<story><title>Jennifer Widom Named Dean of Stanford School of Engineering</title><url>http://news.stanford.edu/2017/02/27/computer-scientist-jennifer-widom-named-dean-stanford-school-engineering/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>orsenthil</author><text>She is a wonderful teacher. When the very first MOOCs were introduced, I took AI taught by Sebastian Thrun, Peter Norvig and Databases taught by Jennifer Widom.  I could contrast the teaching style of these experts. Jennifer Widom is approachable, methodical, breaks down complex topics into easily manageable chunks and pushes you hard with attainable goals. The other two geniuses (Norvig and Thrun) will present something that you will have struggle (with frustrations because denial isn&amp;#x27;t an option with them) to get it. I loved her way of teaching and I am glad she taking on responsible roles.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>denzil_correa</author><text>In these sets of MOOCs, there was also Machine Learning taught by Andrew Ng and I had your same Widom like experience with Andrew Ng. After taking so many courses in life - physically and remotely - I can safely say that Andrew Ng is the best teacher I&amp;#x27;ve come across. The best part was how we actually gave insights in Machine Learning rather than leaving it like something esoteric. It changed my perspective and added a lot of value to my professional career.&lt;p&gt;Recently, I tried to take the Neural Networks from Jeff Hinton and I realized how much I missed Ng&amp;#x27;s lectures.</text></comment>
<story><title>Jennifer Widom Named Dean of Stanford School of Engineering</title><url>http://news.stanford.edu/2017/02/27/computer-scientist-jennifer-widom-named-dean-stanford-school-engineering/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>orsenthil</author><text>She is a wonderful teacher. When the very first MOOCs were introduced, I took AI taught by Sebastian Thrun, Peter Norvig and Databases taught by Jennifer Widom.  I could contrast the teaching style of these experts. Jennifer Widom is approachable, methodical, breaks down complex topics into easily manageable chunks and pushes you hard with attainable goals. The other two geniuses (Norvig and Thrun) will present something that you will have struggle (with frustrations because denial isn&amp;#x27;t an option with them) to get it. I loved her way of teaching and I am glad she taking on responsible roles.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rz2k</author><text>I agree with you about the exceptional quality of that course. I did not take the other two earliest large online courses, but I have taken few dozen since then. Compared to MOOCs at different schools, I found her teaching style more similar to those offered by instructors at MIT than those offered by instructors at Stanford.&lt;p&gt;I think your description is right, too. Methodical and easily manageable without a loss in rigor.</text></comment>