Notes on completing the course 6.002 MITx
From March 5 to June 10, I took a distance course of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the 6.002 MITx Circuits and Electronics program.
Registered out of pure interest. I was not sure that I would find time, cope with English, etc. But tightened. The course turned out to be so elaborate and interesting that I put off all my business and became a student again.
The course is organized by a separate division (MITx) of the MIT distant learning. This course is a trial. The US government has allocated funds, a platform has been created, which has been tested on a decent audience (by the beginning of the course more than 150 thousand users had been registered on it). Currently, MIT is teaming up with Harvard to create a shared resource for distance learning, and by September, as part of the “coalition”, EDX promises to provide a list of new courses available.
The course was free and available to everyone. As will be further, not yet announced.
')
All material is in English only. According to the organizers, it is designed for 10 hours of classes per week - just 14 weeks.
Usually 2 lectures per week. Each lecture is divided into several fragments (about 10 fragments of 4-8 minutes each). When viewing lectures, you can change the speed of voice acting and synchronous captions are available to you. With oral English, I am far from you, so the speed and subtitles reduced to x0.75 were most welcome.
Several for one lecture. You can check and peek at the answer immediately, see the complete solution only after a certain period of time. Answers are entered into text fields. Most often this is the result of calculations in a numerical or symbolic form, sometimes letters or numbers corresponding to the correct answers.
One per week, consists of several tasks. There is nowhere to “peep” the answer. Only if someone shares in the forum,
although it is contrary to the "code of honor", which everyone must adhere to. The number of attempts is not limited.
Most often with the use of "sandbox" - built-in circuit emulator with analysis in the time and frequency domains. Solutions are to collect the correct scheme, select the correct values ​​of the elements, subtract the missing data based on the measured. "Spy" answer, too, is nowhere.
In addition to the weekly work, one midterm exam and one final exam are scheduled. During exams, communication on the exam questions forum is prohibited, the number of attempts is limited to three. Additional materials are available to help prepare for exams (reviews of exam tasks of past years, brief notes, etc.). Although the MIT itself is most often practiced by close-book exams, here the decision on the exam is given 24 hours and permission to use any sources. With excellent knowledge, the organizers hope that the decision will take about 3 hours. I solved the final exam (10 tasks, 47 questions) about 12 hours.
According to the results of all completed homework, laboratory work and examinations, the scores are summed up and given grades in percent and grades (in the US, not “two” - “five”, but grades from F to A, A is our “5”). Upon completion, with a good performance, you can get a certificate. It can be printed and hung on the wall. Authenticity can be verified using the EDx / MITx database. From the personal data there is only the name and surname. The fact that you have earned it yourself or that it is not your namesake is confirmed only by the “honor code” (the code of honor, the mention of it is on the form).
The course is based on the book of lecturers, professors of MIT, (“Foundations of analog and digital circuits”, A.Agarwal J.Lang 2005, 980 p.), Which is available on the website in scanned form. I really liked the book. It is a pity that it is not translated into Russian.
I can not say that the course was unfamiliar to me. Rather the opposite. In 93, I graduated from the Faculty of Radio Engineering and try to put my knowledge into practice. Apart from the difference in terms (for example, our method of the equivalent generator turned out to be the Thevenin method), the general approaches to learning are very similar, the science we have turned out to be the same.
The first two weeks seemed boring to me. The course is designed for students who are familiar with physics (electromagnetism, electrodynamics) and mathematics (integrals, differentials, complex numbers), but who know nothing beyond Ohm's law. But even the first simple tasks (the method of loop currents, the method of nodal potentials, etc.) are made up with a practical approach (which wire to choose, how to match the source and load ...). The following weeks were not so easy for me, especially where mathematics is needed. New for me was the theory of calculating circuits on FET (MOS transistors) and on operational amplifiers. The student is required to have a good command of the mathematical apparatus. (For example, you need to independently derive the small-signal gain of the circuit with a common gate, having the formula for the dependence of the drain current on the gate voltage).
I work in the field of IT, so this course is also interesting to me in terms of the means and technology of distance learning.
The course is very, very well made. Starting from the engine and ending with the work of teachers and assistants. The site is very thoughtful. The video is on YouTube, Flash's default player, but they also promise HTML5 support. On all pages with tasks built-in calculator that you want to use. It’s very interesting how a wonderful “sandbox” is organized inside - share who figured it out. For 3 months of using the site personally, I have never encountered any of the bugs. At the same time, in the form of wiki - sections are available for editing (not empty) Course bags (for technical issues) and Course errors (for incorrect answers, etc.). That is, sections about errors that are editable by everyone and which will definitely be taken into account. An error that could affect the results of assignments was announced on the main page of the site - and the deadlines for completing homework assignments were moved.
All tasks are verified. And in terms of staging, and solutions, and coverage of the material. One feels that they have been working on for a long time. I liked very much the main lecturer - Professor MIT Anand Agarwal. I liked not only me - the evaluation of his work can be judged by the number of positive reviews on the forum (fans even publish postcards and cartoons in his honor).
Some official statistics:
By forum topics you can understand - the whole world is learning. Venezuela, Portugal, China, India, Vietnam, Egypt, Russia ... It is interesting to track the mentality of people on the example of the attitude to the notorious “honor code”. North America and Europe are very eager to protect the honor of honest answers, South America does not hesitate to share answers and even praise it. Honestly, a couple of times I could not refuse the tips of Brazilian friends. The age range and professional composition is even wide enough - there are high school students, there are pensioners. There are people who want to refresh already familiar concepts. There are professionals in very different areas (lawyers, doctors ..). There are radio amateurs and there is someone who will be after the end of this course.
Note - screenshots were restored in 2015 at the current rate on edx.org. The screenshots of 2012 were slightly different, unfortunately lost pictures with academic performance, etc.
An example of a lecture material.
There are regular lectures (they write or draw something on a blackboard or sheet of paper), and there are elements with shows — for example, in this case the lecturer brings electric saws to the audience and we observe, together with MIT students, the response of digital circuits to interference.
An example of laboratory work.
An example of homework or exam tasks. The green daws mark the correct answers; if the answer is wrong, they put up a red cross.
The results of the work are visible in the user profile. According to the rules of the course, the top 10 are taken from 12 homework or laboratory work.
1. The course isjust awesome very good. It is not designed for self-study (which is what most of the similar sites I have encountered), but for real interactive distance learning. Not sure that this approach is possible for all sciences.
2. No matter how we are divided by boundaries and languages, technical sciences are very similar to us. Thanks to Peter I. And the teachers of my institute.
3. The forum of people from all over the world united by a common task is great. It is necessary to learn English - if I understood the lectures and tasks, then sometimes it was very hard in the forum.
PS Notes after 3 years. In the fall of 2015, I became interested in the fate of the course I had taken. The changes are as follows:
1. The course moved to another site - under the wing of the edx.org aggregator. EDX now has a lot of courses from different universities (including MITx), this is a topic for another article.
2. The course was divided into 3 parts, I suspect that now it is more in-depth. All three parts seem to be designed for 17 weeks.
3. The course has now become “self-paced” - for self-study. It seems that you can start at any time and move on to the following topics on readiness.
4. Actively offer to sign up for a paid certificate at the end - it costs $ 49
HABRAHABR: MIT launched the first "fully automated" online course ;
HABRAHABR: MIT and Harvard are investing $ 60 million in distance learning ;
EDX, here you can subscribe to remote learning news from MIT and Harvard .
Registered out of pure interest. I was not sure that I would find time, cope with English, etc. But tightened. The course turned out to be so elaborate and interesting that I put off all my business and became a student again.
Who organizes
The course is organized by a separate division (MITx) of the MIT distant learning. This course is a trial. The US government has allocated funds, a platform has been created, which has been tested on a decent audience (by the beginning of the course more than 150 thousand users had been registered on it). Currently, MIT is teaming up with Harvard to create a shared resource for distance learning, and by September, as part of the “coalition”, EDX promises to provide a list of new courses available.
The course was free and available to everyone. As will be further, not yet announced.
')
How organized
All material is in English only. According to the organizers, it is designed for 10 hours of classes per week - just 14 weeks.
Video lectures
Usually 2 lectures per week. Each lecture is divided into several fragments (about 10 fragments of 4-8 minutes each). When viewing lectures, you can change the speed of voice acting and synchronous captions are available to you. With oral English, I am far from you, so the speed and subtitles reduced to x0.75 were most welcome.
Tasks for securing material
Several for one lecture. You can check and peek at the answer immediately, see the complete solution only after a certain period of time. Answers are entered into text fields. Most often this is the result of calculations in a numerical or symbolic form, sometimes letters or numbers corresponding to the correct answers.
homework
One per week, consists of several tasks. There is nowhere to “peep” the answer. Only if someone shares in the forum,
although it is contrary to the "code of honor", which everyone must adhere to. The number of attempts is not limited.
Laboratory work
Most often with the use of "sandbox" - built-in circuit emulator with analysis in the time and frequency domains. Solutions are to collect the correct scheme, select the correct values ​​of the elements, subtract the missing data based on the measured. "Spy" answer, too, is nowhere.
Exams
In addition to the weekly work, one midterm exam and one final exam are scheduled. During exams, communication on the exam questions forum is prohibited, the number of attempts is limited to three. Additional materials are available to help prepare for exams (reviews of exam tasks of past years, brief notes, etc.). Although the MIT itself is most often practiced by close-book exams, here the decision on the exam is given 24 hours and permission to use any sources. With excellent knowledge, the organizers hope that the decision will take about 3 hours. I solved the final exam (10 tasks, 47 questions) about 12 hours.
Grades and Certificate
According to the results of all completed homework, laboratory work and examinations, the scores are summed up and given grades in percent and grades (in the US, not “two” - “five”, but grades from F to A, A is our “5”). Upon completion, with a good performance, you can get a certificate. It can be printed and hung on the wall. Authenticity can be verified using the EDx / MITx database. From the personal data there is only the name and surname. The fact that you have earned it yourself or that it is not your namesake is confirmed only by the “honor code” (the code of honor, the mention of it is on the form).
Level of study
The course is based on the book of lecturers, professors of MIT, (“Foundations of analog and digital circuits”, A.Agarwal J.Lang 2005, 980 p.), Which is available on the website in scanned form. I really liked the book. It is a pity that it is not translated into Russian.
I can not say that the course was unfamiliar to me. Rather the opposite. In 93, I graduated from the Faculty of Radio Engineering and try to put my knowledge into practice. Apart from the difference in terms (for example, our method of the equivalent generator turned out to be the Thevenin method), the general approaches to learning are very similar, the science we have turned out to be the same.
The first two weeks seemed boring to me. The course is designed for students who are familiar with physics (electromagnetism, electrodynamics) and mathematics (integrals, differentials, complex numbers), but who know nothing beyond Ohm's law. But even the first simple tasks (the method of loop currents, the method of nodal potentials, etc.) are made up with a practical approach (which wire to choose, how to match the source and load ...). The following weeks were not so easy for me, especially where mathematics is needed. New for me was the theory of calculating circuits on FET (MOS transistors) and on operational amplifiers. The student is required to have a good command of the mathematical apparatus. (For example, you need to independently derive the small-signal gain of the circuit with a common gate, having the formula for the dependence of the drain current on the gate voltage).
Level of implementation
I work in the field of IT, so this course is also interesting to me in terms of the means and technology of distance learning.
The course is very, very well made. Starting from the engine and ending with the work of teachers and assistants. The site is very thoughtful. The video is on YouTube, Flash's default player, but they also promise HTML5 support. On all pages with tasks built-in calculator that you want to use. It’s very interesting how a wonderful “sandbox” is organized inside - share who figured it out. For 3 months of using the site personally, I have never encountered any of the bugs. At the same time, in the form of wiki - sections are available for editing (not empty) Course bags (for technical issues) and Course errors (for incorrect answers, etc.). That is, sections about errors that are editable by everyone and which will definitely be taken into account. An error that could affect the results of assignments was announced on the main page of the site - and the deadlines for completing homework assignments were moved.
All tasks are verified. And in terms of staging, and solutions, and coverage of the material. One feels that they have been working on for a long time. I liked very much the main lecturer - Professor MIT Anand Agarwal. I liked not only me - the evaluation of his work can be judged by the number of positive reviews on the forum (fans even publish postcards and cartoons in his honor).
Who studies
Some official statistics:
- Total registered 154 763
- Solve at least one task 26 349
- Opened the final exam 10 262
- Received a certificate (grade not lower than C) 7157
By forum topics you can understand - the whole world is learning. Venezuela, Portugal, China, India, Vietnam, Egypt, Russia ... It is interesting to track the mentality of people on the example of the attitude to the notorious “honor code”. North America and Europe are very eager to protect the honor of honest answers, South America does not hesitate to share answers and even praise it. Honestly, a couple of times I could not refuse the tips of Brazilian friends. The age range and professional composition is even wide enough - there are high school students, there are pensioners. There are people who want to refresh already familiar concepts. There are professionals in very different areas (lawyers, doctors ..). There are radio amateurs and there is someone who will be after the end of this course.
Some screenshots.
Note - screenshots were restored in 2015 at the current rate on edx.org. The screenshots of 2012 were slightly different, unfortunately lost pictures with academic performance, etc.
An example of a lecture material.
There are regular lectures (they write or draw something on a blackboard or sheet of paper), and there are elements with shows — for example, in this case the lecturer brings electric saws to the audience and we observe, together with MIT students, the response of digital circuits to interference.
An example of laboratory work.
An example of homework or exam tasks. The green daws mark the correct answers; if the answer is wrong, they put up a red cross.
The results of the work are visible in the user profile. According to the rules of the course, the top 10 are taken from 12 homework or laboratory work.
findings
1. The course is
2. No matter how we are divided by boundaries and languages, technical sciences are very similar to us. Thanks to Peter I. And the teachers of my institute.
3. The forum of people from all over the world united by a common task is great. It is necessary to learn English - if I understood the lectures and tasks, then sometimes it was very hard in the forum.
PS Notes after 3 years. In the fall of 2015, I became interested in the fate of the course I had taken. The changes are as follows:
1. The course moved to another site - under the wing of the edx.org aggregator. EDX now has a lot of courses from different universities (including MITx), this is a topic for another article.
2. The course was divided into 3 parts, I suspect that now it is more in-depth. All three parts seem to be designed for 17 weeks.
3. The course has now become “self-paced” - for self-study. It seems that you can start at any time and move on to the following topics on readiness.
4. Actively offer to sign up for a paid certificate at the end - it costs $ 49
HABRAHABR: MIT launched the first "fully automated" online course ;
HABRAHABR: MIT and Harvard are investing $ 60 million in distance learning ;
EDX, here you can subscribe to remote learning news from MIT and Harvard .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/146204/
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