Our instructor threw together freely available YouTube videos and Wikipedia articles instead of lectures. What should I do?

Question

I'm currently attending university online (at a notable public institution, not a crappy school—I feel compelled to mention this because one typically expects quality from good institutions). Unfortunately, my instructor didn't put much effort into designing the course.

Essentially, though there are a few YouTube videos made by him and his colleagues, the rest of the course basically consists of:

1) The e-book that we read weekly

2) Other YouTube videos that he's linked

3) Wikipedia articles

I've already brought this to his attention in a professional manner (he didn't get upset), but things obviously won't change during this academic semester, as he's also busy teaching other courses. His reasoning is that in the digital age, since information is so freely available, his job is essentially to help guide us in finding the right information.

I disagree. What's frustrating is the fact that students are paying tuition to have an instructor tell them "Hey, here are some free videos literally anyone can find online, and some Wikipedia articles any competent student can read on their own. Go nuts." Because when you're paying tuition, the implication is that you're gaining special privilege and access to resources and knowledge that are otherwise unavailable to ordinary people/students. A student makes a choice when deciding what school he wishes to attend. In doing so, he gives up the opportunity to attend another school. If all schools just offered the same quality and degree of education, there wouldn't be any competition or a means of qualifying how good one school is compared to another.

I find it unprofessional of an instructor to do something like this. I don't want to strain my relationship with this instructor, but I also don't feel like I can let this go because the course is quite fundamental to the major I'm pursuing, and it's really upsetting that it's in this condition.

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What should I do? Should I just let it pass and move on, or should I bring this to the attention of someone else? He also happens to be high up in the corresponding department, so there aren't many people above his status. I don't want to go over his head, but I feel like if I email him again about this, it'll seem like I'm just pestering him.

Answer 1

As a student, you are paying for the tuition (teaching). Teaching is an activity designed to help you learn and acquire new skills. Teaching materials (books, slides, video lectures) can be good, bad or ugly, but they are only a (smaller) part of the whole picture. They are not an activity. Arguably, they matter less.

What matters more, in my opinion, is the opportunity to obtain constructive feedback from your tutors. Not the grade for your submissions, but actual analysis of your work, explaining its strength and weaknesses and providing you with some ideas on how to improve and what to work on. Not a general piece of information, but something unique and produced specifically for you.

I have rarely seen online courses where students have enough personal attention and receive more than just a few lines of personal feedback. Honestly, the situation with many traditionally run courses is largely the same. Being massively oversubscribed and under-staffed, many Departments are not able to provide students with sensible feedback on their work. As a (pathetic) attempt to compensate, they sometimes claim that they provide exclusive teaching materials, which, however, tend often to not really be any better than standard textbooks.

My suggestion is: don't be obsessed with materials you are provided with, but look at whether you're receiving enough attention and personal guidance from your tutors. If you're not getting enough feedback - it is probably time to raise your concerns or maybe even look elsewhere.

Answer 2

Because when you're paying tuition, the implication is that you're gaining special privilege and access to resources and knowledge that are otherwise unavailable to ordinary people/students.

Not really, and it certainly doesn't mean that the access you have to all resources is restricted. Lots of professors post their course materials on publicly accessible websites because they feel that they should be freely available.

If you feel that the quality of the course is subpar, then you have every right to complain higher up. But the course isn't subpar just because you're not getting something that other people aren't.

Answer 3

As a professor, I spend a large amount of time reviewing and choosing reading materials so that students can learn efficiently. Then I spend time organizing the order in which students will study these materials, planning how I will interact with students in class to coordinate with readings, planning assignments to go with the readings, etc. Time lecturing, leading discussions, answering questions, etc., are only a small part of teaching. The rest is hidden from students. (Grading and providing feedback on students' work takes up a lot of time, too.) As it happens, most of the materials that I curate for students cost money. I would probably spend more time choosing materials if I had to use only free materials. There are good free materials for some purposes, but they vary more (it's the internet, you know, so there's a lot of junk along with the good stuff); with free materials you'd have to spend more time filtering out the bad ones or working around flaws. Publishing houses and editors spend a lot of time curating good resources and helping authors to make them better, so there's a reason to expect less variation and higher quality in non-free teaching materials, on average.

So if the materials in your course are poor, that would be bad, but if they're not, but they're freely available, so what? That doesn't mean the instructors aren't helping you learn by choosing those materials and assigning them. If the instructors aren't providing enough in addition to the selected materials, that's another issue, but that's not what the question was about, as I understand it.

(There are some comments on other questions that make similar points, but I felt this should be an answer. It's actually something I feel strongly about. Think about how long it would take you to learn something if you just had to poke through videos or web pages on your own, or had to spend a lot of time trying books in a library or buying them online, only to find that this one is too hard and that one's on a different subject and this other one is trivially easy, and that one over there is kind of OK, but doesn't really communicate the material in a way that's best for you, or this one has only two chapters or two minutes that are useful, .... You could do it, maybe, but it would take a long time. The point of good instructor is to make your learning more efficient than it would be if you had to do it on your own.)

Answer 4

Most information is freely available in one form or another. Most of what you pay for in school is getting access to people and resources. The fact that the instructor has directed you to open resources shouldn't reflect poorly on their judgement as long as they really are high-quality resources.

Most credible institutions require their professors to provide a syllabus on the first day of classes, and then give you a 2-4 week grace period to drop courses. If you really don't feel like the course is worth your money, then don't pay for it.

Even if you took this class as a traditional (not-online) student, chances are that not a lot would change.

Answer 5

You're mistaking the value of the medium vs the value of the lectures themselves.

You mentioned YouTube and Wikipedia, and have the mistaken idea that they're free. Sure, they're free to access, but they're not random YouTube videos or random Wikipedia articles. They are specifically tailored to the course and relevant.

You haven't raised issues with actual academic problems with the course. Have you had a professor that do not know the subject they are teaching? (Example: A DBA was teaching a Java course) Have you had a professor that plagiarizes tests, and they contain material not covered in the course? These are real problems.

YouTube and Wikipedia are free to access. The discovery and organization of the material is not free. Just because a photocopy costs 5 cents, it doesn't mean what is being photocopied is worth only 5 cent. It could be a photocopy of an extremely valuable formula.

Bottom line. Evaluate the worth of the content. Don't get caught up with the medium of delivery.

Answer 6

Perhaps the issue here is that the "lecture" time could be more productively used as a Q&A session.

You say :

The instructor is actually very helpful during our one-on-one sessions (though unfortunately, he only holds them once a week for just 25 minutes). It's just I wish the course were in a better shape. I would've loved to have listened to, say, an hour-long lecture from him, someone with a PhD and years of experience in the field, than some self-proclaimed expert on YouTube.

and :

His actual involvement in the course is answering questions via email and helping us during office hours (which is essentially a 25-minute session only once a week). Aside from that, class time is, I kid you not, just spent reading the book (which itself is quite poorly written, and contains mistakes) and watching YouTube videos.

Well this suggests the problem is not the instructor.

Lecture material often is poorly written (let's not kid ourselves) and mistakes are quite common in lectures, so a more "customized" lecture experience probably would not solve those issues. And lecturers are not always very good at speaking, so a video may be better than many people get.

It's a simple fact that you are expected to learn more yourself than simply at lectures. So I wonder if the correct approach is to get together with your classmates and discuss asking for the lecture to be replaced by a Q&A period, while students look at the video and read the notes ahead of time ?

Answer 7

The problem seems to be a disagreement between you and the lecturer over what your payment covers. I can't tell for sure on the information you give who is right, but if I had to make a call I would bet that they are right, since that seems more likely in general.

What you should do is get someone you trust who is far enough from the situation to be reasonably independent, and ask them to look at the material advertising the course that you could access before signing up. Is the lecturer's behaviour out of line with was advertised? If so, you would have an argument to take up with the administration (not the lecturer directly). If not, then you need to accept that you went in with the wrong expectations, and consider what you want to do about that (eg change course).

Answer 8

1. You are paying for an educational pedigree that states you're such and such breed of book smart.
2. An easy A is an easy A.
3. It is the age of information. For example, M.I.T. lectures are free to watch and learn from. The chance of being acknowledged for your proficient knowledge in a subject, aka a degree, is what you're spending your money on. A fair argument can be made if you had a hard professor who challenged your thinking but you failed the class. Did you waste your money?
4. Life rarely gives you a break. Do you really want to look a gift horse in the mouth?
5. If you are not liking the class then switch it, or bring it to the news for a fluff exposure piece, or go talk to your financial advisor for proper procedures. Then, yell at the Dean for the indignity, if you must.
6. How much is this course worth to you creditwise vs timewise vs moneywise? What is the impact of this course to you (pros and cons)?
7. Personally, I'd take the easy A. And if I needed some skill I could not learn from the class, I'd take the extra time I have to learn them on my own since it is an easy class.

Answer 9

AFAIK, you pay for the piece of paper from the university that grants your degree. How you get there is sometimes with an awesome instructor and sometimes with an AWFUL one. If I had considered that I was paying for the classes then sometimes I would have been happy but mostly I would have been rather displeased with that situation. There was one mandatory class for my degree that had about 5 people show up to an average class and the rest (80+ people) only came for exams because the instructor was just. that. bad. Another time we had a quiz on some material that was taught, and after the quiz people were still discussing the material on the quiz was supposed to be worked out (no one knew!). Again, because the instructor was just that bad.

TL;DR: change your perspective. You pay for the paper the degree is printed on. Not for the classes themselves. They are simply necessary to get that very expensive piece of paper. Expect roughly a 60/40 of bad/good professors.

Also, bear in mind that most professors are not professors because they want to teach. The teach because it is required as a side effect of doing research at the university.

Answer 10

How have the course materials being audited for quality?

Consider both your personal evaluation of the utility of the materials, and those of your peers, and then consider the formal process that exists, for the teaching establishment, regarding the auditing/setting of standards for educational materials on this course.

This will give some context as to whether expert opinion has gone into the material selection, if there is a process to validate this, is there a process of consensus on this, and some actual feedback on utility from those using the materials.

Furthermore, you could skim the materials used in similar courses, in other "respected" teaching establishments, and see if they match. Additionally, many materials have reviews and those can be helpful to examine. I have completed a lot of online courses (admittedly free Coursera ones) and Princeton,Harvard etc all use (and list) YouTube materials for their courses.

This, i think, will help position your feelings, with respect to the course, in terms of a broader quality argument.

Answer 11

This is one to check what the original marketing materials for the course promised, bearing in mind that they may be different to your interpretation of what appropriate teaching is.

Without that information, you're paying mainly for the materials you need to learn and the final accreditation that you're reached the academic standards necessary. And, you're probably paying a premium based on the pedigree of the university.

Now, in the UK where I work, there is no guarantee of a link between the name value of a university and the quality of its teaching. My experience is that less-known universities often have higher quality teaching. There are many reasons for this, but having less name value, they have to try harder. They are also likely to attract students below the top tier, so have to concentrate more on ensuring that the teaching materials are suitable for all levels of learners. And, the academics are likely to have a more teaching oriented career path, as opposed to one that concentrates on research.

Often, if you're working with a very well-known professor, they are also likely to be in great demand, and not working in a role where they're expected to concentrate on teaching. In some cases, you're lucky if you see that professor at all, as opposed to a load of grad students delivering classes.

Again, this will all depend what the original promises made were. I've written a lot of course marketing materials and if would be rate to promise contact with a particular professor, as this makes too many assumptions about how that professor's career will evolve (they may take another position, for instance).

Finally, there's nothing wrong with writing a course based on curating materials. It can be quite a job to find the best ones, organise them and write the links between them. It's not that different to academic practices of the past where a professor would issues assigned reading, in the form of academic papers or textbook chapters, to the class.

There are lots of online courses structured that way, both paid and free.

There is a danger if those materials change, as they are not owned by the course. For instance, YouTube videos can be taken down and Wikipedia pages edited by third parties. So long as the teaching team monitor that and have a backup plan in place, the general principle of course curation sounds acceptable to me.

Answer 12

The best (youtube) videos are often wastly superior to most lecturers (sic). The problem is that finding the right video is a nightmare, especially if you are not familliar with the subject. So if the videos picked for you are relevant and accurate, and you get personal feedback time, you are indeed getting world class service.

In fact I have been trying to get the university to consider moving lectures to this kind of format. With the change that video lectures are paired with hands on exercises, with course assistant present. The benefits are considerable, as you can now invest in the material in a different way and feedback becomes your primary focus. However mostly this means that the videos need to be scripted as if they were tv shows, which is harder to do. Bootstrapping this skill, and getting material done pays itself back in no time. And yes if all you teach is available on youtube fine, use that if license permits.

The days of talking head lectures are over. After all Internet was founded to make information flow faster, better and more efficiently. Yet, we are surprised when it does just that.

Answer 13

Dont judge a book by its cover

You are judging the value the instructor can offer ONLY based on the source of the course videos.

Instead assess the value you can derive out of the course based on other factors also as described in other answers such as one-on-one time you get with the instructor, his credentials, value of the certificate you are offered on completion etc.

You also need to consider the value in terms of infrastructure made available for practice.

Given that its almost a week and you havent accepted any of the answers, I assume you are finding it difficult to let it pass and move on. If so, does it interfere with your learning process? It would be in your own best interest to talk to the instructor a second time about it.