One thing about online classes is there might be someone with some knowledge of education helping to develop courses.
Think about this... take an autodidact who spent the last seven years of their life focused on a single subject to the relative exclusion of other people. They've drilled in to the depths of knowledge in their field. Now with not one minute of coaching, no course on education theory, etc. are dropped in front of hall of 300 people and are expected to teach them about an element of their subject six years behind where they are.
I still remember Tommy Chong walking into my freshman calc class and talking 44 minutes straight to the chalboard as he wrote upon it. Never once pausing or looking towards the 300... oh wait 200... oh no... 120... oops 41 er 17 students remaining in his lecture at the end of the semester. (ok not literally Tommy Chong, but with every salient feature matching him.)
No insults intended to the professors in the crowd.
Shiny new knowledge is so tempting... that first 80% ability in a subject comes so fast and the rest is increasingly less efficient to build out to never reaching 100%.
