Question

Hi. I just watched my first lecture for Intro to Computer Programming and the professor said to make sure I went online for "recitation". Can anyone let me know exactly what this means? This is my first time taking an online course and I am not sure but, would really like to ensure that my participation in this course and others are noted. Thanks in advance for your help. :-)

Answer 1

Recitation only applies for the students at MIT taking the course. A recitation is a session with a Teaching Assistant (TA) where you can get your questions answered. Sometimes these questions are not asked in lectures, so you can get concepts understood better in recitation. It does not apply for online students.

Answer 2

In some of the cases there are additional or supplemental lessons by the TAs. Here is an example. http://tinyurl.com/9bn72v2. A good example of one was for the Measuring Complexity, a very daunting topic. There is a video and notes on Big-O Notation Sarina Canelake that really helped me.

Answer 3

Hi Jenn84, I watch all the recitation sections done by TAs for the MIT lectures offered and they are helpful. They often are a repeat of the lecture with a bit different approach or interpretation of things. If you want a review of the lecture then the recitations are very helpful.

Answer 4

@glynys & @diek, you're implying that recitations are recorded and posted? i'm aware that they are for MIT on campus students. can you provide a good link? the one posted by @diek goes to an empty page. thanks!

Answer 5

ahh.. i see the links on the course page!

Answer 6

Glad you found it.

Answer 7

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00sc-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-spring-2011/unit-1/

I looked for the links again -- they are under "Units" on the OCW homepage for the Python Gentle Intro course -- link above is the first recitation.