Fundamentals of Neuroscience from Harvard EdX • Hacker News Board

Re: Fundamentals of Neuroscience from Harvard EdX

#11

Post by osoba » Sun, Oct 26, 2014, 4:26 PM UTC

munin wrote: post #10

osoba wrote: post #3

I took this course (part 1 of 3) last year and passed it with about 90%. It left me with a question in the back of my mind about whether this is a very watered down version of the actual Harvard course (I hope it isn't) or if they're just that good at teaching it. Because there is never a stumbling in understanding something, the course just flows naturally from one lecture to another and you get immersed into it all…

speaking from some experience in putting together and running a mooc class (as well as non-mooc classes), they are very watered down versions of their original courses. after a lot of soul-searching, I think that the world is better for having these classes, but I can't imagine how they could replace or supplant the previous model. from my perspective, the things that add the most value to a college class, in educati…

The one big positive side to MOOCs is that they offer breadth (even if it's somewhat watered down). My own real life academic curriculum is 90% pure math, with programming and theoretical physics covering the other 10%, and having a wide range of interesting and diverse MOOCs lets you see what else is out there :)

Re: Fundamentals of Neuroscience from Harvard EdX

#12

Post by munin » Sun, Oct 26, 2014, 5:36 PM UTC

osoba wrote: post #11

munin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

speaking from some experience in putting together and running a mooc class (as well as non-mooc classes), they are very watered down versions of their original courses. after a lot of soul-searching, I think that the world is better for having these classes, but I can't imagine how they could replace or supplant the previous model. from my perspective, the things that add the most value to a college class, in educati…

The one big positive side to MOOCs is that they offer breadth (even if it's somewhat watered down). My own real life academic curriculum is 90% pure math, with programming and theoretical physics covering the other 10%, and having a wide range of interesting and diverse MOOCs lets you see what else is out there :)

true! because the lectures are delivered asynchronously you can survey a broad amount of material. again, I definitely think that the world is a better place for having available courseware, but you shouldn't let the brand name of the professors institution (harvard, MIT, stanford, etc) fool you - it is still watered down. it has to be.

Re: Fundamentals of Neuroscience from Harvard EdX

#13

Post by tzs » Sun, Oct 26, 2014, 6:39 PM UTC

munin wrote: post #10

osoba wrote: post #3

I took this course (part 1 of 3) last year and passed it with about 90%. It left me with a question in the back of my mind about whether this is a very watered down version of the actual Harvard course (I hope it isn't) or if they're just that good at teaching it. Because there is never a stumbling in understanding something, the course just flows naturally from one lecture to another and you get immersed into it all…

speaking from some experience in putting together and running a mooc class (as well as non-mooc classes), they are very watered down versions of their original courses. after a lot of soul-searching, I think that the world is better for having these classes, but I can't imagine how they could replace or supplant the previous model. from my perspective, the things that add the most value to a college class, in educati…

You can do a MOOC with very little watering down. Yaser Abu-Mostafa's "Learning From Data" from Caltech in an example. Here's an article written by Abu-Mostafa about this [1].

[1] https://www.class-central.com/report/caltech-mooc-flipped-cl...