Enhancing Traditional Classes with Online Courseware

Abstract: Excellent courseware for a variety of subjects is becoming increasingly available in the form of online video lectures. There is growing evidence that this medium aids student understanding by allowing them to pause and repeat key portions of lectures as per their individual needs. It is less clear whether this material can be integrated with traditional lectures to enhance student understanding. This talk will focus on some on-going experiments at NIIT University (Rajasthan) to address this question. The speaker teaches an intermediate-level Computer Science course, complemented by a freely available online course offered by Coursera.

Speaker profile: Dr. Viraj Kumar completed his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he worked on algorithms for software verification. He holds a Masters degree from IITB and a Bachelors degree in Mathematics from Delhi University. He is presently an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at NIIT University, a not for profit institution located in Neemrana, Rajasthan.

Quoting from the last of the MOOC postings recently forwarded by KS:

Despite the many uncertainties surrounding online education, one sure thing is that other universities will be watching closely to see how these experiments pan out. They wonder: Could MOOCs from big hitters like Stanford, Harvard and MIT doom smaller brick-and-mortar institutions? Or could they perhaps help the higher education ecosystem by decreasing costs? In a Stanford Parents' Weekend address, Etchemendy donned his philosopher's cap and mused on the subject. In the 15th century, he noted, Gutenberg's printing press led to an explosion in the number of universities by radically increasing the efficiency with which knowledge could be transmitted. He believes online education could have similar results worldwide.

All are welcome.

Jayashree Ramadas

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Prof. J. Ramadas

Centre Director

Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research