Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire • Hacker News Board

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#101

Post by bsder » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #89

bakuninsbart wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rewa…

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 departm…

> 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.

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#102

Post by mennis16 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #32

mennis16 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was this? Not doubting you but by the time I came across OCW in 2012 there were quite a few courses with video lectures, at least you could cover the standard frosh year curriculum with videos and much of the year 1 CS courses. So that gets you an "associates" worth of CS content right there, and this was before I recall MOOCs being a hot topic more broadly. There are also still quite a few MIT courses that have…

Early 2000s (so about a decade earlier). Here's a quote from then-MIT president on introducing OCW. MIT President Charles Vest said that “We are not providing an MIT education on the Web. We are providing our core materials that are the infrastructure that undergirds an MIT education. Real education requires interaction, the interaction that is part of American teaching. We think that OpenCourseWare will make it poss…

Interesting, thanks for the info! I think the statement could still apply even with videos available, but of course it is also in MIT's best interest to say this.

Honestly I really like the idea of using OCW materials to run a course, I'd have loved something like that instead of the AP program in high school. It's too bad the original intended use didn't catch on (or at least I've never seen it used that way).

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#103

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

jcq3 wrote: post #35

Perhaps people appreciate this course because the prestigious Harvard school is behind it. I would traduce that bias by "a good school involves necessarily good courses" . Is it true though?

Not necessarily (although it often is, possibly because it's the rockstars who can afford the time and have the interest to play around with the MOOC thing).

Early on with MOOCs, there was a Harvard literature course I was very excited about taking on Greek myth or something like that. I think I made it through about the first half of the first lecture. The whole thing felt incredibly pretentious and generally awful. (And, yes, I have taken literature courses at good colleges that were much more interesting.)

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#104

Post by dayvid » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

Avicebron wrote: post #94

MiroF wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems so obviously important to me and yet there is pretty much no will to do it in the government.

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.

My guess is that most politicians don't come from STEM backgrounds, mostly law or public policy so they don't see the inherit value in it.

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#105

Post by cpursley » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #33

cjf4 wrote: post #7

Taking CS50 feels similar to watching a movie that has an auteur’s fingerprints all over it. Every word in the lecture, every technology, and every problem set has been carefully crafted to fit together to create a cohesive experience. College instructors everywhere should take the course to see what the zenith of multimedia online education looks like.

I've watched some of the lectures of CS50 in the past, and the one question that has always come into my mind is this: "How do these lectures help you learn at a deep level?" I already knew most of the material, so I found it to be an entertaining review, but that's different from a beginner needing to learn new material at a deep level. I kind of think it'd be a nightmare to take good notes while watching his lectur…

Do you mind sharing the name or url to these MOOCs?

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#106

Post by bmitc » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

swyx wrote: post #48

nanna wrote: post #36

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…

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.

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#107

Post by kyawzazaw » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #89

bakuninsbart wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rewa…

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 departm…

I thought MIT mostly only opens access to old recorded videos.

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#108

Post by kyawzazaw » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #106

swyx wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

there are additional sections where they broke off into smaller groups.

It is selling you into the world of computer science, a window into it. This could be further seen by its spin-off courses for different audiences.

> My fear is that students will come out of the course with a very narrow view of computer science such that they think C, Python, HTML/CSS/JS, SQL are the only games in town.

It's an "intro" course. In fact, this intro course covers way more than what colleges in the US do for an intro course.

> Are MLs (SML, Ocaml, F#) or Lisps/Schemes mentioned at all in this course?

Nope, and why should they be?

> C as intro language

David Malan answers this here: https://qr.ae/pNsCkQ

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#109

Post by Reelin » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

kyawzazaw wrote: post #107

colinmhayes wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 departm…

I thought MIT mostly only opens access to old recorded videos.

Higher level math continues to advance but calculus itself doesn't change much. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_calculus)

Re: Harvard CS professor David Malan built a distance-learning empire

#110

Post by kyawzazaw » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #33

cjf4 wrote: post #7

Taking CS50 feels similar to watching a movie that has an auteur’s fingerprints all over it. Every word in the lecture, every technology, and every problem set has been carefully crafted to fit together to create a cohesive experience. College instructors everywhere should take the course to see what the zenith of multimedia online education looks like.

I've watched some of the lectures of CS50 in the past, and the one question that has always come into my mind is this: "How do these lectures help you learn at a deep level?" I already knew most of the material, so I found it to be an entertaining review, but that's different from a beginner needing to learn new material at a deep level. I kind of think it'd be a nightmare to take good notes while watching his lectur…

there is also lecture notes made already

more often that not, as a CS student for most core cs classes, i have barely written any notes.