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"Students appreciated the MOOC's ability to support structured, self-paced learning. Students often watched the short (10-to-15-minute) lecture videos at double speed with the captions turned on, at times that fit the students' schedules. Students described Andrew Ng as a highly effective lecturer, which added to the value of the lecture videos. Students did not actively participate in the discussion forums provided by the MOOC, choosing instead to use each other and Professor Fisher as resources when they needed help with the material. Occasionally, a student with a specific question would check to see if that question had already been asked and answered in the forums. It often was, and so the forums were a study resource for the students even if they didn't post to the forums themselves. Doug's students appreciated the in-class active learning facilitated by the "flipped" approach. By shifting explanatory lectures outside of class, class time was made available for more discussion, interaction, and application of that material. The students described Doug's role as "facilitator," guiding class discussions and making sure that every student understood the material. The biggest challenge identified by the students was a misalignment between the MOOC material and the additional readings Doug provided. These readings took the students beyond the introductory ideas presented in the MOOC, focusing on recent and seminar research in the field. The readings weren't designed for novices in the field, as Andrew Ng's lecture videos were, and they required "a different kind of learning," as one student put it. Nor did the readings always build on the week's MOOC content in clear ways."

"So if we know that there are methods superior to lecturing, why are we lecturing at all?"

Enoch: read my blog post. I had an experience this week that speaks to your post. Robin

"The studies analyzed here document that active learning leads to increases in examination performance that would raise average grades by a half a letter, and that failure rates under traditional lecturing increase by 55% over the rates observed under active learning. The analysis supports theory claiming that calls to increase the number of students receiving STEM degrees could be answered, at least in part, by abandoning traditional lecturing in favor of active learning."

"Students find most of our classes - especially large lecture classes - extremely boring and (at least to some extent) obsolete. That's not the same as saying that we are all boring necessarily. I used to love listening to good history lectures when I was an undergraduate, but this is a new era"

I'm tempted to make one of those. Also seems like you could skip the mirror and flip w software pretty easily.

"This represents perhaps the most foundational of all the connections that Stephen Lehmkuhle and his colleagues have been steadily knitting together in Rochester: that between facts and ideas. Traditional college instruction-epitomized by the lecture-is largely a process of orally transmitting facts from the brain of a teacher to a student. It's a tremendously inefficient method-even harmful. UMR chemistry professor Rajeev Muthyala points to research finding that undergraduates often finish lecture-based introductory science classes with less expertise than when they started. They get worse."

"What do students most want from an online class? Connections. They want to develop relationships with the instructor, classmates, and the material. They want online learning to translate seamlessly from their computer to the lecture hall. In other words, to make it feel "real, like you are in the classroom." That's what instructors want, too"

"active learning feed" "active learning" "higher ed" "pedagogy" "lecture" "instructional strategies"

"Although massive open online courses (MOOCs) are seen to be, and are in fact designed to be, stand-alone online courses, their introduction to the higher education landscape has expanded the space of possibilities for blended course designs (those that combine online and face-to-face learning experiences). Instead of replacing courses at higher education institutions, could MOOCs enhance those courses? This paper reports one such exploration, in which a Stanford University Machine Learning MOOC was integrated into a graduate course in machine learning at Vanderbilt University during the Fall 2012 semester. The blended course design, which leveraged a MOOC course and platform for lecturing, grading, and discussion, enabled the Vanderbilt instructor to lead an overload course in a topic much desired by students. The study shows that while students regarded some elements of the course positively, they had concerns about the coupling of online and in-class components of this particular blended course design. Analysis of student and instructor reflections on the course suggests dimensions for characterizing blended course designs that incorporate MOOCs, either in whole or in part. Given the reported challenges in this case study of integrating a MOOC in its entirety in an on-campus course, the paper advocates for more complex forms of blended learning in which course materials are drawn from multiple MOOCs, as well as from other online sources."

"Holman also asked students to read "Sermons For Grumpy Campers," by Richard Felder, a graduate level professor who never lectured. In it, Felder describes his students grumbling that they hated group work and that it was his job to teach them, not the other way around. Holman's students said the complaints sounded like they came from kindergarteners or themselves and were amazed to find out the complainers were graduate level engineering students. "

"The best performing teacher in the whole system was a woman named Zenaida Tan. Up until that report, she was completely unheralded. The skills she possessed were invisible. Meanwhile, less important traits were measured on her evaluations (three times she was late to pick up students from recess). In part, Lemov is talking about the skill of herding cats. The master of cat herding senses when attention is about to wander, knows how fast to move a diverse group, senses the rhythm between lecturing and class participation, varies the emotional tone. This is a performance skill that surely is relevant beyond education. This raises an important point. As the economy changes, the skills required to thrive in it change, too, and it takes a while before these new skills are defined and acknowledged. For example, in today's loosely networked world, people with social courage have amazing value. Everyone goes to conferences and meets people, but some people invite six people to lunch afterward and follow up with four carefully tended friendships forevermore. Then they spend their lives connecting people across networks. People with social courage are extroverted in issuing invitations but introverted in conversation - willing to listen 70 percent of the time"

" "We don't have time to go to meetings in the center for teaching and learning," he says. "We have research to do.""

"Some may consider online learning to be the anti-classroom.  A rebellion against the chalkboard and the Blackboard in favor of virtual classrooms, avatars in sweater vests lecturing in a Charlie Brown monotone…  I simply look at it as a different kind of team approach to learning.  More opportunities for inputs.  If anything, it makes the scholarship more rigorous.  As both teachers and students, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hide behind airs of academia when the scholarship can be researched, published, evaluated and revised in a nano-second.  It makes educational leadership even more important when the skills necessary to synthesize information both in person and on line are changing, and changing quickly."

"I'd say the biggest observation I've come across in the last couple weeks, is that the online co-learning model breaks down the barriers of the traditional teacher/student relationship. Collaborating, sharing, and building ideas and understanding through open discuss instead bland lecture (here's the information, learn it, regurgitate it for a test). Creating the open platform to express ideas, and then expand upon them with easy reference to the information on the web (i.e., youtube videos, spotify, etc.). The responsibility then lies with each of us (student and teacher) to clearly express our meaning, intention, interpretation, and understanding of material, and back it up with an openness to build on criticism, and defend our viewpoint. And as we've discussed, they, the students, have full ownership of their work, so they may use it for future reference, when needed. In a way, it's like what Beethoven, Debussy, and punk rock have done with music. Each in their own right said, screw the "rules" I'm going to create the music I feel is necessary. The music inside me." h/t to Joyce