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The Professors’ Big Stage

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Barry MacKichan

Re: The Professors’ Big Stage

… Coming in at the tail of this (I have my mail program turned off most of the day), but I have a few comments.

I'm still trying to get my head around the concept of a "Socratic" course delivered through a remote, time-shifted medium. Is it virtual-Socratic? meta-Socratic? voyeur-Socratic?

Several courses in the math PhD program at Stanford had students paid to take official notes. It cost very little to Xerox these and save myself many hours. Some lectures were pretty useless, but I went for the sake of the ego of the lecturer. In a quarter course by Kunihiko Kodaira, I understood only two words; "theolem" and "ploof". But he was a very nice, earnest man, as well as a Fields Medal winner.

--Barry

On Mar 6, 2013, at 8:31 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

You see, I was picked up at Logan Airport by my old friend Michael Sandel, who teaches the famous Socratic, 1,000-student “Justice” course at Harvard, which is launching March 12 as the first humanities offering on the M.I.T.-Harvard edX online learning platform.

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Roger Critchlow-2

Re: The Professors’ Big Stage

Here's the MIT News version of the conference Friedman attended, http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/edx-summit-0306.html, via ACM TechNews.

-- rec --

On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Barry MacKichan <[hidden email]> wrote:

… Coming in at the tail of this (I have my mail program turned off most of the day), but I have a few comments.

I'm still trying to get my head around the concept of a "Socratic" course delivered through a remote, time-shifted medium. Is it virtual-Socratic? meta-Socratic? voyeur-Socratic?

Several courses in the math PhD program at Stanford had students paid to take official notes. It cost very little to Xerox these and save myself many hours. Some lectures were pretty useless, but I went for the sake of the ego of the lecturer. In a quarter course by Kunihiko Kodaira, I understood only two words; "theolem" and "ploof". But he was a very nice, earnest man, as well as a Fields Medal winner.

--Barry

On Mar 6, 2013, at 8:31 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

You see, I was picked up at Logan Airport by my old friend Michael Sandel, who teaches the famous Socratic, 1,000-student “Justice” course at Harvard, which is launching March 12 as the first humanities offering on the M.I.T.-Harvard edX online learning platform.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Nick Thompson

Re: The Professors' Big Stage

In reply to this post by Barry MacKichan

I share your questions, enjoyed your anecdote and wondered about what you learned from your fellow students in your own situation.

FRom: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Barry MacKichan
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 10:02 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Professors’ Big Stage

… Coming in at the tail of this (I have my mail program turned off most of the day), but I have a few comments.

I'm still trying to get my head around the concept of a "Socratic" course delivered through a remote, time-shifted medium. Is it virtual-Socratic? meta-Socratic? voyeur-Socratic?

--Barry

On Mar 6, 2013, at 8:31 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

You see, I was picked up at Logan Airport by my old friend Michael Sandel, who teaches the famous Socratic, 1,000-student “Justice” course at Harvard, which is launching March 12 as the first humanities offering on the M.I.T.-Harvard edX online learning platform.

Owen Densmore

Re: The Professors' Big Stage

Administrator

In reply to this post by Curt McNamara

+1. One of them being scottie's which I liked due to being so wide in breadth of "modeling". But the Machine Learning (Coursera Prof Ng) was unbelievable. The way they used MatLab/Octave in guided programming problems was superb, I had never seen that technique before.

I'm signed up for the Sandel course because I followed his earlier video sessions and wonder how in the world he's going to do the same thing in a MOOC.

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

-- Owen

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Curt McNamara <[hidden email]> wrote:

Just curious - how many of you have actually signed up for and completed a MOOC?

If the answer is not yet, then consider jumping onto Scott Pages excellent model thinking course that is just starting.

Curt

https://www.coursera.org/course/modelthinking

On Mar 7, 2013 6:19 PM, "glen" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I only had 2 years of very large lectures freshman and sophomore years
of college. My k12 and the rest of college consisted mostly of your
(2), varying degrees of personal relationships with teachers.

My (3) was limited because I'm a kook and don't play well with others.
But the few peers I did interact with became lifelong teachers to me.
I'm still friends with most of them.

Frankly, I get very little out of lectures. If it's not interactive and
exploratory, it's largely wasted on me. The only reason I survived my
1st two college years was because my high school classes covered much of
that material and I was too chicken to try to test out of those classes.
There was a horrifying bridge period the second half of my second year
in college and much of my third year that tested my resolve. I did very
poorly. Then it picked up quite a bit when I started taking classes
where thought was valued over testing skills.

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 03/07/2013 04:03 PM:
> I am curious to know what the folks on this list think an education
> consists in. For me, it consisted in
>
> (1) Many large lectures of which most were stultifying beyond
> belief, but of which a few were inspiring.
>
> (2) A few settings where I made direct contact with professors (or
> good TA;s) and was taught how to do stuff and my work was critiqued in
> meaningful ways.
>
> (3) Many, many interactions with very smart peers in which they
> taught me and I got to try my ideas out on them.
>
>
>
> Was your experience different from that?

--
=><= glen e. p. ropella
I came up from the ground, i came down from the sky,

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Nick Thompson

Re: The Professors' Big Stage

Owen,

I didn’t follow the following:

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

You are WAY more sophisticated about MOOCKY things than I am. And all I brought to bear was my personal history, in which face to face and peer-to-peer education was pretty important and in which large lectures … except for providing flashes of inspiration and a place to dose and smoke – didn’t do me much good. As for philosophy, the more I read and work with philosophers, the more I realize how little I grasp of it. To qualify as any kind of representative of philosophy, I now see that I would have to read Kant, and I know I am just too old to do that. So, I reject your implication that you an innocent adrift in a complex world of my creation.

I do know that I believe in the educative power of irony, and there is something deeply ironic about our discussing the transformative power of MOOOOCKs in higher education in the coffee shop of anAmerican educational institution so ferociously committed to face-to-face education that they put TWO tutors in each seminar. The biographical information that this conversation has revealed has been fascinating to me, and I would like to hear more of it. What about your educational biography? I would love for this conversation to go on.

Nick

PS, I was going to say, “Don’t make a MOOCKERY of higher education!” But, you notice, I didn’t. N

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 10:15 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Professors' Big Stage

I'm signed up for the Sandel course because I followed his earlier video sessions and wonder how in the world he's going to do the same thing in a MOOC.

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

-- Owen

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Curt McNamara <[hidden email]> wrote:

Just curious - how many of you have actually signed up for and completed a MOOC?

If the answer is not yet, then consider jumping onto Scott Pages excellent model thinking course that is just starting.

Curt

https://www.coursera.org/course/modelthinking

On Mar 7, 2013 6:19 PM, "glen" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I only had 2 years of very large lectures freshman and sophomore years
of college. My k12 and the rest of college consisted mostly of your
(2), varying degrees of personal relationships with teachers.

My (3) was limited because I'm a kook and don't play well with others.
But the few peers I did interact with became lifelong teachers to me.
I'm still friends with most of them.

Frankly, I get very little out of lectures. If it's not interactive and
exploratory, it's largely wasted on me. The only reason I survived my
1st two college years was because my high school classes covered much of
that material and I was too chicken to try to test out of those classes.
There was a horrifying bridge period the second half of my second year
in college and much of my third year that tested my resolve. I did very
poorly. Then it picked up quite a bit when I started taking classes
where thought was valued over testing skills.

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 03/07/2013 04:03 PM:

> I am curious to know what the folks on this list think an education
> consists in. For me, it consisted in
>
> (1) Many large lectures of which most were stultifying beyond
> belief, but of which a few were inspiring.
>
> (2) A few settings where I made direct contact with professors (or
> good TA;s) and was taught how to do stuff and my work was critiqued in
> meaningful ways.
>
> (3) Many, many interactions with very smart peers in which they
> taught me and I got to try my ideas out on them.
>
>
>
> Was your experience different from that?

--
=><= glen e. p. ropella
I came up from the ground, i came down from the sky,

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Owen Densmore

Re: The Professors' Big Stage

Administrator

Oops, not enough coffee to be clear, sorry!

No mockery intended, just an invitation to take the course with me and chat about it. We've often had difficulty in things philosophic, and this would maybe be fun when we are discussing same material even though differing very much in background in philosophy.

-- Owen

On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Owen,

I didn’t follow the following:

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

You are WAY more sophisticated about MOOCKY things than I am. And all I brought to bear was my personal history, in which face to face and peer-to-peer education was pretty important and in which large lectures … except for providing flashes of inspiration and a place to dose and smoke – didn’t do me much good. As for philosophy, the more I read and work with philosophers, the more I realize how little I grasp of it. To qualify as any kind of representative of philosophy, I now see that I would have to read Kant, and I know I am just too old to do that. So, I reject your implication that you an innocent adrift in a complex world of my creation.

I do know that I believe in the educative power of irony, and there is something deeply ironic about our discussing the transformative power of MOOOOCKs in higher education in the coffee shop of anAmerican educational institution so ferociously committed to face-to-face education that they put TWO tutors in each seminar. The biographical information that this conversation has revealed has been fascinating to me, and I would like to hear more of it. What about your educational biography? I would love for this conversation to go on.

Nick

PS, I was going to say, “Don’t make a MOOCKERY of higher education!” But, you notice, I didn’t. N

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 10:15 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Professors' Big Stage

+1. One of them being scottie's which I liked due to being so wide in breadth of "modeling". But the Machine Learning (Coursera Prof Ng) was unbelievable. The way they used MatLab/Octave in guided programming problems was superb, I had never seen that technique before.

I'm signed up for the Sandel course because I followed his earlier video sessions and wonder how in the world he's going to do the same thing in a MOOC.

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

-- Owen

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Curt McNamara <[hidden email]> wrote:
Just curious - how many of you have actually signed up for and completed a MOOC?

If the answer is not yet, then consider jumping onto Scott Pages excellent model thinking course that is just starting.
Curt
https://www.coursera.org/course/modelthinking

On Mar 7, 2013 6:19 PM, "glen" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I only had 2 years of very large lectures freshman and sophomore years
of college. My k12 and the rest of college consisted mostly of your
(2), varying degrees of personal relationships with teachers.

My (3) was limited because I'm a kook and don't play well with others.
But the few peers I did interact with became lifelong teachers to me.
I'm still friends with most of them.

Frankly, I get very little out of lectures. If it's not interactive and
exploratory, it's largely wasted on me. The only reason I survived my
1st two college years was because my high school classes covered much of
that material and I was too chicken to try to test out of those classes.
There was a horrifying bridge period the second half of my second year
in college and much of my third year that tested my resolve. I did very
poorly. Then it picked up quite a bit when I started taking classes
where thought was valued over testing skills.

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 03/07/2013 04:03 PM:
> I am curious to know what the folks on this list think an education
> consists in. For me, it consisted in
>
> (1) Many large lectures of which most were stultifying beyond
> belief, but of which a few were inspiring.
>
> (2) A few settings where I made direct contact with professors (or
> good TA;s) and was taught how to do stuff and my work was critiqued in
> meaningful ways.
>
> (3) Many, many interactions with very smart peers in which they
> taught me and I got to try my ideas out on them.
>
>
>
> Was your experience different from that?

--
=><= glen e. p. ropella
I came up from the ground, i came down from the sky,

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Nick Thompson

Re: The Professors' Big Stage

Oh, Owen, what a wonderful and kindly idea! I think this might be, actually, an excellent way to re-invent the Coffee House Seminars. To make them the peer-to-peer/face-to-face component of one of these lecture series.

But I know I am not going to do it in the near future. Too much else going on, and the tide is already going out on the “semester”. I don’t want to leave a lot of boats stranded. Soon, I will be back in Massachusetts for the summer.

So, an excellent and generous thought, but one I will have to defer.

What about face-to-face and peer-to-peer in your higher education?

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 11:30 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Professors' Big Stage

Oops, not enough coffee to be clear, sorry!

-- Owen

On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Owen,

I didn’t follow the following:

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

Nick

PS, I was going to say, “Don’t make a MOOCKERY of higher education!” But, you notice, I didn’t. N

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 10:15 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Professors' Big Stage

I'm signed up for the Sandel course because I followed his earlier video sessions and wonder how in the world he's going to do the same thing in a MOOC.

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

-- Owen

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Curt McNamara <[hidden email]> wrote:

Just curious - how many of you have actually signed up for and completed a MOOC?

If the answer is not yet, then consider jumping onto Scott Pages excellent model thinking course that is just starting.

Curt

https://www.coursera.org/course/modelthinking

On Mar 7, 2013 6:19 PM, "glen" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Russ Abbott

Re: The Professors' Big Stage

Owen, based on the preview on the course website it looks like the course will be a rerun of the TV series with some interactive stuff layered on top.

Will I be able to participate in class discussions?
Yes, in several ways:

Each lecture invites you to respond to a poll question related to the themes of the lecture. If you respond to the question, you will be presented with a challenge to the opinion you have expressed, and invited to reply to the challenge. You can also, if you wish, comment on the opinions and responses posted by other students in the course, continuing the discussion.

In addition to the poll question, each class contains a discussion prompt that invites you to offer your view on a controversial question related to the lecture. If you wish, you can respond to this question, and then see what other students have to say about the argument you present. You can also comment on the opinions posted by other students. One aim of the course is to promote reasoned public dialogue about hard moral and political questions.

Each week, there will be an optional live dialogue enabling students to interact with instructors and participants from around the world.

No doubt about it, the TV series was wonderful. I doubt that the MOOC version will be significantly different, though.

-- Russ

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________

Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: ssrn.com/abstract=1977688
Google voice: 747-999-5105

Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/

vita: sites.google.com/site/russabbott/

CS Wiki and the courses I teach
_____________________________________________

On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Oh, Owen, what a wonderful and kindly idea! I think this might be, actually, an excellent way to re-invent the Coffee House Seminars. To make them the peer-to-peer/face-to-face component of one of these lecture series.

But I know I am not going to do it in the near future.   Too much else going on, and the tide is already going out on the “semester”. I don’t want to leave a lot of boats stranded.   Soon, I will be back in Massachusetts for the summer.

So, an excellent and generous thought, but one I will have to defer.

What about face-to-face and peer-to-peer in your higher education?

N

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 11:30 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Professors' Big Stage

Oops, not enough coffee to be clear, sorry!

No mockery intended, just an invitation to take the course with me and chat about it. We've often had difficulty in things philosophic, and this would maybe be fun when we are discussing same material even though differing very much in background in philosophy.

-- Owen

On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Owen,

I didn’t follow the following:

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

You are WAY more sophisticated about MOOCKY things than I am. And all I brought to bear was my personal history, in which face to face and peer-to-peer education was pretty important and in which large lectures … except for providing flashes of inspiration and a place to dose and smoke – didn’t do me much good. As for philosophy, the more I read and work with philosophers, the more I realize how little I grasp of it. To qualify as any kind of representative of philosophy, I now see that I would have to read Kant, and I know I am just too old to do that.   So, I reject your implication that you an innocent adrift in a complex world of my creation.

I do know that I believe in the educative power of irony, and there is something deeply ironic about our discussing the transformative power of MOOOOCKs in higher education in the coffee shop of anAmerican educational institution so ferociously committed to face-to-face education that they put TWO tutors in each seminar. The biographical information that this conversation has revealed has been fascinating to me, and I would like to hear more of it. What about your educational biography? I would love for this conversation to go on.

Nick

PS, I was going to say, “Don’t make a MOOCKERY of higher education!” But, you notice, I didn’t. N

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 10:15 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Professors' Big Stage

+1. One of them being scottie's which I liked due to being so wide in breadth of "modeling". But the Machine Learning (Coursera Prof Ng) was unbelievable. The way they used MatLab/Octave in guided programming problems was superb, I had never seen that technique before.

I'm signed up for the Sandel course because I followed his earlier video sessions and wonder how in the world he's going to do the same thing in a MOOC.

Oh, and to also challenge Nick in a philosophic conversation wherein he brings his background to the topic and me my naiveté.

-- Owen

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Curt McNamara <[hidden email]> wrote:
Just curious - how many of you have actually signed up for and completed a MOOC?

If the answer is not yet, then consider jumping onto Scott Pages excellent model thinking course that is just starting.
    Curt
https://www.coursera.org/course/modelthinking

On Mar 7, 2013 6:19 PM, "glen" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I only had 2 years of very large lectures freshman and sophomore years
of college. My k12 and the rest of college consisted mostly of your
(2), varying degrees of personal relationships with teachers.

My (3) was limited because I'm a kook and don't play well with others.
But the few peers I did interact with became lifelong teachers to me.
I'm still friends with most of them.

Frankly, I get very little out of lectures. If it's not interactive and
exploratory, it's largely wasted on me. The only reason I survived my
1st two college years was because my high school classes covered much of
that material and I was too chicken to try to test out of those classes.
There was a horrifying bridge period the second half of my second year
in college and much of my third year that tested my resolve. I did very
poorly. Then it picked up quite a bit when I started taking classes
where thought was valued over testing skills.

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 03/07/2013 04:03 PM:
> I am curious to know what the folks on this list think an education
> consists in. For me, it consisted in
>
> (1) Many large lectures of which most were stultifying beyond
> belief, but of which a few were inspiring.
>
> (2) A few settings where I made direct contact with professors (or
> good TA;s) and was taught how to do stuff and my work was critiqued in
> meaningful ways.
>
> (3) Many, many interactions with very smart peers in which they
> taught me and I got to try my ideas out on them.
>
>
>
> Was your experience different from that?

--
=><= glen e. p. ropella
I came up from the ground, i came down from the sky,

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Arlo Barnes

Re: The Professors' Big Stage

I was at the Santa Fe Institute on Friday, where they were filming for Melanie Mitchell's MOOC.
Also, I have been getting into MOOs a bit lately, and noticed many were set up partially or fully for educational purposes; has anyone here some experience with how well they worked? Wikipedia lists the precursors of MOOCs (not to be confused with Mooks) as things like Khan Academy, so more recent endeavors.
-Arlo James Barnes