Lessons learned from MITx’s prototype course | Hacker News Reader

Lessons learned from MITx’s prototype course

mit.edu

56 pointstjr13 comments

I really like the idea of allowing the student to take a year instead of a semester, with the deadlines adjusted accordingly. This seems like a good alternative to "dumbing it down" to accommodate those of us who don't have the time or who find the material difficult.

I was one of those 7157 that passed the course. Although I had to put a very large amount of effort into the course to get an A, I found it much easier to learn from a video lecture course than a live lecture course. The ability to pause, rewind, play at 1.5x speed, etc. allowed me to take a break when I lost my focus, speed through the sections I already understood, slow down and repeat sections that didn't make sense at first, etc. None of this is possible in a scheduled live lecture.

I wish I could have taken all of my college classes in this format, perhaps with the addition of 10-15 person lab sessions on campus. Best of luck, edX.

I thought it was interesting that the professor who commented on the attrition rate said that another way to look at the student numbers is that the number of students who completed the online course was many more than could be taught in person at MIT over years and years.

Glad to see the initiative sharing their notes.

As someone who has worked closely with MIT Faculty I did feel like one of their challenges would be in discussing and iterating on their learnings rapidly (as opposed to focusing on the learning quality them and seeing that they are of academic rigor).

What makes these courses look bad is the fact that many people will just sign up just take a peek at the content, rather than genuinely want to see it all the way through.

I guess this adds to the attrition rate.

I'm glad to see that they are considering longer periods than a semester: I started the course and enjoyed the ability to view the lectures at a high speed and the exercises were to the point (Even if rather easy but it was expected for an introduction course). But I couldn't finish it due to real life university load.

I would like to see more flexible deadlines such as 2/3 weeks since the last assignment for ex. but I understand it wouldn't be manageable when taking midterms and finals into account or provide significantly more work having to make a few of those or delay if they were at constant dates...

why does that make the course look bad?

There's a bunch of reasons people might drop out of a university course. Some of these reflect badly on the university/means of course delivery. For example, if they're dropping the course because it's poorly taught, or they can't understand the lecturer.

There's no indication this was a problem with the MITx course though.

It makes it look bad to people who judge it based on the attrition rate.

All manner of wonderful things look bad to such people.

What struck me most is that this course helped form lasting communities who are now studying other material together. That is just wonderful. A community you can discuss the material with will help people learn the material much better. Also, these people might go and build something together afterward.

Love it that the students created their own version of the follow up course.

To clarify, this has nothing to do with creating prototypes.

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