[crispyambulance]

Lectures from professors who are supremely skilled at pedagogy are great. Lucky students will have only a handful of those in their academic careers. These can, however, be recorded. It might not be as electrifying as the real thing, but the real thing is so rare.

There are other activities that simply can't be done alone, however: laboratory classes, recitations and interactions where the students engage at a personal level with professors, TA's and other students. This is how students develop relationships that they carry with them past their time in academia.

There is room, I think, for a hybrid approach. A combination of online learning with some kind of periodic on-site and in-person practicum. This drastically lowers the cost of the education, but still engages students on a personal level.

[tdfx]

One of my CS professors used the "flipped classroom" technique. He would assign the readings and expect them to be done by the time of the scheduled class. Then we would jointly do exercises and collaborate on the topics that were touched upon in the readings. He was ruthless if it was obvious you hadn't done the reading. It was effective.

I think one or two days a week for 2 hours is the perfect amount of lab/in-person collaboration time. Combined with an online forum for questions and video lectures, that would be an ideal course of instruction for me.