MIT Open University

Anybody found one they can recommend? I looked at one of their architecture courses last year, and it didn't seem well structured or very fleshed-out.
 
wabmaster - that was true of many of my college courses....

I looked thru the math section (always liked that stuff), and some of it seems good, but the book sounds required to really understand it. And here is one of the homework problems from the first week for your enjoyment:

find the bug in the following proof: (^ is the to the power of operator)
1¢ = $0.01 = ($0.1)^2 = (10¢)^2 = 100¢ = $1.

It's really quite simple, but still fun.
 
That's an old joke  :)   "cents" is just short-hand for 1/100, so you need to square both the numerator and denominator.
 
I know, but it was interesting to see it in the homework. And I don't think your explaination is quite complete from a mathmatical viewpoint. There are several faults in it, including the assertion that $ == $^2, $^2 == cents^2, and cents^2 == cents. Cents and dollars are different units, as are the squares of those units. Do it with feet/inches and try to say .01 feet == .1^2 (feet^2) and you will see what I mean.
 
I like my answer better. Let's submit our papers and see who gets a better grade :)
 
I've got a friend that is working his way through the biotech classes.

Of course he has the advantage that he got his undergraduate at MIT in physics.

Still - if you are serious - I would form a study group to work through the problem sets - that's how most MIT graduates survive and learn. Not too many payed much attention to the lectures.

Regarding class organization - all MIT professors are there to research - promotions and tenure is not given for thier teaching reviews - I teach a University of California class and I'm appalled by the lack of support, training and supervision a professor has for teaching. My kids elementary school teachers have more knowledge on teaching and learning than I will ever have.
 
Regarding class organization - all MIT professors are there to research - promotions and tenure is not given for thier teaching reviews - I teach a University of California class and I'm appalled by the lack of support, training and supervision a professor has for teaching.  My kids elementary school teachers have more knowledge on teaching and learning than I will ever have.
A guess it's just that university teachers don't get paid or get tenure for teaching. My youngest son took his first 2 years at community college, then transferred to university. He said his teachers at the community college were way better, and way more interested in teaching. His physics prof in particular was so popular that it was hard to get into his classes.

Mikey
 
Anybody found one they can recommend? I looked at one of their architecture courses last year, and it didn't seem well structured or very fleshed-out.

I worked through some of Tom Leighton's (Akamai founder) course on Internet Research Problems. It wasn't very structured either, but was interesting to read through the slides, then follow up with more internet and library research.

I learned about the site when it was first launched a couple of years ago. There is so much information there, it's hard to know where to start. If you find a course that's organized and interesting, please let us know.
 
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