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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Why is there a need to blame anyone? The goal is for students to learn, not that they show up in class out of duty. If they found a more efficient way to learn from the class that involves not showing up in person, I think they should be encouraged to do it.
I have a fundamental belief that delivering a lecture is an active experience. I use and gauge student reactions to questions or comments to tell how well a class is receiving the information I am presenting. I also use it to pinpoint possible weaknesses of the class (did they miss the point of a prerequisite class, for example).
If I am not doing that, what's the point of a "lecture"?
Otherwise, you might as well read a book. It's faster than a lecture, likely more thorough, and not tied to a specific timeslice.
You may want it to be an active experience, but it will only be an active experience for those who choose to actively participate. Some students just don't learn that way and likely won't actively participate even if they show up to class. Those who want to actively participate will show up to class even if they have the option not to. There are other forms of getting feedback and interacting with students. Email and office hours for example. Also, I disagree that textbooks are faster. Maybe they are if you are an expert in the topic, but if you are not (and hence taking a course on it) in my experience the average lecture is still easier and quicker to learn from than reading the textbook (except for exceptionally well written textbooks).
I was one of those students who didn't learn by actively participating and I always felt like I had trouble learning in class. The school I did my PhD in started using online tools for some of the courses and I found that I learned way better when I watched the online lectures. A big issue I always had in class is when the lecturer explains something that is obvious to me in great detail, or just speaks slowly in general I find myself daydreaming and once I snap out of it I may have fallen behind and not be able to follow the rest of the lecture well. Online lectures at 2x speed are way more interesting for me and I almost never daydream. If I feel tired I can pause for a couple of minutes and stand up and stretch or walk around the room. If I miss a detail I can go back and replay it again. I would still attend office hours and email the professors though. What I learned from the online lectures also stuck with me much longer.
At the end of the day, students are paying an enourmous amount of money to learn, and I feel it shouldn't matter if the way they learn it by not showing up to class. Especially if they learn it better by not showing up to class.
If I could have when I was in college, I totally would have just watched the 100+ people lectures online. If I wanted clarification office hours were always more useful, and most of my teachers and TAs were very pleasant to engage in that context. Thankfully most of my classes were more on the 20-30 person scale (all of them in CS) where attending felt much more valuable. The few 12 person classes I had were undoubtably the sweet spot though, with enough peers around to make discussion interesting but much more engagement between students and the professor. Not that I expect most classes to be at that size, it would just be a better world if they magically could be.
Everyone went to discussions, and office hours were effectively mandatory, so there was still plenty of staff interaction. In the end I don't feel like I miss much by watching lectures online. I honestly believe asking questions during lecture is extremely disrespectful bordering on immoral when there are more than 100 people listening, so why show up?
> Everyone went to discussions, and office hours were effectively mandatory, so there was still plenty of staff interaction. In the end I don't feel like I miss much by watching lectures online.
Okay, that's a LOT of missing context.
Having a "discussion" section is unusual for most universities outside of beginner prerequisite classes. And, office hours have never been mandatory for students anywhere I have taught.
Given that, yeah, I can see that interrupting a lecturer is problematic and that watching a recording is probably okay.
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
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.
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.
Coupled with the American war on intellectualism and a capturing of the state by corporations, and higher education bloated with administrators, there are sufficient blockers that a coordinated state level AAA online higher education system will be pretty hard to achieve.
The closest possibility is that the California state school system develops an online wing.
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).
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.
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.
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?
> It is selling you into the world of computer science
I personally don't like being sold something when learning and feel like there's a fine line between something being sold and something being presented as important or interesting. I acknowledge this is a strong personal preference.
> It's an "intro" course. In fact, this intro course covers way more than what colleges in the US do for an intro course.
Well, that's part of my problem with it. If it's an intro course, why throw so much into it? If it's meant to survey a lot of things, then why not provide a wider view? Having not taken the course, I am speculating here, but I would guess there's two outcomes to a student taking the course. They either get a superficial view of what they cover or things are covered at such a pace by going both deep and wide that there isn't time to properly ingest everything. That's why I am curious of hearing about actual outcomes from people taking the course. Courses that cover too much, for me, get me thinking in too many directions to be useful.
> Nope, and why should they be?
I was just asking the question, not saying they should be. But I do feel it's a bit of a disservice not mentioning them given that they inspired a wide swath of today's modern programming features. I also feel they are the ideal teaching languages, especially for intro courses.
I'm fairly unconvinced by that answer, which is rather predictable. Why is it important it's close to hardware? There's nothing stopping you from implementing data structures or exploring buffer overflows in other languages. Mathematicians don't start teaching students mathematics by being "close to the hardware". If they did, we'd start off the university education with real analysis, topology, and abstract algebra. Instead, calculus is the primary starting point, which sits at the right level of abstraction. C is exactly at the wrong level of abstraction. It's too far away from the hardware to really understand the hardware <-> software interaction in depth, and it's too low-level to understand the more useful abstractions in computer science and programming. I personally view abstraction as the key point in learning programming and computer science, and C is probably the worst language you could pick for that.
The approach found in Nand2Tetris and the book The Elements of Computing Systems is far more interesting if one wants to truly understand how software stacks on top of software that stacks on top of hardware.
Arguably, this course does both of selling and presenting the importance of computer science in today's world. I think before you add more speculation, it would be best if you at least look at the syllabus and content.
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I am not sure how familiar you are with university intro-level course. This course actually providers a wider viewer than many many other intro courses.
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> I also feel they are the ideal teaching languages, especially for intro courses.
Not sure how involved you are with designing a CS curriculum but at least in the US, most colleges shy away from these languages. (Yale does start in Racket) I'd make an assumption that over all this time period, a lot of these professors have actually put some thought into which language is suitable.
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There's nothing stopping but since this course is giving you a window into the world of computer science, they wanted to add the hardware/memory-mangament aspect as well. I'd say this is quite unnecessary for an intro-cs course, but not a bad thing. Assuming this purpose, I can't think of another language that would be more suitable than C. Assembly? That'd be painful and unhelpful.
I think your analogy is a false equivalency, regarding topology and abstract algebra. I don't know about math enough to give my vision of a better analogy.
I'd saying teaching kids to drive in manual shift instead of auto would be a better equivalency to having them write in C.
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The course you are mentioning is for a very specific purpose. Even the author says that the students for this course should be able to program in some programming language. (Which wouldn't work for an intro course where they target someone with no exposure at all).
And most CS programs would have a similar course at 200-level. See examples of CMU's 15-213, MIT's 6.004, Stanford's C107.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.