Here’s How I Taught A Quantum Computing Course to Over 4,000 Students At Once
By Elisa Bäumer, Qiskit Educator, IBM Quantum
Usually, I’m teaching 30, 40, or maybe 60 students in my quantum computing classes. But last week, I looked at the screen and saw that there were 2,600 students live online watching me, plus plenty more who would watch the lecture afterward.
It was a little unnerving — but it was amazing seeing that there was so much passion and interest in quantum computing from people around the world.
Last week and this week, the IBM Quantum and Qiskit team is hosting a course like none ever taught before: the Qiskit Global Summer School, an intensive and totally-remote quantum computing course attended by 4,084 students from nearly every time zone on Earth. A host of expert teachers have taught classes and lab sessions from my classes on the basics of quantum computation to deep dives on quantum hardware and quantum algorithms. The experience had its challenges, and teaching two consecutive days of three-hour lectures on an iPad screen can be downright exhausting. But I’m very honored to have been able to share my enthusiasm for quantum computing with so many people.
First, a bit about me: I’m a Ph.d Student studying quantum information theory at ETH Zürich and member of the Qiskit Community team. It’s mandatory that each ETH student teach once per semester as a teaching assistant. Since I started, I’ve taught quantum mechanics, quantum computing, and other physics and science courses. Two years ago we had a summer school on quantum computing, but in the last minute, the speaker had to drop out, so I happily jumped in. Since I began working with Qiskit, I started helping out at events, and eventually started teaching at an in-person Qiskit Summer School. But the Qiskit Global Summer School was a completely different experience.
I was able to re-use a lot of the material I had prepared for quantum computing courses I had taught at ETH as well as at the past summer schools. For each new course, I’ve tried to optimize my lecture in order to make it even clearer by remembering and anticipate the kinds of questions that people had from previous lectures. After all, when I’m teaching 30–60 students, people can just raise their hands or unmute themselves to ask questions, but it’s impossible to get to every question from a 2,600-student live stream. I ended up spending even more time than usual on the small details and individual steps — what I’d do in one step teaching graduate physics students I would now do in three steps.
I also tried to keep the expectations clear with the students; it’s hard to make sure that everyone is happy, because in such a large, open course, some students are bound to have a strong mathematics background while others aren’t. I would point out when certain points were important, or note when a section was only for those hoping to see a rigorous proof. During one lecture, for example, I demonstrated the mathematical machinery behind why applying a specific unitary matrix corresponds to a reflection around some axis, but pointed out that you didn’t need to know the mathematical proof in order to understand how to apply the matrix and what that reflection looked like.
The structure of the course is also really important. You don’t want to dive too deep in the very beginning, but you also need to start with something that gives students a lot of motivation. For example, I introduced the famous quantum teleportation protocol in the first lecture. It’s important to continue breaking to review small examples the whole way through.
Teaching such a large remote course certainly came with its own unique challenges. There were technical difficulties, it’s hard to plan a course for exactly three hours, and it can be difficult to follow along with the questions of such a large group of people. It’s important to note that snags will happen, and it’s impossible to make every single person happy. In a regular classroom, you can turn around and ensure that the students aren’t bored or confused. But on a large lecture like this, you have to make sure that they’re interacting with the learning platform by asking and upvoting questions and engaging in the chat. It can also be difficult to speak while I’m writing on an iPad — but that’s been getting easier with experience.
Of course, the Qiskit Global Summer School wouldn’t have been possible without all of the support I got from the rest of the Qiskit team. Volunteers around the world were available to ensure that the Crowdcast livestreaming service was working and to answer students’ questions in the Discord at all times. It was really amazing seeing the team’s efforts and impact.
Overall, it’s important for a teacher to show their enthusiasm about the topic and to show self confidence while they’re speaking — especially in front of a large crowd. I was very nervous at first, but once I got into the flow it felt like teaching a normal class. And when I saw how many people had signed up, I got much more excited and invested a lot more time to go through all of the material again to make sure I could present a really awesome course. I really felt proud to be able to teach quantum computing to all of these people.
Interested in building tomorrow’s quantum workforce? Learn more about our Quantum Educators program here, and check out the Qiskit textbook here.
