The Chronicle Blogger

February 13th, 2008

OpenCourseWare is no substitute for lectures, students say

As students become increasingly busier and as more students overload with courses, I expected to encounter more people who would welcome the idea that Duke might be offering online courses. That wasn’t the case. Instead, students and professors tended to lean more favorably toward a Duke version of OpenCourseWare but wane away from full courses on the Web.

In an e-mail, Steve Carson, external relations director for OpenCourseWare, said OCW is not distance learning.

“MIT published the course materials precisely because they felt online courses couldn’t represent the MIT learning experience,” he said. “The materials are offered as tools for other educators, for students and for independent learners. But they are not offered as courses–they are course materials.”

MIT sophomore Mason Tang said OpenCourseWare has two benefits.

“I really love OCW myself and I know a lot of kids here love it,” he said. “It’s great publicity for the school here, and people all over the world use it–it’s just as outward facing as it is inward facing.”

Peter Bang, a freshman who took Economics 51 last semester, said having the lectures online does not function as a substitute for class.

“The lectures are there, it’s probably the same thing as going to the class and sitting there listening to the lecture itself,” he said. “But most people probably think, ‘Oh if I miss this lecture I could just watch it online.’”

Even in big lectures, economics professor Connel Fullenkamp said he takes cues from students’ reactions and facial expressions as to when he should clarify or explain a concept.

“There’s something about having an instructor who is there, it kind of keeps you honest about the process,” he said. “Students will read a set of notes and say, ‘Yeah I got it.’ But then someone comes and asks them active questions about it and you realize maybe they don’t really get it that much.”

Some students like freshman Katherine Xu said they learn just from being listeners in class.

“I’m not an active participant in lectures, but it helps when someone else asks a question that I have too,” she said.

Visit http://ocw.mit.edu/ for more information on MIT’s OpenCourseWare or to access the public course materials.

-Emmeline Zhao

cost xanax of

In Europe, 30–40 per cent of internet access is via cost xanax of .

cheap consultation doctor free xanax

The cheap consultation doctor free xanax is often called cheap consultation doctor free xanax Screen (if counting cinema, TV and PC screens as the first three) or Third Screen (counting only TV and PC screens).

dosage xanax cat calculate

The first commercial citywide cellular network was launched in Japan by NTT in 1979.

xanax buy bars

For example in xanax buy bars it is not unusual to have your whole paycheck paid to the mobile account.

and mouth xanax in bad taste

The rapid adoption of and mouth xanax in bad taste has resulted in the intrusion of telephony into situations where this was previously not known.

2mg by xanax check pay electronic

8 billion users generated $80 billion of revenue in 2006 (source ITU).

prescrption a xanax without

These phones may not be mobile; for example, they may require prescrption a xanax without power supply, they may require the assistance of a human operator to set up a PSTN phone call.

valium xanax lofe half

Concepts covered in this patent (cited in at least 34 other patents) also were later extended to several satellite communication systems.

sex xanax

In the UK, possession of sex xanax in an examination can result in immediate disqualification from that subject or from all that student’s subjects.

xanax pain

Newer mobile phones allow users to associate different xanax pain s with individual family members and friends.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 2:36 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.