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JOEL SCHINDALL:
Initially, the course

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was taught in a more or less
conventional manner where

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Blade and I did the
teaching, and we

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had one teaching assistant
who was actually someone

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that Blade new from
Tufts University who

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came in and helped
the students with some

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of the technical issues
in the design problems.

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But after the first term,
some of the students

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volunteered to be teaching
assistants the following term.

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And they brought a
whole new dimension

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to the teaching of the
course, because the students

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were encouraged to--

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The students don't do their
homework during class,

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they do it typically at
10:00 PM or 2:00 AM or 4:00

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AM, any time of
the day or night.

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And it's frustrating
to run into an obstacle

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and not be able to get an
answer to your question.

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So we established a website
where the students can go to it

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and ask their question.

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And we have three or
four teaching assistants

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who are monitoring
that website 24/7.

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Literally 24/7.

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And it's fun to watch the
dialogue because you'll

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often-- at 2:00 AM a
question will come in.

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One of the students
will say, well, Jim

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is best equipped to
answer this question,

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but he's sleeping now.

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I'm going to give you
an initial answer.

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And about 5:00 or 6:00
in the morning, Jim

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will get back on and give
you the rest of the answer.

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We have probably,
over the course

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of the term, at least 1,000
question-answer exchanges that

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take place.

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The students who
evaluate the course

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often give perfect
scores of seven

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to the teaching assistants.

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A little bit humbling for
us and the faculty who

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are getting good
scores-- 6.1, 6.2--

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but the teaching assistants
get the best scores

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because they're
actually one-on-one

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guiding the students
through a problem.

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And they're doing it very much
from the student's perspective,

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because this is the
same problem that they

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had to deal with
the previous year

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so they know what
questions to ask.

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They phrase their
answers so eloquently.

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You know, today's
younger generation

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is accustomed to electronic
tools, to chatting, you know,

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to social media, and they have
a very nice deferential and yet

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effective style of interacting
with this communication.