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PHILIP PEARCE: Yes, so I
think that the real difference

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between when you guys first
ran the course, which I think

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was in 2015, and now
when I run the course,

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is that Jen has helped to
develop this online MITx

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platform.

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Now it's really a
flipped classroom course.

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So it has this blended
learning aspect to it

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where the students complete
online reading before they

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attend the classroom hours.

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And then in the classroom, we
really go through examples,

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worked examples,
where the students

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can apply the theory that
they've learned while they

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did the online reading.

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I think this is the key
thing that you guys and Jen

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and myself really
saw the course being

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when I started teaching it.

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JEREMY ORLOFF: So how
do you ensure that they

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do the online reading?

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PHILIP PEARCE: So
the online reading

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has many examples where the
students can attempt something,

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attempt a question.

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And 10% of the grade
for the course,

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is given to them for getting
these questions right.

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It's a small incentive,
just to make sure that they

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complete the online questions.

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And of course, we
get feedback data

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to know how many students
do those questions.

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And it's relatively easy
to check to make sure

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that student do them.

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JENNIFER FRENCH: So that the
way that the online notes are

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structured is that they
are hosted on the MITx

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residential platform.

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And so all of the reading,
there is no text book.

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All of the reading is online.

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And there are questions
interspersed between the text.

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And so it's these
questions that are really

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depending on the text
before IT, which tell us

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if the students have been doing
the reading because they can't

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answer these questions without
actually attempting this work.

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I think some of the parts that
were really useful about using

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digital tools in having students
interact with the content were,

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one, is that we use the
sketch response tool,

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so we could actually have
students draw pull diagrams

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and pull zero diagrams.

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And they could get automatic
feedback on whether or not

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that was correct.

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We could also have them
sketch responses to a system

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and get feedback on that.

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The other thing that's
nice is that it really

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makes some of those
simple examples

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that you often have to spend
a lot of time in class doing,

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we can now do those
online, and have

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the student get immediate
feedback, see the answers.

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These are things that maybe
it's not worth doing in class

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when you have someone
like Philip who's there.

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And instead now he
can spend his time

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working through the really
complicated examples

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and giving the
scaffolding and fading

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to help them do much
more interesting problems

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than on the homework.

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PHILIP PEARCE: Yeah,
I agree actually

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and that's another
way that I really

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see this course as maximizing
the kind of utility at the time

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that the students spend
with me and with each other.

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So we go through more
involved examples where

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they have to really stop
and think about things,

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rather than the kind of rote
examples, where you just

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really make sure
that you understand

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a specific little concept.

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JEREMY ORLOFF: So do they--

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do the students turn in
homework in this course?

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PHILIP PEARCE: Yes.

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So the way it works is
in terms of them getting

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a grade is we have the
online lectures in which they

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have to answer questions.

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And we give that a small--

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10% of their grade is
from the online examples.

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And then we have
problem sets in which

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they have to answer slightly
more involved questions.

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And they're handed
in once every week.

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And then we also have a
midterm and a final exam.

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JEREMY ORLOFF: So one
of the great virtues

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of having online
questions, in my opinion,

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is students get immediate
response to their answers

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as opposed to waiting
a week or something

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and getting their homework
turned back to them.

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And, of course, who needs
to get the bad news.

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They don't the sheet to see
where their mistakes were.

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And with an online setting,
one of the great advantages

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is students see right
away whether they

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understand something or not.

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JENNIFER FRENCH: Yeah, I agree.

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And then I think also
a lot of the literature

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shows that it's actually
when you're first

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learning something, that
that immediate feedback

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is the most useful.

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And actually when you're
doing more complicated things,

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sometimes then the immediate
feedback is less helpful.

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And so that actually really
is built into the way

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the course is run.

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One thing also that we
do is that we actually

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have a problem set
checker for the homework.

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So they actually know
before they even turn it in

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if their answers are right.

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PHILIP PEARCE: And
that's something

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that we decided to
add in this time

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that we taught the course,
this time I taught the course.

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So in the previous
times I taught

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the course, some of the feedback
that we got from the students

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was that they would like to
have even more online examples.

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And one of the
things that we did

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to rectify that is that we
made this-- or Jen implemented

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this problem set checker, so
that the students at the end

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of each lecture
could see the problem

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set and answer the questions
and get some immediate feedback

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on them.

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JEREMY ORLOFF: And
by the lecture,

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you mean the online unit
that they were going through?

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PHILIP PEARCE: Yes,
exactly, exactly.

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So after they've done
the online reading,

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they can also see the problem
set and answer the questions

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and get them checked.

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JEREMY ORLOFF: Another great I
think about the online version

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is the way the Mathlets get
integrated into the course,

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very seamlessly
integrated into the text.

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JENNIFER FRENCH:
I agree because I

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think that one of
the things that

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is hard for novice students is
to interact with the Mathlets

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because they were
really designed

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both as a student-facing
tool, but also

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an instructor-facing tool,
really to demonstrate things

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in lecture.

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And so for a student who
doesn't know what's going on,

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sometimes it can
feel like there's

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just too much going on, too
many sliders, too many buttons.

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And so instead, we can
embed it in the web page,

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and then have really guided
problems and guided activities

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that help them understand
how to interact with it,

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and to help them figure out
what they should be looking for,

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and what are the real
responses of interest.