While I consider myself mildly obsessed with MOOCs and all that they represent and why higher education and the ivory tower feels this intense need to attack them, I have not had much luck taking them. I signed up for a large amount of MOOCs last year, only to burn out a couple weeks in. I was those statistics which Harvard and my own institution, MIT, now insist are not the point. I know why I’m not good at MOOCs, and it’s the same reason I loved history as a subject so much – I love being lectured at… it’s kind of weird. I can sit and listen to these stories about cultures past as long as I have a cup of burnt campus coffee on my desk.
One MOOC that I considered committing to was Colorado State’s MOOC on Student Affairs, which I know many colleagues, including the awesome Joe Sabado and Amma Marfo, who will both bring some solid insights to discussion and posting in forums that will benefit any undergrads and grads taking the course. While I also echo Eric Stoller in his discussion on the “Future” Section of the MOOC, I think it is pretty awesome that we are getting into the game, and I hope this MOOC leads to more detailed looks at our profession in order to make us better (rather than a Supermarket Sweep approach – sorry, I had to say it again).
“It takes how many gigawatts to run this MOOC?!!!”
I am committing though to a Coursera MOOC from Duke University, History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education. I think what drew me to this was its grandeur and size, including numerous meat space classroom courses tied into the MOOC content, a collaboration with and support from HASTAC, and of course, the talk of the future of higher education.
You may think I’m comparing student affairs to a cult… I’m not. But I do want a Cornetto now.
One of my favorite classes in grad school was “Higher Education, Globalization, and the Public Good,” and so the whole MOOC as a system to educate the whole of humanity bit that was being sold at the peak of their hype a few years ago resonated with me. Are they really the full solution for the future of increasing gaps in wealth and more expensive colleges? No. Are they always only going to educate already-educated citizens? No. That’s what we are here to determine, if we don’t write the narrative now of how these systems can better serve the public good, things are just going to keep getting out of hand. I guess that’s sort of what I’m hoping we get into in this MOOC, what future is there for higher education that really does good for humanity.
I actually couldn’t say it any better than Dr. Davidson, the leader behind the MOOC:
The full, whimsical name of the class is: “The History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education: Or, How We Can Unlearn Our Old Patterns and Relearn for a More Successful, Fruitful, Satisfying, Productive, Humane, Happy, Beautiful, Socially-Conscious and Socially-Engaged Future.” That subtitle is inspired by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen who has said that “all education is vocational” in the sense that it is our job, as educators, to help train people for the vocation of leading better lives.
Is anyone else taking this MOOC? If so, shoot me a tweet or an email. Let’s meet up over a beer, a latte, or over the interwebs. If it’s the latter, I’ll bring the gifs.
