- 14 Mar 2002
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The joy of e-learning: a hundred students of Waseda's School of Commerce are failed for watching their mandatory video lectures simultaneously instead of one by one. What's wrong with multi-tasking? 
Interesting post, but the article misses what are to my mind the most important "take home" points / questions.
VOD needs to be engaging (I wonder about how interesting these videos were)
How does requiring the watching of so many videos provide a good education.
and my favorite, if half of the students received an F as a result of this "problematic behaviour", then presumably they might not have received the F otherwise. So what does this say about the evaluation and the teaching practices for this particular course.
Watch 100 videos and get a credit.
If I were "the esteemed institution", I would prefer this not to be a public scandal because the conditions for the course in this "the esteemed institution", that led to the scandal are more "scandalous" than the "problematic behaviour".
VOD needs to be engaging (I wonder about how interesting these videos were)
How does requiring the watching of so many videos provide a good education.
and my favorite, if half of the students received an F as a result of this "problematic behaviour", then presumably they might not have received the F otherwise. So what does this say about the evaluation and the teaching practices for this particular course.
Watch 100 videos and get a credit.
If I were "the esteemed institution", I would prefer this not to be a public scandal because the conditions for the course in this "the esteemed institution", that led to the scandal are more "scandalous" than the "problematic behaviour".
- 2 Jun 2005
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I assure you many in person lectures are not engaging even state side. I remember sitting in a certain professor's class next to a friend and almost every day I fell asleep and drooled on my notebook ^-^;; The funniest part is I got a higher score in that class than my friend who was awake and took notes. That was probably related to me doing all the required reading and performing well on exams and such. I remember how he was somewhat annoyed that I outperformed him in the class despite never taking (or being given) notes or being awake lol. We are somewhat connected even today so he was not that angry. I am just as guilty to not listening to lectures as those Waseda students. I would not be surprised if the students who played one video at a time started it and then went to watch some TV or chat online or do laundry or whatever else.
I have never been a teacher so I am not sure how best to grade students at the university level but I would think there should be some form of projects, papers, tests and the like that matter more than attendance. If playing one video at a time is that important and the software tracks it then it can limit to playing one at a time. If it is really so important one could even require the university students have their camera on to show attention.
I suppose this being an law course one could argue it is relevant to follow it to the letter but I am not so sure.
A lot of lectures are droning over some of the written material on lower undergrad courses in particular, I assume now they are probably power point or some such.
I suppose I am more interested in students demonstrating a mastery of the material.
I have never been a teacher so I am not sure how best to grade students at the university level but I would think there should be some form of projects, papers, tests and the like that matter more than attendance. If playing one video at a time is that important and the software tracks it then it can limit to playing one at a time. If it is really so important one could even require the university students have their camera on to show attention.
I suppose this being an law course one could argue it is relevant to follow it to the letter but I am not so sure.
A lot of lectures are droning over some of the written material on lower undergrad courses in particular, I assume now they are probably power point or some such.
I suppose I am more interested in students demonstrating a mastery of the material.
- 21 May 2003
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Near the end of my second year of college for law enforcement we had a slide show 2 hours long of dead bodies. I guess the idea was to get students ready for what they would encounter when they got on the job. A class of 75 students , just 4 of us made it to the end of that slide show , LOL. Later as a police officer , I learned the smells and sounds made what you see much worse.
- 3 Aug 2007
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This pretty much goes for all "online learning". It is not generally enguaging or even very educational in my experience. There are exceptions to that, but for the most part it just doesn't work very well for a lot of students. The other issue is that it is not the best way to have an interactive educational experience where you can ask questions if you don't understand, want to clarify, or ask about a specific scenario.
- 26 Sep 2015
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I'm sure students are missing a lot with online learning, but I have done four online courses in the last two years and got a lot from them - I love the fact that I can study only when I feel like it!
- 3 Aug 2007
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I guess I was mostly coming from the K-12 point of view. I still asked far too many questions in college to think it would have been the same experiance with a remote/virtual class. Note, I went to a vocational/tech college and lived at home the whole time. So its not like I had the dorm or party experience so I can't speak to whether that would be considered a loss as well.
Thank you for interesting comments. Please allow me to expand on my thoughts.
My initial post was directed at the (to my mind) apparently poor education offered in that course at Waseda.
I think that "online" education has potential to a great equalizer (access and reduced cost) and there is some amazing content on-line (coursera comes to mind) and many good programs available on-line (which used to be called by "distance learning"). The University of London was the pioneer and Australia and Canada (countries with vast spaces and good resources) have had good models for distance learning. I am sure there are MANY others.
I think that online learning as a concept is a great thing. BUT there has been poor execution (IMO) at many universities/schools in Japan. In year one of the pandemic, that is understandable as no one was prepared for the pandemic. In year 2, why is such "high rank" university dumping off 30+ videos that are apparently "graded by whether they were watched or not" on their students? That is not what education should be about and if I worked at that university, I would be embarrassed, BUT not by the students' behavior, but by the requirements and teaching methodology of that class.
My initial post was directed at the (to my mind) apparently poor education offered in that course at Waseda.
I think that "online" education has potential to a great equalizer (access and reduced cost) and there is some amazing content on-line (coursera comes to mind) and many good programs available on-line (which used to be called by "distance learning"). The University of London was the pioneer and Australia and Canada (countries with vast spaces and good resources) have had good models for distance learning. I am sure there are MANY others.
I think that online learning as a concept is a great thing. BUT there has been poor execution (IMO) at many universities/schools in Japan. In year one of the pandemic, that is understandable as no one was prepared for the pandemic. In year 2, why is such "high rank" university dumping off 30+ videos that are apparently "graded by whether they were watched or not" on their students? That is not what education should be about and if I worked at that university, I would be embarrassed, BUT not by the students' behavior, but by the requirements and teaching methodology of that class.
- 2 Jun 2005
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I agree that is nonsensicle. They should be graded on some kind of project or paper. If I can just get a degree by letting a video play one at a time I can do that while working, cooking, doing laundry or whatever and not actually hear it at all.
I also agree with your statements about execution especially when I see points for just playing videos. I think there are some good online university level programs but this does not sound like one.
