Stanford University on iTunesU:
A
dream of mine would be to one day complete post-graduate study at Stanford
University. Unfortunately, there are two
things preventing me from accomplishing this dream: geography and money. Stanford is located in California; I live in
northeast Indiana. Another thing
preventing my ability to study at Stanford is the more than $14,000 dollars
grade term’s tuition which I could not afford.
Thank you to the magic of the 21st century technology, I can
still study some of the same content from some of the same Stanford University
courses for free. And while it may not
be as rigorous or as high quality education as taking a real Stanford course,
it does provide for an opportunity to gain additional knowledge. As an amateur quantum physics enthusiast, a
concept I encountered in the book Quantum
Physics for Poets by Dr. Leon Lederman is the Fourier transform. The
course I am currently taking through Walden University, “Distance Learning,”
assigned me to provide an analysis of a free open course, so it was fortunate
that Stanford’s iTunesU page had a course on Fourier transform that I could use
to complete the application task.
Stanford
University’s “The Fourier Transform and its Applications” is laid out as an
authentic college course. Prof. Brad
Osgood from Stanford is the feature lecturer in this series of 30 video
lectures. Along with each pair of
corresponding lectures, the course provides a problem set of practice problems
for the learner to complete and also provides the solutions and steps for how
to solve the problems. The Fourier
course seems intentionally designed for distance learners, as the material is
sequential in nature with later lectures and problems sets building on previous
ones. There is even a copy of both the
midterm and final exams along with answer keys for the learner to be able
assess him or herself on how well they are comprehending the material.
As
described by Saltzberg and Plyson in Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek
(2012), this could be considered an example of distributed learning since the
open course is “an instructional model that allows instructor, students, and
content to be located in different, noncentralized locations so that instruction
and learning occur independent of place and time” (pp. 123-124). As an effective online course, this would not
pass the textbook writers’ test, as it seems that the creators of this course do
little more than put lectures and handout materials online for people to access
(p. 134). The course does not provide a
detailed syllabus; the learner can get an idea of what will be covered by
looking at the brief outline of topics.
The
individual who compiled the video and problem sets for this open course seems
to have implemented course activities to promote and foster learning, but I am
not sure whether one could say that learning is maximized. In the course description area, there is an
outline of headings for the major topics covered. The video lectures of Prof. Osgood feature
him writing material on a chalkboard and giving clear explanation as he
goes. The problems sets contain
solutions with explanations. A student
in the distance learning setting could benefit from having an area to ask
questions or find additional support from the instructor. The learner could also benefit from there
being a resource that provides the individual topics for each lecture so that
he or she may be prepared to take notes or read up on the topics ahead of time.
My
math skills do not extend much beyond simple trigonometry, yet I feel I
understand Fourier transform a little better after watching the first few
lectures. Stanford University’s iTunesU
course, while not the most easy to understand source on the topic of quantum mechanics,
is a good place to go for quality distance learning on a wide range of academic
subjects. Not all courses contain the
same level of quality materials as “The Fourier Transform and its
Applications,” but all courses like it that I saw are laid out in a sequential
fashion that will help the average learner take something away from the
experience.
References
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S.,
Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a
distance:
Foundations of distance education (5th
ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
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