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Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

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Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#61

Post by HarryHirsch »

lowmemcpu wrote: post #57
HarryHirsch wrote: post #48

Online teaching works particularly well for the tutorial model, where you have a small number (<5) of students plus the instructor engaged in discussion. It fails completely for large classes. That's not dissimilar to the situation before the plague.

> It fails completely for large classes. Large in-person classes you don't even have discussions. Some universities have lecture halls of 400-600 students, and you have to go ask a TA for help later in the week > That's not dissimilar to the situation before the plague. So I think you agree and are saying that it's the same?

It's absolutely the same. Before, you'd outsource homework and grading in the large introductory classes to awful proprietary tech, the fact that now you have people who can't put a proper recording of their class together doesn't make it worse.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#62

Post by nondave »

User23 wrote: post #42
ck425 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you work but no one where I work considers the current situation fine. It's workable but it's definitely no where near 100%.

I like it because it disadvantages the politically competent types while advantaging the technically competent types. Guess which category I fall into.

There can be disadvantages for technically competent folks too. I'm really missing going over technical ideas on a whiteboard with colleagues.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#64

Post by zests »

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #45
game_the0ry wrote: post #29

A couple of years ago, I was looking into MOOCs for tech education, Udacity's nano degree in particular. I remember stumbling across a video on Youtube where some Udacity folks were discussing the merits of online education with college professors and admins. What stood out to me was how vehemently the college folks were against online education. They were visibly livid - there was no way substituting a live class ro…

Higher education so far as I can tell now is indistinguishable from a cult. You have to pay homage to various absurd beliefs, contribute money to them, and worship the value of it no matter what the apparent merit of it is, and more than anything it has its heresies which appear to be self-directed development and independent thinking.

What massive group of people is not indistinguishable from a cult? A book exists that argues that all mass movements (religion, cults, political parties) have very similar characteristics and can be analyzed with the same lens. I have no doubt that "supporters of X" can also be put in the same group where in this case X = higher education.

I've never read this book but it was published several decades ago and I agree with the premise. Unfortunately I forgot which book it was so this comment is partly an effort to see if anyone else knows which book this is so I can finally get around to reading it.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#65

Post by reallydontask »

ck425 wrote: post #35
dudul wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of all this companies that were forcing employees to relocate because good work can only be done when everyone is seating in the open space for 9 hours every day. Suddenly, once this is not possible anymore, no biggy, just work from home! It's fine!

I don't know where you work but no one where I work considers the current situation fine. It's workable but it's definitely no where near 100%.

> I don't know where you work but no one where I work considers the current situation fine

why not?

My previous team was distributed across three sites with some people WFH and it worked really well.

Admittedly the people WFH, myself included, had a home office (i.e. a dedicated room for work), the lack of which, I guess, is the main reason for a lot of people not enjoying WFH, that and the children running around :)

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#66

Post by kube-system »

josephorjoe wrote: post #16
stblack wrote: post #8

Schools still have a very large proportion of their fixed costs to cover. Schools and their lecturers need to invest in perfecting onlive delivery. Therefore it's not particularly realistic to expect schools to chop their top-line so soon. This is clearly a transitory and uncertain period. With time, possibly less time than schools hope, they will be forced to adjust prices downward.

For profit institutions do not get sympathy for their fixed costs.

Most large for-profit schools are primarily online, and have long been. Huge in-person campuses are primarily public universities.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#67

Post by war1025 »

User23 wrote: post #42
ck425 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you work but no one where I work considers the current situation fine. It's workable but it's definitely no where near 100%.

I like it because it disadvantages the politically competent types while advantaging the technically competent types. Guess which category I fall into.

We are definitely at a disadvantage in terms of having robust technical discussions before implementing new features at my work. Something that previously would be discussed by the whole team is now either just implemented solo or discussed between one or two other people before moving forward.

One of the big issues we've had, which I think we're getting better at, is not realizing how much others on the team are in the dark when you had a discussion but no one else was in on it. This led to a lot of friction and frustration in March / April for us.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#68

Post by sakex »

I'm doing a research on the way students learn programming in online classes. We tried making the student interact with each others by using Zoom's "breakout rooms" feature with mixed results.

What's interesting is that while students attended to online classes way less, they understood the class content way more, because they felt less pressure and could work at their on speed.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#69

Post by abvdasker »

I agree. For some degrees it's less of an issue but for areas of study like chemistry, biology, physics and many others, access to the college's physical resources like laboratories is part of what you're paying for. I don't know how you solve this problem with the current constraints imposed by COVID-19, but you can't expect these students to pay full-price for an inferior education.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#70

Post by b5n »

game_the0ry wrote: post #29

A couple of years ago, I was looking into MOOCs for tech education, Udacity's nano degree in particular. I remember stumbling across a video on Youtube where some Udacity folks were discussing the merits of online education with college professors and admins. What stood out to me was how vehemently the college folks were against online education. They were visibly livid - there was no way substituting a live class ro…

I'd think strategically about a gap year. If you're a great student with excellent college prospects a gap year might make sense, admissions are going to be very competitive for 21/22. If you're not the best student it might make sense to try and get accepted for 20/21 due to smaller field of applicants.
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