Great teaching takes effort. It takes time. In traditional schools, the amazing teachers are the ones who continuously strive to improve their teaching. A class taught by such a teacher will not be the same this year as it was last year.
The opportunity for improvement is even more apparent in the world of online education. In this world, we don’t have to wait a year to make improvements and we don’t have to reteach an entire class. Instead we can take out a piece of a class that didn’t work so well, figure out why it fell short, and then replace it with something better. We can bridge the gaps in our content with additional material. We can supplement confusing topics with additional examples.
So in addition to working on a collection of new classes, we are also focusing on improving what we already have. We’ve already made significant changes to ST101: Intro to Statistics and CS101: Intro to Computer Programming. We’ve recently added some new material to PH100: Intro to Physics. This week, Peter Norvig will be in the office to begin making changes to CS212: Design of Computer Programs and Steve Huffman will be in soon to record some additions to CS253: Web Development.
If you have an idea of how we can improve, please let us know by taking this survey! We want to make the most educational and engaging courses that we can and we would leave to hear your thoughts.
