The 100,000-student classroom
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0:01 - 0:03Everyone is both a learner
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0:03 - 0:05and a teacher.
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0:05 - 0:07This is me being inspired
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0:07 - 0:08by my first tutor,
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0:08 - 0:09my mom,
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0:09 - 0:12and this is me teaching
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0:12 - 0:14Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
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0:14 - 0:15to 200 students
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0:15 - 0:16at Stanford University.
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0:16 - 0:18Now the students and I
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0:18 - 0:19enjoyed the class,
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0:19 - 0:20but it occurred to me
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0:20 - 0:22that while the subject matter
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0:22 - 0:23of the class is advanced
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0:23 - 0:24and modern,
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0:24 - 0:26the teaching technology isn't.
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0:26 - 0:29In fact, I use basically
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0:29 - 0:31the same technology as
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0:31 - 0:34this 14th-century classroom.
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0:34 - 0:36Note the textbook,
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0:36 - 0:39the sage on the stage,
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0:39 - 0:41and the sleeping guy
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0:41 - 0:42in the back. (Laughter)
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0:42 - 0:45Just like today.
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0:45 - 0:48So my co-teacher,
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0:48 - 0:50Sebastian Thrun, and I thought,
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0:50 - 0:52there must be a better way.
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0:52 - 0:53We challenged ourselves
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0:53 - 0:55to create an online class
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0:55 - 0:56that would be equal or better
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0:56 - 0:59in quality to our Stanford class,
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0:59 - 1:01but to bring it to anyone
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1:01 - 1:02in the world for free.
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1:02 - 1:05We announced the class on July 29th,
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1:05 - 1:08and within two weeks, 50,000 people
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1:08 - 1:10had signed up for it.
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1:10 - 1:13And that grew to 160,000 students
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1:13 - 1:15from 209 countries.
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1:15 - 1:17We were thrilled to have
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1:17 - 1:18that kind of audience,
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1:18 - 1:20and just a bit terrified that we
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1:20 - 1:23hadn't finished preparing the class yet. (Laughter)
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1:23 - 1:24So we got to work.
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1:24 - 1:26We studied what others had done,
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1:26 - 1:28what we could copy and what we could change.
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1:28 - 1:31Benjamin Bloom had showed
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1:31 - 1:33that one-on-one tutoring works best,
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1:33 - 1:35so that's what we tried to emulate,
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1:35 - 1:36like with me and my mom,
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1:36 - 1:38even though we knew
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1:38 - 1:40it would be one-on-thousands.
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1:40 - 1:42Here, an overhead video camera
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1:42 - 1:44is recording me as I'm talking
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1:44 - 1:45and drawing on a piece of paper.
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1:45 - 1:48A student said, "This class felt
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1:48 - 1:49like sitting in a bar
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1:49 - 1:50with a really smart friend
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1:50 - 1:52who's explaining something
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1:52 - 1:54you haven't grasped, but are about to."
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1:54 - 1:56And that's exactly what we were aiming for.
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1:56 - 1:59Now, from Khan Academy, we saw
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1:59 - 2:01that short 10-minute videos
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2:01 - 2:02worked much better than trying
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2:02 - 2:05to record an hour-long lecture
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2:05 - 2:07and put it on the small-format screen.
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2:07 - 2:09We decided to go even shorter
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2:09 - 2:11and more interactive.
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2:11 - 2:13Our typical video is two minutes,
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2:13 - 2:15sometimes shorter, never more
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2:15 - 2:17than six, and then we pause for
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2:17 - 2:19a quiz question, to make it
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2:19 - 2:21feel like one-on-one tutoring.
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2:21 - 2:23Here, I'm explaining how a computer uses
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2:23 - 2:24the grammar of English
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2:24 - 2:27to parse sentences, and here,
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2:27 - 2:29there's a pause and the student
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2:29 - 2:31has to reflect, understand what's going on
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2:31 - 2:33and check the right boxes
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2:33 - 2:34before they can continue.
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2:34 - 2:36Students learn best when
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2:36 - 2:38they're actively practicing.
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2:38 - 2:40We wanted to engage them, to have them grapple
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2:40 - 2:43with ambiguity and guide them to synthesize
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2:43 - 2:45the key ideas themselves.
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2:45 - 2:46We mostly avoid questions
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2:46 - 2:48like, "Here's a formula, now
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2:48 - 2:49tell me the value of Y
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2:49 - 2:50when X is equal to two."
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2:50 - 2:52We preferred open-ended questions.
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2:52 - 2:55One student wrote, "Now I'm seeing
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2:55 - 2:57Bayes networks and examples of
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2:57 - 2:59game theory everywhere I look."
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2:59 - 3:00And I like that kind of response.
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3:00 - 3:02That's just what we were going for.
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3:02 - 3:04We didn't want students to memorize the formulas;
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3:04 - 3:06we wanted to change the way
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3:06 - 3:07they looked at the world.
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3:07 - 3:08And we succeeded.
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3:08 - 3:10Or, I should say, the students succeeded.
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3:10 - 3:12And it's a little bit ironic
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3:12 - 3:15that we set about to disrupt traditional education,
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3:15 - 3:17and in doing so, we ended up
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3:17 - 3:19making our online class
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3:19 - 3:21much more like a traditional college class
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3:21 - 3:23than other online classes.
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3:23 - 3:26Most online classes, the videos are always available.
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3:26 - 3:28You can watch them any time you want.
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3:28 - 3:30But if you can do it any time,
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3:30 - 3:32that means you can do it tomorrow,
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3:32 - 3:33and if you can do it tomorrow,
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3:33 - 3:35well, you may not ever
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3:35 - 3:37get around to it. (Laughter)
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3:37 - 3:39So we brought back the innovation
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3:39 - 3:41of having due dates. (Laughter)
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3:41 - 3:43You could watch the videos
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3:43 - 3:45any time you wanted during the week,
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3:45 - 3:46but at the end of the week,
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3:46 - 3:48you had to get the homework done.
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3:48 - 3:49This motivated the students to keep going, and it also
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3:49 - 3:52meant that everybody was working
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3:52 - 3:54on the same thing at the same time,
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3:54 - 3:55so if you went into a discussion forum,
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3:55 - 3:58you could get an answer from a peer within minutes.
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3:58 - 4:01Now, I'll show you some of the forums, most of which
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4:01 - 4:04were self-organized by the students themselves.
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4:04 - 4:07From Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, we learned
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4:07 - 4:09the concept of "flipping" the classroom.
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4:09 - 4:10Students watched the videos
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4:10 - 4:12on their own, and then they
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4:12 - 4:14come together to discuss them.
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4:14 - 4:17From Eric Mazur, I learned about peer instruction,
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4:17 - 4:19that peers can be the best teachers,
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4:19 - 4:21because they're the ones
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4:21 - 4:24that remember what it's like to not understand.
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4:24 - 4:26Sebastian and I have forgotten some of that.
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4:26 - 4:29Of course, we couldn't have
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4:29 - 4:30a classroom discussion with
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4:30 - 4:32tens of thousands of students,
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4:32 - 4:35so we encouraged and nurtured these online forums.
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4:35 - 4:38And finally, from Teach For America,
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4:38 - 4:40I learned that a class is not
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4:40 - 4:41primarily about information.
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4:41 - 4:44More important is motivation and determination.
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4:44 - 4:46It was crucial that the students see
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4:46 - 4:48that we're working hard for them and
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4:48 - 4:49they're all supporting each other.
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4:49 - 4:52Now, the class ran 10 weeks,
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4:52 - 4:56and in the end, about half of the 160,000 students watched
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4:56 - 4:58at least one video each week,
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4:58 - 5:00and over 20,000 finished all the homework,
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5:00 - 5:02putting in 50 to 100 hours.
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5:02 - 5:04They got this statement of accomplishment.
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5:04 - 5:06So what have we learned?
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5:06 - 5:09Well, we tried some old ideas
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5:09 - 5:10and some new and put them together,
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5:10 - 5:12but there are more ideas to try.
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5:12 - 5:14Sebastian's teaching another class now.
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5:14 - 5:15I'll do one in the fall.
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5:15 - 5:19Stanford Coursera, Udacity, MITx
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5:19 - 5:22and others have more classes coming.
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5:22 - 5:23It's a really exciting time.
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5:23 - 5:24But to me, the most exciting
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5:24 - 5:27part of it is the data that we're gathering.
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5:27 - 5:30We're gathering thousands
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5:30 - 5:32of interactions per student per class,
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5:32 - 5:34billions of interactions altogether,
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5:34 - 5:37and now we can start analyzing that,
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5:37 - 5:38and when we learn from that,
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5:38 - 5:39do experimentations,
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5:39 - 5:41that's when the real revolution will come.
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5:41 - 5:44And you'll be able to see the results from
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5:44 - 5:46a new generation of amazing students.
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5:46 - 5:49(Applause)
- Title:
- The 100,000-student classroom
- Speaker:
- Peter Norvig
- Description:
-
In the fall of 2011 Peter Norvig taught a class with Sebastian Thrun on artificial intelligence at Stanford attended by 175 students in situ -- and over 100,000 via an interactive webcast. He shares what he learned about teaching to a global classroom.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 06:11
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The 100,000-student classroom | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for The 100,000-student classroom | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The 100,000-student classroom | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for The 100,000-student classroom | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The 100,000-student classroom | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for The 100,000-student classroom | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for The 100,000-student classroom | ||
Joseph Geni added a translation |