[haberman]

I would love it if some of these educational YouTube videos came with exercises.

I watch a lot of educational YouTube videos. But I've come to see them as more entertainment than education. Not in terms of the quality of the videos (which is often excellent), but in terms of what I retain. Sometimes I come across YouTube videos that YouTube claims I have watched, and I don't remember the first thing about them.

I think it's difficult to learn while being just a passive listener. You have to get your hands dirty playing around with the concepts. It would be so cool if these high-quality "lecture" videos were accompanied with high quality exercises.

[AprilPhoenix]

It would be awesome, but there’s a surfeit of material out there and these guys are doing it pro bono. Better to look at it as an entry point.

One thing I do is try to connect the concepts into textbooks I do have. Say I have an elementary proof about a cross product: try and tie that into the stuff about wedge products and exterior calculus I just learned about. Line integrals? Perfect opportunity to practice working with one-forms.

Another option for the mathematically inclined is to pause and prove everything if you feel you aren’t getting it good enough, or to build up your own visual picture from first principles as much as possible rather than memorizing the video’s presentation.

[screye]

This is task for paid educators and not free youtube channels. The problem here is that educators do not make their content available for free online.

I don't blame them. Educators are in a perpetual cat-and-mouse game with their students to avoid cheating. However, in an era with Chat-GPT (and even before), cheaters can always cheat if they want to cheat. If a teacher decides to teach calculus using 3B1B's videos as reference, then they should make associated assignments available for other educators to use.

There is no field better suited for opensource than education, yet tribal knowledge remains either inaccessible or under-utilized. It's a shame. And no, "online courses" are not a substitute for real coursework. Watered-down wish-fulfillment QTEs is all they are most of the time. There are some excellent online courses (MIT OCW, NPTEL), but they're the exception. And even then, online courses have yet to replicate the essential support of a human educator or peers in learning.

I look forward to seeing schools that fully construct a curriculum around curating the best internet resources, with the teacher being there more so 'conduct / direct' rather than getting their hands dirty figuring out how to optimally teach the same thing every teacher has taught for the last 100 years. It has the advantage of reducing teacher overhead and improving the quality of teaching. win-win.

[bertil]

Grant Sanderson (the author) has repeatedly mentioned in his videos that he is very much _for_ active learning and doesn’t think passive viewing offers more than some insights and entertainment. He tirelessly asks his viewers to explore actively. If he weren’t the kindest and most earnest person on the internet, it would be jarring to hear him criticize so plainly what are admittedly the best videos out there.

I’m convinced that he would welcome and likely support any effort. I’m assuming he has something in mind or underworks, either building something himself or working with Brillant (the de-facto leader in active learning and a sponsor for all science education channels, including 3b1b).

There was an effort in that direction with last years’ _Summer of math_, where he asked students to make their own video.

Sabine Hossenfelder (physicist, of Science News fame) has made content for Brillant, branded under her name, so it could be an option to host it there. I suspect Grant having a website is a precursor to a homegrown option.

Either way, I’m assuming he has all the encouragement and the unlimited support of anyone here —— he certainly has mine.

[TRiG_Ireland]

I've heard it described as "sit back" vs "sit forward" learning.

[spallas]

Going into that direction, I really appreciated the lessons that come with a written version, most of them have some recap quizzes that I find helpful

[GrqP]

I'm in the same boat.

Although I find instructional videos helpful in understanding concepts, the knowledge is fleeting. Exercises would be helpful, but IMHO, sometimes you need the support of a cohort or TA to solve problems in a different way.

MOOCs are pretty good. They have instructional videos, exercises and a cohort. Still, they seem to be missing something. AI will push online learning to 2.0.

[eru]

Michael Penn's math lectures on YouTube typically come with exercises.

[Nifty3929]

Pável did a great job of this with his linear algebra videos and Lem.ma

[jmartrican]

There might be a market for this.