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Real college classes have writing assignments and required reading.
Do most MOOCs have required reading? I’ve been conversing with the proprietor of the blog Capitalist Imperialist Pig about that question in the comments here. They challenged me to look at all the...
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Everyone their own professor (w/ apologies to Carl Becker).
I. Everyone Their Own Sushi Chef. Last summer, I tried sushi for the first time. I was in Korea at the Noryangjin Fish Market in Seoul and I went into a restaurant with a big banner in English that...
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Some MOOCs are more inferior than others.
“Our consortium’s members collectively decided to add intention statements to our syllabi, stating that our courses are not equivalent to a semester-long college-composition course. The main reason for...
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“[W]ith this bird everything is settled.”
The remains of the last known Passenger Pigeon at the Cincinnati Zoo. “[W]ith a real nightingale we can never tell what is going to be sung, but with this bird [a mechanical nightingale] everything is...
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There’s more than one way to remove the sage from the stage.
I’ve spent more than a little space on this blog defending lecturing. The irony of that situation is that I don’t do very much of it in the great scheme of things anymore. Since I’m a historian,...
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One of these days these MOOCs are gonna walk all over you.
If you think this blog is depressing to read, then imagine how depressing it is to write. To be fair, academia today really is depressing (at least if you actually try to understand everything that’s...
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Parasites and vultures.
When you want to replace your sink, you call a plumber. When you want to replace higher education, on the other hand, everything appears to be DIY. Of course, you can always go to Lowe’s or Home Depot...
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Will the last non-super professor in academia please turn out the lights when...
In 1892, William Weihe, the former President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union, testified before Congress that his union: “never objects to [technological] improvements and...
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“It could not be worse than what we do face to face.”
Yesterday, Mark Palko convinced me to read an Andrew Delbanco article from a few weeks ago that I had previously decided to skip. I’m glad I changed my mind as it is indeed one of the few even-handed...
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“They mean to win Wimbledon!”
Since this blog is getting kind of popular, I think it’s time for me to scare off as many readers as possible with an extended Monty Python analogy. And rather than go for a scene from a movie that...
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Like automating your wedding or the birth of your first child.
The best line in that “Grading the MOOC University” piece that came out in the Times over the weekend was obviously the part about the superprofessor being: “out of students’ reach, only slightly more...
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The MOOC monster will never be satisfied.
“Money always has the potential to become a moral imperative unto itself. Allow it to expand and it can quickly become a morality so imperative that all others seem frivolous in comparison.” - David...
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Ground rules for the MOOC Monster.
So a giant, hairy, orange monster has shown up at the door to your classroom. Maybe you invited it, but more likely your dean or provost invited it into your department for you. What are you going to...
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“You may say to yourself, ‘My God, what have I done?’”
The Chronicle of Higher Education has become the trade paper for people who want to carve up the jobs of professors like a Thanksgiving turkey. How do I know this? They published this chart for the...
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Will Coursera make us stupid?
In 2008, the contrarian tech writer Nicholas Carr wrote an article entitled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Upon recommending it to a roomful of teachers the other night, I noticed that this article is...
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Dear Superprofessors: This is how a labor market works…
I know I’m late to the party on this, but that letter to Harvard’s Michael Sandel from the San Jose State (SJSU) Philosophy Department really is quite wonderful. I’m going to try to take up its...
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The “Down With MOOCs” World Tour, 2013-14.
My grades are in, the post I promised on Friday is up at the Academe blog and now I have (different) work to do. I need to prepare to take my show on the road. Cheap Trick is big in Japan. I’m told...
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Be there or be square.
When I mentioned yesterday that I was hoping to hear about a very interesting tour date very soon, I never imagined that I would hear that very day. Yet I got the e-mail from the American Historical...
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“Warning: This is not college.”
Among the many things I’ve been doing since my semester ended is start another MOOC: Nutrition, Health and Lifestyle out of Vanderbilt. Why? Not only does it remind me of my dear, departed sabbatical,...
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“Once I took the spinal cord out, the course went quite gelatinous.”
You should really go read Jeremy Adelman dissect his own World History MOOC over at the Princeton Alumni Weekly. As an added bonus, you can read me say the exact same things I’ve been writing here for...
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