MOOC Land
Having taught the first MOOC (massive open source course) in
the state of New Hampshire (ok no big deal we are a small state but we do have
a state university system with multiple campuses and a number of private
colleges, including an Ivy) I have become a sort of point guy for talking about
this type of teaching (perhaps “target” might be a better term).
I’ve touched upon faculty fears in at least one previous
post and I continue to wonder about animosity toward this type of larger scale
approach to education. My colleagues
are understandably concerned about possible erosion of face-to-face education
which they value and which, for the most part, they are good at doing. They see MOOCs with their big
enrollments as the beginning of the end of what they do. And, to some extent, they may be
right. But it’s not the MOOC that
is the primary driver of this, but instead the unwieldy cost of both
undergraduate and graduate education in the U.S. So many of my students at the College are literally drowning
in debt before they even set their sights on graduate education. Just yesterday I talked with a bright
young student who will graduate from our state college with over $50,000 in
debt and now hopes to enter a professional doctoral program (Psy.D. in
Psychology) in which she’ll accrue an additional $120,000 or more in debt. And of course the critical question
that confronts faculty: Can we in good faith encourage students to ...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
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