Lecturing — which is all one can do with 100,000 students — is just about the worst way to teach ever devised. It’s problem are well known in the pedagogical literature … To give one-way talks to an audience (which is what lecturing is about) is an effective way to communicate a large amount of information to a large number of people. But communication represents a small fraction of what teaching is about. Real teaching must include guided discussions, interactions among peers, and a great deal of exercises. The ideal model is that of the Renaissance workshop, where one learned from the Master and his best assistants, day by day. In modern education, this is what is done in the best graduate schools and when using the Montessori method.
Well, yes. But that merely means gathering a group together to take a class ensemble. Or finding a poor grad student to help out. But even without those aids, it seems to me that being able to absorb top-notch lecturing at home for free cannot but be a fantastic thing. If combined with an online grading service, it could be revolutionary.
(Video excerpt from Andy Conway's Princeton lecture course on stats. Andy was my boyfriend before my marriage to Aaron. I wish he'd taught me stats.)
The Dish 