COS 126 ratings improve after switching to online lectures

After traditional, in-class lectures were replaced by ones held online, lecture ratings for COS 126: General Computer Science improved from 3.3 to 3.8, according to Professor of Computer Science and COS 126 course head Robert Sedgewick.

COS 126 is the largest course in the University by annual enrollment, with 318 students having completed it in the fall semester and 405 students currently enrolled for the spring semester, according to the Office of the Registrar.

COS 126 lectures, coined as 'flipped lectures,' have been offered exclusively online since this past fall semester, according to Sedgewick.

He also noted that COS 126 achieved an overall course rating of 4.3 on a 5.0 scale, the highest recorded rating in the history of the course. More than 80 percent of surveyed COS 126 graduates from this past fall semester expressed positive opinions about online lectures and academic performance remained consistent after the transition to flipped lectures, according to Sedgewick.

He added that he became keenly convinced that 'flipped' lectures were better for students than traditional lectures held in class.

For anyone who has studied pedagogy, it is known that traditional lectures aren't ideal, Sedgewick explained. These types of lectures often make a passive environment for students, he continued.

Sedgewick noted that lectures aren’t an ideal means of teaching because they are passive for students, who often do not pay as much attention during lectures as they should.

Students have to choose to watch the lectures and they have full control of the speed and other elements that contribute to an active learning environment, Sedgewick said. He also noted that in the past semester he has held class meetings during the scheduled lecture times to cover non-lecture material that allowed for much greater personal interactions with students.

In the University’s Strategic Planning document released last week, a call was made for increased utilization of online resources and online teaching.

According to Sedgewick, one of the biggest challenges for 'flipped' lectures to be widely implemented by other faculty lies in the sheer effort required to produce quality material. Sedgewick explained that he put in 50 to 100 hours per one hour of video lecture and also used a diverse array of software that faculty who are used to traditional classroom settings may not be familiar with.

Sedgewick noted that for students who may be concerned that their tuition is shortchanged as traditional lectures are phased out, their contributions currently support an expansive body of staff who give individualized attention.

"What you pay for at Princeton is personal attention — the ten plus graduate students preceptors, the 42 graders who comment on your code, the Lewis Lab TA's and the 20 office hours per week," Sedgewick said.

Multiple COS 126 graduate preceptors expressed positive feelings toward 'flipped lectures,' stating that having a unified resource that’s readily accessible lessened their workload.

"We have 400 students, some of them are in sports, some of them get sick, some of them have family vacations in the middle of the semester," COS 126 head preceptor Dan Leyzberg, Lecturer in computer science, said.

Before the flipped lecture style, if a student missed a lecture, the only resources they had were PowerPoint slides, he added. Leyzberg said that students had to find time to meet with preceptors in order to catch up on missed material.

"That’s a lot of work to spread out among preceptors and that’s not a great use of our time," Leyzberg added.

Another preceptorJérémie Lumbroso, Lecturer in computer science, who previously taught a computer science course atauniversity inVancouver, recalled having to develop an entire course for a traditional lecture class. Lectures are the main vehicle for teaching at many peer institutions, as they do not have the resources to provide for individualized attention, Lumbroso said.

Lumbroso also noted that in a course-wide survey, the majority of students enrolled in COS 126 said that they had previously experienced an online course.

Sedgewick said that though there were many arguments against flipping lectures, such as the possibility that students won’t watch the lectures, come to meetings, or that preceptors will be 're-teaching' the course, there were no such problems last semester.

He explained that each video was viewed 508 times on averageby a class of over 300 students.

"It’s something controversial in the abstract . . . we have the best and biggest class in Princeton and we are embracing technology," Sedgewick said.

Adeniji Ogunlana ’19, who took COS 126 last semester, said he found the 'flipped lectures' more conducive to learning than a traditional setting.

"The ability to change the speed of and relay the videos were most useful for me. The 'flipped' style allowed me to go through things I already had a bit of knowledge about much more quickly than I would have in a traditional lecture," he said. "It worked in the opposite direction as well. Being able to replay certain concepts until I understood them fully was something I would never have been able to enjoy in a traditional lecture setting."'

Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article misstated the institution Lumbroso previously taught in. The 'Prince' regrets the error.