I was an undergrad at Caltech. Although there were only 200 new students each year, for all the beginning science and math classes, we were all put in one lecture. So
I agree with (1). There were Nobel laureates (Pauling and Feynman) who were inspiring but most lectures were stultifying and had no correlation with the research of the lecturer (one of the fallacies universities like to propagate). I mostly agree with (2) although we had some truly awful TAs. (3) was what mattered and is most of what I remember most and is still my tie to my undergraduate education.. If there was any correlation, it was that in a major research institution, very few faculty truly care about undergrads, especially those who are struggling. There are some but they are few and far between. When I was at USC and Berkeley it was very similar. In my 30 years at UNM, I think UNM did what many other large universities have done in moving towards a research orientation and thus the percentage of faculty who both want to and can put in a significant amount of time to undergraduate education has gone down. Personally I find that factor overrides the large vs small class issue. Ed __________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-984-0136 (home) [email protected] 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel On Mar 7, 2013, at 5:03 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Ed, > > I am curious to know what the folks on this list think an education consists > in. For me, it consisted in > (1) Many large lectures of which most were stultifying beyond belief, > but of which a few were inspiring. > (2) A few settings where I made direct contact with professors (or good > TA;s) and was taught how to do stuff and my work was critiqued in meaningful > ways. > (3) Many, many interactions with very smart peers in which they taught me > and I got to try my ideas out on them. > > Was your experience different from that? > > N > From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Edward Angel > Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 4:44 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Professors' Big Stage > > I suspect it may be only the beginning of Nick's nightmare. > > There really are gifted people who can teach an exciting course to 1000 > students. Any if 1000, why not 100,000 via a MOOC? Parents and students who > are paying $40,000 and more for tuition may wonder about where their money is > going if there are 200-1000 students in a class. It's also easy to find > mediocre to poor MOOCs on the Internet. > > Although it's very unclear were MOOCs will wind up, it's important to note > that the primary driver of the movement in most universities is not the > quality that MOOCs might be able to deliver nor providing universal access > but money. Boards of Regents and other governing bodies are pushing MOOCs as > a cost reducing measure. The Chronicle of Higher Education is a good source > for what has gone on at UVA and some other large universities. At Virginia, > the President was forced to resign over the issue and was only returned to > office after continuing protests by the faculty and students that were going > in the direction of a strike. > > Some of what I see now reminds me of the hype when video courses became > available. Schools including USC and Stanford offered MS degrees by video and > a consortium of universities formed the National Television University (NTU). > I did some of a course for USC and one for NTU. But the economics changed as > did the technology and NTU is now defunct. That may be the way of MOOCs. > > Ed > __________ > > Ed Angel > > Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) > Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico > > 1017 Sierra Pinon > Santa Fe, NM 87501 > 505-984-0136 (home) [email protected] > 505-453-4944 (cell) > http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel > > > On Mar 7, 2013, at 8:19 AM, Bruce Sherwood wrote: > > > And, alas, many university classes, especially in introductory courses at > large universities, bear little resemblance to the kind of ideal situation > Nick created and sustained but rather look a lot like Nick's nightmare. > > Bruce > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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