in all of my classes (computer science or others). Everything we needed was included in textbooks, notes from the professor, or discussed in lectures/classes. Also, I know I might be of the minority opinion here, but I actually did find much of the knowledge from computer science classes helpful for future work (been a software engineer for 15 yerars now). > Did I mention 2 hours of commute time every day? I don't know what it's like outside the US, but in the US it's common for students graduating high school and going to college to leave their hometown and rent an apartment in their new college town. Commutes are typically under 15 minutes by bike/walk/bus in my college town. You could live literally in any part of that (small) city and be within 15 minutes from campus one way or another.
ska 6y ago
For what it's worth, your experience is not universal.
ivan_ah 6y ago
> [...] a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand! You forgot to mention the most important thing -- the ability to change the playback speed to create the "cognitive load" level engaging for you. This chrome plugin has been a tremendously useful for my learning https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-controller/nffaoalbilbmmfgbnbgppjihopabppdk?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro... Video speed control during playback is like a impedance-matching transformer between the "bitrate" of the lecturer and the listener.
twoslide 6y ago
It's not really about the most efficient, easily consumable delivery of information from point A to B. Students are really "consuming" a bundle of knowledge, skills, experiences, credentials, reptutation and social networks. There's not much incentive to move online (Prof at a UK university)

ddoran 6y ago

Kudos for stating your position but also presenting an opposing view. HN, heck the world, needs more of that.

bachmeier 6y ago

US university professor too. I agree with this: > Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen. There's no substitute for in-person education. For years, I heard from the online education cheerleaders that online can be better. Online can be a quality experience, but you can't build the same relationships, develop the same comfort with asking questions, or deliver the same set of intangibles in an online setting. That said, I think hybrid classes are probably better. Some material is better taught in an async fashion. The big limitation of in-person education is that you have no choice but to schedule a fixed block of time for meetings. The flexibility of async means students can go through certain types of material at the right pace for themselves. > it seems that startups like edX, Coursera, etc. have not really been successes These options aren't university classes. They're the next generation of textbooks.

gibspaulding 6y ago
> These options aren't university classes. They're the next generation of textbooks. Totally off topic, but if students were already paying $300 for a paper calculus book, I shudder to think of the extortion we'll see over the virtual, multimedia,cloud-optimized, probably-built-in-Adobe-Flash monstrosity that will be the "next generation of textbooks".
- asdff 6y ago
  Not to mention the university library has a couple copies of that $300 textbook on reserve for you, so if you were doing your studying at the library anyway there isn't any reason to shell out. I would even take pictures of salient chapters with my phone if I really needed to take the content home. Online only, there would be no avoiding those mandatory fees. Libraries don't have homework codes on reserve.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
> Some material is better taught in an async fashion. Based on the experience of teaching this semester by multiple colleagues, the problem, of course, is that students will not consume that material at all. If you try to do short quizzes to ensure they watched it, they will cheat, or just take the grade penalty. The problem with online is that the the modicum of shame present in offline classes that forces them to pay some attention, is almost completely gone.

anewaccount2021 6y ago

Exactly. For k-12 this year will be the end of lockdown.edu. Parents will go into revolt otherwise. The government can't afford a scenario that pits working parents against the primary target cohort of covid (old and obese) because the electoral prospects are frightening. Stay-at-home schools means stay-at-home parents and the implications of eighteen more months of income-by-stimulus isn't on anyone's radar

toshk 6y ago

I feel like the biggest value is a hybrid version: the standard curriculum online and smaller classes offline. The large group lectures I've always felt were a waste of time. The lecturers just explain what's in the book anyway and most of them, except for a few natural talents, are boring as hell. And I always felt I read faster then they speak. Most university lecturers hardly get educated in how to teach, and most of them also don't care, the consider it the duty of the student to pay attention. A lot of time and money could be saved to move many of the standard curriculum to a online video / textbook course. I feel like the true value is in the smaller work groups where one gets direct feedback on your work. This is something that the online universities are not able to recreate. And of course making friends, discussing, building a network, having time to think, sports, hanging out. So a hybrid might improve the quality of the courses while giving a chance to optimize the offline experience.

stareatgoats 6y ago

There is a substantial amount of inertia in the educational system: knowhow, routines, supporting systems, teachers and professors that have been tailormade for the brick-and-mortar type of educational systems that have been the norm since the beginning of the last century, or earlier. This inertia naturally causes some friction against the trajectory towards remote education- but not yet to the level of putting up a fight. But expect this conflict deepen just as it has with news media, as the financial foundation of traditional educational systems slowly erodes in favor of the (coming) much more flexible and cheaper online systems.

nvarsj 6y ago

Have you heard of OMSCS? The online revolution is already happening. Many schools are moving to copy the model. I've been in OMSCS for almost 5 years now. I can assuredly say that remote university education works incredibly well. Even better than in person in many respects. Not only that, but I truly believe it is vital to ensuring equal access to high quality education. The current university system with 5% acceptance rates, 40k / year college fees, is untenable and just exacerbates class division. It's an antiquated system, and the move to fully remote degrees can't happen soon enough.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Two comments: First, what's OMSCS? Could you supply a bit more detail rather than just "have you heard of it"? What is it? What's good about it? Second, 5% acceptance rates are not typical of "the current university system". That's only a few "elite" schools. 40k/year may be more typical, but you can easily find less than half that.
- mbil 6y ago
  OMSCS is Georgia Tech's Online CS Master's program[0]. I'm starting my ninth class this term. Here's my take... Pros: - video lectures are generally pretty polished, and include animations and other visual aids to help build intuition - the course material is mostly high quality. this is the same material that on-site graduate students are presented, and the graded projects are challenging. - there is opportunity to interact with other students and TAs: online message board, video office hours, unofficial Slack, etc. - flexible enough to schedule around a full-time job - inexpensive compared to in-person programs (the entire program with 10 courses is $7-$8k) Cons: - quality of materials, TAs, and organization can vary from course to course and term to term - harder to build relationships / network than in-person programs - it's course-based by default. you can pursue a research-based degree but it's nonstandard. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tech_Online_Master_of_Science_in_Computer_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tech_Online_Master_of_...
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago

TuringNYC 6y ago

>> I'm a professor at a US university. The honest answer (at least at the university level) -- probably we don't. >> From what I can tell, there's very little enthusiasm for online education, on the part of either professors or students. This isnt surprising -- you are probably polling people inside the system -- what about the many more people who cant join the system? I'll bet they have a very different opinion. The US educational system, especially graduate education, is a game of money. Even those graduate students who are on grants are only the lucky ones who don't have sufficiently large family obligations to fulfill and can therefore stay on a graduate grant. Think of how many people need to work at their parents' shop, have to take care of a grandparent, sick elderly parents at home, those who are also caring for younger siblings, those w/o sufficient disposable income to sit around at quads sipping lattes. Consider all the people who couldn't pay to play that game. I'm sure they would love an alternative. Also consider the opposite problem -- people with money who do not want to take off two years (without income) to get a graduate degree, or worse, move their families to one of several key cities with top universities. They would also like an alternative that is mostly remote.

1auralynn 6y ago
I think this is correct. Students who thrive in a lecture environment make it to Universities. Professors who are fantastic lecturers get jobs at Universities.
NationalPark 6y ago
Aren't the people inside the system the ones you should be listening to most? You talk about surivivorship bias in university students, but I think it's a lot more likely that the survivorship bias is really, "people who value education". That is, the people currently in traditional university are by and large the majority of the people in whatever hypothetical online next-gen education system you're imagining. I think it's really unlikely there are a whole lot of geniuses for whom school, "just doesn't work". I've met a lot of people who think of themselves like this, and honestly, they're usually just stupid or lazy. High achievers figure out ways to take advantage of the systems that are in place, they don't admit defeat and blame "the system" for their failure.

pacbard 6y ago

To build upon this answer a little bit, people want to go back in person not for the educational reasons but for social reasons. While you can learn in an online format and (with enough work/investment) make the experience similar to in-person classes, you cannot replace the social aspects of college with an online environment. US colleges have been moving from a learning experience towards a social experience build on to of learning (see, for example, https://www.nber.org/papers/w18745 https://www.nber.org/papers/w18745). My university was in person last fall but classes mostly online, students still socialized (e.g., partied) even if health recommendations were strongly recommend against it.

Taylor_OD 6y ago

> That said, it seems that startups like edX, Coursera, etc. have not really been successes. So I'm skeptical that big changes are coming soon. In what way are you measuring success here? They have not replaced traditional education/colleges but its very likely that a larger percentage of the people on this site have purchased and learned something from a online technical course.

personlurking 6y ago

Personally I've always wanted to see two things in education, or rather one thing in two parts: to be able to verbally "test out" of a written exam or even an entire semester-long class. This can be handled over Skype/Zoom, if need be. That is, allow students to have a discussion with the professor to see if they know the test material. If so, "great, here's your grade". Same with entire semester classes ("great, here's your 3 credits").

pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Why verbally? Would the ability to take an exam without sitting the course satisfy you?
- personlurking 6y ago
  I would guess that a verbal one-on-one exam would show the professor who understands the material vs who doesn't, but also who actually understands it vs who just used rote memorization. The latter comparison might end up being a distinction without a difference, as far as grading goes. But, were I the professor, I'd be interested to see how many of my students are understanding the material on a holistic level. This is my bias, though, because I'm way more interested in knowing why something occurred (and its relationship to other events) vs that it occurred on [insert date] and involved [insert individuals].
Geee 6y ago
That sounds like cheating.

randomsearch 6y ago

Anecdata from major UK university: students _hate_ remote teaching and want to go back to lectures ASAP.

jon889 6y ago
When I was at uni a few years ago, I ended up skipping most of my lectures and watching them online instead, worked better for me in that I could watch them at a time that suited me better, watch at 2x speed, go back and rewatch things I didn't understand. Compared to cramming into a lecture theatre with 200 other students in some cases. That said tutorials and labs being in person were pretty essential, I wouldn't have liked to do that remotely. Probably a combination that varies for different people is the best.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  Perhaps, but for certain in this anecdata (hundreds of students), it is overwhelmingly the case that the students do not have your preference. May not be representative.

qmmmur 6y ago

My biggest realisation was seeing students undergo a realisation that the information is the least important bit about university. Now that its all so digestible, repeatable theyve either realised theyre not that talented/important/capable and that a lot of what makes a successful graduate is personal skills, applying themselves, being strategic and attitude.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

What is your take on "inverted" classrooms? My perspective from talking to younger people (I haven't been a student for decades) is that traditional classrooms were better for some learning styles than others. Inverted classrooms are better for some students that had trouble with the normal approach, but are worse for students who thrived under the normal approach. It's not a clear net win in terms of "helping more people". But that's my experience from talking to a very small sample. Do you have an opinion?

User23 6y ago

Counterpoint: WGU's set your own pace online learning is absolutely fantastic for responsible adults who want to grind out a regionally accredited degree fast and affordably. They built their system remote only from the start.

pisteoff 6y ago

> From what I can tell, there's very little enthusiasm for online education, on the part of either professors or students. Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen. This is probably true from a faculty and student position. However, as an IT person for a university, nothing would get me to quit faster than being forced back into the office. I would leave this job in a heartbeat and go make WAAAAAAY more working a remote job in industry. Given current hiring freezes, budget shortfalls, and low, uncompetitive salary ranges, I don't think universities are in a position to lose many IT personnel. I'm not the only staff member who thinks this. Universities should prepare for a mass staff exodus if they try to get us back on campus.