Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand!

For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise.

The worst part is that you have to spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week like this and then you still need to find online materials to actually learn the thing. Some people have to work too.

Did I mention 2 hours of commute time every day?

Ok. That's a win for remote.

Now my turn: how easy is it to gauge the mood of your entire class, turn to the person next to you and whisper a question or look at their notes? Go for coffee with classmates afterwards to discuss? Pull the lecturer aside or knock on their door later that day if you're stuck? Meet older students and grad students who can help you and inspire you?

People made the same "it's the future" argument for remote education when MOOCs launched. PG argues that uni's will still survive because they are certificate authorities. Both are wrong.

Peer learning is where it's at. And it's being immersed in that environment 24/7 that makes universities such special places. The learning goes beyond your set classes too - it's social, physical, it's relationships, it's hobbies and past-times and networks that will be the foundation of your identity and your life.

What we're talking about is that vs yet another Zoom call.

Unfortunately, class time is generally largely spent observing lecture, and the real meat of the learning is generally spent alone in a high latency environment (with feedback available via email or forums). I don't like going to class just to watch a video, and going home just to do problems out of a book (by myself), and that has been my experience so far.

Person next to you has the same low quality notes you do. In my group we designated a single person to take notes and after the class you just snapped a photo, since no other materials were provided. Other people were listening and trying to understand the subject. Taking notes is distracting you from learning.

Making friends in a class of 100-200 people is hard. My friend went to a Berlin university. You are just a number there. I find it much easier to engage in a discussion using a forum.

> Meet older students

How do you approach them? You have no idea who they are. You are never in class with them. University is basically the same model as high school here. You are not picking subjects or classes, you have to follow a script. You only meet students of your year.

There are some sorts of after hours interest circles, but they start after your 6 hours of learning.

Peer learning can also be done online or after an online course.

The good parts of university are the ones that can be done outside of it, hence there's no need to visit the building at all.

Imagine learning history interactively. Don't just read about Julius Caesar being stabbed, why not stab him yourself?

You could explore physics in a sandbox environment. Learn geography by going there. Practice theater by performing.

Grabbing a cup of coffee is fun but so is hopping into a game of virtual paintball.

Also think of all the odd physics demonstrations and I'm not sure they really often enhanced my knowledge more than a gif would of especially versus the expense. Does anyone know of any research around this area?

Being around a group of people is easily 20x more stimulating to me than any VR experience I’ve had, and I’ve experience the state of the art in VR. Spending day after day, year after year, going to classes with the same group of peers was very socially validating and helped me be more engaged with my time at school.

I imagine K-12 Remote learning is hesitant to do that so as to not lose control of the messaging. The teacher has enough burden to make sure their lesson is communicated effectively; that moderating a realtime chat is just not possible.

From my own anecdotal experience with my kids, I have one is super hesitant to stick their neck out and participate where the whole group can see (either on video, or embarrassed for asking too many questions), where this model might bring more anxiety.

This is frustratingly not an easy problem to solve.

My wife is a professor.

What you say is true for some students. But for some students it appears that paying attention is much harder when it is a video vs the same material presented in a live lecture. I can't fully explain it, but "I struggle to pay attention to video lectures" is a surprisingly common response from people who have been strong students in prior years.

I'd say superiority mostly comes down to the quality of the instruction — clarity, good organization of fundamentals, then broad and deep enumeration of concepts that build meaningfully on those fundamentals. In my experience, few professors value teaching enough to master it. When one does, I'd very much like to be able to attend such a lecture.

Maybe the best of both worlds is to deliberately supplement primary content with outstanding reference material like Kahn Academy or Three Blue One Brown. Being able to drill down on difficult concepts from multiple perspectives is often a great way to resolve obstructions in any kind of teaching method.

People shouldn't just accept this sort of thing as normal. You're paying (in the US or UK anyway) a lot of money for a degree level education. That means it needs to be fit for purpose, and if you're not learning then it isn't. You need to stop the lecturer and ask them to go over the point you didn't understand, or ask for additional time after the lab, or at a push, make a complaint to the course leader that the lecturer isn't teaching you well enough.

Learning to stand up for yourself and ask for what you need is a big part of the university experience.

> People shouldn't just accept this sort of thing as normal

It's not "normal", but it's the norm. It's not the fault of the professors, because the truth is they should not teach in the first place, but the education system requires them to.

> make a complaint to the course leader that the lecturer isn't teaching you well enough.

There's no such thing here as the course leader. Most of the time you have a prof. responsible for the theory and another one for the practice.

You can complain to the dean (what multiple students did), but there's no replacement or no one cares.

I don't want to put any blame on the teachers here. I see this as a systemic issue.

If the people of your country are gifting you free education, you have even a higher responsibility to ensure that their efforts are not wasted.

You're not graded on standing up for yourself.

In this area universities are not different from standing in line or negotiating a job offer.

I foresee this strategy ending badly for a number of professors I've had.

1) I can’t ask questions - dynamically engaging with the material during the lecture is far more important for retention than making a perfect set of notes so not having that engagement really reduces your learning.

2) attention span / investment - taking notes amongst your peers who are also doing the same is easier and more enjoyable than doing the same on your own, something that is easier to do takes less of my mental energy which is my most precious resource when I’m trying to actually learn.

3) lack of peer interaction - most of the learning experience that is really beneficial long term isn’t about you having 100% recall on demand of every detail you were taught but how to use the ideas to solve actual problems. Much of that comes through practice and experimentation with your peers, which simply doesn’t work via zoom.

However, I'd agree that lack of dynamic peer interaction is a big problem with video-based instruction that hasn't yet been fixed. I've seen attempts to address this like Piazza where students can post questions or answer others', but text-based forums lack graphical or temporal cues that many concept demand. Maybe some sort of multiuser video supplement might help, where the question poser could snip the time mark of a puzzling section from the lecture or an illustration from another video and refer to it in source so others could visualize with a click the point being asked?

That's never been the case in any of my lab classes from multiple departments. The whole reason you have TAs is so you can ask questions constantly and get instant feedback. Stuck on something during a lab? Flag down the TA and they will set you right. Drop your test tube full of precurser during organic chemistry lab on the floor? No worries, the TA appears moments later with an aliquot of precurser to give you so you can proceed with the lab exercise. Motion detector not working during physics lab? The TA gives you a new one out of the equipment closet or helps you troubleshoot the lab software.

I actually taught a remote version of a lab class this semester and it was horrible. You can't learn lab techniques by watching videos and slideshows or using various virtual lab simulation programs; you gotta get your hands on these things. You wouldn't know how finicky a western blot is until you've accidentally ripped your gel cracking it out of the precast case trying to transfer it to your membrane; all you get on the virtual format is 'be careful,' rather than training sufficient to start work in a research lab immediately.

You forgot to mention the most important thing -- the ability to change the playback speed to create the "cognitive load" level engaging for you. This chrome plugin has been a tremendously useful for my learning https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro... Video speed control during playback is like a impedance-matching transformer between the "bitrate" of the lecturer and the listener.

But is that the default, common experience? I'm asking seriously: I finished my bachelor's 30 years ago and my master's 15 years ago and that has never been my experience.

Our professors were actual people we talked and interacted with, even the boring ones. And they made an effort to teach. Now, I didn't go to a huge "research" university, where I hear it's common to get profs who have no interest in teaching, but what you describe isn't remotely like what I encountered.

Chances are you will have a similar experience. I'm not speaking about a single professor. I'm speaking about 9 out of 10. I'm not blaming professors tough.

My friends have similar experience at other universities in Poland. Friends who went to German universities have a completely different experience. They actually use some LMS, provide online recordings of the classes and spend 1/3rd of the time at university.

> Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind.

It's not an awful experience, in fact, you can often ask questions during or after lectures. It also has the benefit of being similar to the stage of life you just came from (high school, for most students), so you're not switching to a different mode of learning.

> For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise.

All labs sessions I've had always had a TA present. I've gotten countless help from the TAs during lab sessions. The only times they're not there is if you start early or stay late and they've left. TAs also lead discussion sections. In general they are a huge help and it's their job to help students because a professor can't always be there.

> The worst part is that you have to spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week like this and then you still need to find online materials to actually learn the thing. Some people have to work too.

This is simply false. I was a full time student and took a full 15+ units per quarter (which is more than average) and it was barely 2-3 hours of lecture a day on average over 5 days, plus ~1 hour of discussion section per day on average. Most of the rest of time is intended to be for homeworks, studying, lab sessions, etc.

Maybe I'm too old and times were different, but we've never had to find online materials to accompany anything we learned over classes, in all of my classes (computer science or others). Everything we needed was included in textbooks, notes from the professor, or discussed in lectures/classes. Also, I know I might be of the minority opinion here, but I actually did find much of the knowledge from computer science classes helpful for future work (been a software engineer for 15 yerars now).

> Did I mention 2 hours of commute time every day?

I don't know what it's like outside the US, but in the US it's common for students graduating high school and going to college to leave their hometown and rent an apartment in their new college town. Commutes are typically under 15 minutes by bike/walk/bus in my college town. You could live literally in any part of that (small) city and be within 15 minutes from campus one way or another.

Purely online courses have large failure rates - even when students pay and are comparable to in person ones. For whatever reason, people do better in person course and do badly in online ones.

> Pretty much everyone is eager to get back to normal, and I'm fairly confident that this is exactly what is going to happen.

There's no substitute for in-person education. For years, I heard from the online education cheerleaders that online can be better. Online can be a quality experience, but you can't build the same relationships, develop the same comfort with asking questions, or deliver the same set of intangibles in an online setting.

That said, I think hybrid classes are probably better. Some material is better taught in an async fashion. The big limitation of in-person education is that you have no choice but to schedule a fixed block of time for meetings. The flexibility of async means students can go through certain types of material at the right pace for themselves.

> it seems that startups like edX, Coursera, etc. have not really been successes

These options aren't university classes. They're the next generation of textbooks.

Back in 2000/2001, my high school was experimenting with Cisco classes. We did modules online, but the teacher was in the room to answer any questions and to oversee projects as we networked servers together, etc.

It was great! I remember thinking this was the way all education should be done, and that it was inevitable that it would become the standard.

I don't know that I still consider it inevitable, but it worked well.

Contrast that to my experience in university... the endless lecture halls, overpriced text books, and emphasis on memorization over understanding. Absurd.

Equally absurd: Online courses. I'm big on self-directed learning, but the problem with online courses is that you're on your own. This is a problem when you run into subjects where you don't even know what it is that you don't know. (You can only Google for solutions if you know what to Google in the first place.)

So I like the idea of the hybrid model: Let the student take the lead, provide all the online tools needed, but do so in a supportive environment where problems can be troubleshot immediately with a teacher.

Totally off topic, but if students were already paying $300 for a paper calculus book, I shudder to think of the extortion we'll see over the virtual, multimedia,cloud-optimized, probably-built-in-Adobe-Flash monstrosity that will be the "next generation of textbooks".

Online only, there would be no avoiding those mandatory fees. Libraries don't have homework codes on reserve.

Based on the experience of teaching this semester by multiple colleagues, the problem, of course, is that students will not consume that material at all. If you try to do short quizzes to ensure they watched it, they will cheat, or just take the grade penalty.

The problem with online is that the the modicum of shame present in offline classes that forces them to pay some attention, is almost completely gone.

In education, fear of failing your in front of your peers or teachers is a strong motivator for most people. It is a positive thing in most such cases.

> "why uninterested parties in X took the subject"

As for this, it is known, that sometimes in life we have to beneficial things that we hate. Like washing the dishes. We are not "basing our educational system on it", but part of it will often be beneficial+uninteresting.

School system that assumes that everyone is perfectly motivated, organized and disciplined at all times will fail a lot.

Second, many people are motivated by social contact with other people who do the same thing. By both competition and mutual help. That is again quite normal for humans and these people will find watching videos more boring.

I can only imagine how people think fully remote learning will work long term, without an overhaul in how our education system is structured (does everyone need to know algebra 2 or how to balance chemical reactions?)

Yes, professors don't usually TAKE attendance but they do make a big fuss when they notice half the class missing even if it's because the other half of class watches the lectures on their own time.

>> From what I can tell, there's very little enthusiasm for online education, on the part of either professors or students.

This isnt surprising -- you are probably polling people inside the system -- what about the many more people who cant join the system? I'll bet they have a very different opinion.

The US educational system, especially graduate education, is a game of money. Even those graduate students who are on grants are only the lucky ones who don't have sufficiently large family obligations to fulfill and can therefore stay on a graduate grant. Think of how many people need to work at their parents' shop, have to take care of a grandparent, sick elderly parents at home, those who are also caring for younger siblings, those w/o sufficient disposable income to sit around at quads sipping lattes.

Consider all the people who couldn't pay to play that game. I'm sure they would love an alternative.

Also consider the opposite problem -- people with money who do not want to take off two years (without income) to get a graduate degree, or worse, move their families to one of several key cities with top universities. They would also like an alternative that is mostly remote.

I think it's really unlikely there are a whole lot of geniuses for whom school, "just doesn't work". I've met a lot of people who think of themselves like this, and honestly, they're usually just stupid or lazy. High achievers figure out ways to take advantage of the systems that are in place, they don't admit defeat and blame "the system" for their failure.

A remote graduate program with evening classes works for a lot of people. A program where you need to commute into the city, commute back late at night after group meetings, or change cities all-together is just not practical for all but the wealthiest individuals (those who can afford 18hr nannies).

Those who aren't wealthy enough to do that aren't stupid or lazy, they are just lacking wealth.

Consider also that hundreds of millions of people live within un-commuteable distance to a university. They aren't stupid or lazy -- they are just unlucky -- they happened to grow up or settle in a particular area.

I've been in OMSCS for almost 5 years now. I can assuredly say that remote university education works incredibly well. Even better than in person in many respects. Not only that, but I truly believe it is vital to ensuring equal access to high quality education.

The current university system with 5% acceptance rates, 40k / year college fees, is untenable and just exacerbates class division. It's an antiquated system, and the move to fully remote degrees can't happen soon enough.

If a school chooses any of say teachers / projects / learning material sub-optimally, why should a student need to suffer through?

Taking a look at 3blue1brown video comments, you see many students expressing that their tuition paid professor had failed them and they didn't truly have an intuition for the topic until after watching the 3blue1brown video.

Ideally, a decentralized model surfaces the best to the top so that everyone can learn from, and the creators be rewarded as such.

Beyond that, the new model should do away with timed blocks in favor of true self pacing. This accommodates people with limited time, handles emergencies well, and enables quick learners to accelerate their path without any special permissions required.

The platform should be as 'hands off' as possible, providing only the connections between the creators, tutors, certifiers, students, and recruiters.

It should have no admissions process, and ideally be free. Traditional colleges do a lot of gatekeeping. Education should be accessible to anyone. Let students pursue education, regardless of their presumed 'chance of success', or financial status.

First, what's OMSCS? Could you supply a bit more detail rather than just "have you heard of it"? What is it? What's good about it?

Second, 5% acceptance rates are not typical of "the current university system". That's only a few "elite" schools. 40k/year may be more typical, but you can easily find less than half that.

Pros:

- video lectures are generally pretty polished, and include animations and other visual aids to help build intuition

- the course material is mostly high quality. this is the same material that on-site graduate students are presented, and the graded projects are challenging.

- there is opportunity to interact with other students and TAs: online message board, video office hours, unofficial Slack, etc.

- flexible enough to schedule around a full-time job

- inexpensive compared to in-person programs (the entire program with 10 courses is $7-$8k)

Cons:

- quality of materials, TAs, and organization can vary from course to course and term to term

- harder to build relationships / network than in-person programs

- it's course-based by default. you can pursue a research-based degree but it's nonstandard.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tech_Online_Master_of_...

I'd say compared to my undergrad, the teaching quality is overall better. Which makes sense, since pedagogy is much more of a deliberate focus for OMSCS. I think this is a big advantage to online programs actually. There are definitely some rough patches, but the program is still young, and constantly improving.

Networking is much better too in my opinion, compared to my undergrad - you are in a class with full time professionals in a wide range of companies and industries - from software engineers to execs. There are many opportunities for networking. You do need to be involved in Slack/Piazza though, which takes time.

Becoming a TA is also the path to getting involved in research and even going into a PhD program after OMSCS. Very few people do this as it is a very large time commitment - but it is possible and professors generally are open to it.

Follow-up question: How hard is it to get into? Are there restrictions on how many students can take each class?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzMVEbs8Zz0

Also link to reddit discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/ihf7w6/acceptance_ra...

The large group lectures I've always felt were a waste of time. The lecturers just explain what's in the book anyway and most of them, except for a few natural talents, are boring as hell. And I always felt I read faster then they speak.

Most university lecturers hardly get educated in how to teach, and most of them also don't care, the consider it the duty of the student to pay attention. A lot of time and money could be saved to move many of the standard curriculum to a online video / textbook course.

I feel like the true value is in the smaller work groups where one gets direct feedback on your work. This is something that the online universities are not able to recreate. And of course making friends, discussing, building a network, having time to think, sports, hanging out.

So a hybrid might improve the quality of the courses while giving a chance to optimize the offline experience.

That said tutorials and labs being in person were pretty essential, I wouldn't have liked to do that remotely.

Probably a combination that varies for different people is the best.

This inertia naturally causes some friction against the trajectory towards remote education- but not yet to the level of putting up a fight. But expect this conflict deepen just as it has with news media, as the financial foundation of traditional educational systems slowly erodes in favor of the (coming) much more flexible and cheaper online systems.

My perspective from talking to younger people (I haven't been a student for decades) is that traditional classrooms were better for some learning styles than others. Inverted classrooms are better for some students that had trouble with the normal approach, but are worse for students who thrived under the normal approach. It's not a clear net win in terms of "helping more people".

But that's my experience from talking to a very small sample. Do you have an opinion?

In what way are you measuring success here? They have not replaced traditional education/colleges but its very likely that a larger percentage of the people on this site have purchased and learned something from a online technical course.

This is probably true from a faculty and student position. However, as an IT person for a university, nothing would get me to quit faster than being forced back into the office. I would leave this job in a heartbeat and go make WAAAAAAY more working a remote job in industry. Given current hiring freezes, budget shortfalls, and low, uncompetitive salary ranges, I don't think universities are in a position to lose many IT personnel.

I'm not the only staff member who thinks this. Universities should prepare for a mass staff exodus if they try to get us back on campus.

US colleges have been moving from a learning experience towards a social experience build on to of learning (see, for example, https://www.nber.org/papers/w18745).

My university was in person last fall but classes mostly online, students still socialized (e.g., partied) even if health recommendations were strongly recommend against it.

That is, allow students to have a discussion with the professor to see if they know the test material. If so, "great, here's your grade". Same with entire semester classes ("great, here's your 3 credits").

Would the ability to take an exam without sitting the course satisfy you?

The latter comparison might end up being a distinction without a difference, as far as grading goes. But, were I the professor, I'd be interested to see how many of my students are understanding the material on a holistic level. This is my bias, though, because I'm way more interested in knowing why something occurred (and its relationship to other events) vs that it occurred on [insert date] and involved [insert individuals].