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PDF Download MOOC U. Does the rise of the “massive open online course” spell the end of the university as we know it? Through its academic and financial partnership with Coursera, Penn has professors in the fray, skin in the game, and a front-row view of higher education’s next big frontier. By Trey Popp far into his celebrated class on I cranked it up another notch. Struck was from “Corporate Finance,” by Franklin Allen, Not Greek and Roman mythology, really flying now. Telemachus is in Pylos, the Nippon Life Professor of Finance and Peter Struck suddenly started he’s in Sparta, he’s hearing from Nestor and Economics, to “Experimental Genome talking very, very quickly. Menelaus, he’s getting bewitched by Helen, Science,” by pharmacology professor It was during his second lecture. Picking nudged by Athena disguised as Mentor, John Hogenesch and assistant professor up where he’d left off the week before—a everyone’s telling him what Orestes had to of genetics John Isaac Murray. And the bravura word-by-word translation of the do to avenge Agamemnon— University is expanding its offerings. first 10 lines of The Odyssey—the youthful And that’s when my brain almost boiled (See sidebar on p.61 for Penn’s current Penn classicist mused on Homer’s open- right out my ears. I hit the minus sign. Coursera catalog.) ing description of Telemachus as a whiny This Coursera thing was clearly going Penn also has a financial stake in layabout resigned to blaming the gods for to take some getting used to. Coursera. Three months after the company his bad luck. launched—with $16 million in venture- “Achilles was off conquering whole As you’ve probably heard, we are living capital funding and initial academic part- swatches of territory at this age,” Struck in the age of the MOOC. In the last year, nerships with Stanford, Penn, Princeton, was saying. “Twenty is plenty old enough “massive open online courses” have spread and the University of Michigan—Penn to step up and get things done!” through the higher-education landscape became an equity partner by making a joint Then, as he launched into Telemachus’s like kudzu on a Carolina roadside. Among investment with Caltech of $3.7 million. remedial education in how to work up some the several providers that have gained early (As of press time, Coursera had attracted righteous anger, Struck began jabbering prominence, Coursera stands out as a a total of $22 million in equity funding.) like an auction crier on a sugar high. particularly fast-growing enterprise. What the rise of the MOOC portends for It only worked in Safari. Firefox wouldn’t Founded by two Stanford professors in higher education is an open question. let me do it. I clicked a plus sign at the April 2012, the for-profit online education Coursera has been enrolling tens of thou- bottom of the screen and Struck instant- platform attracted more than a million sands of students in single classes (all of ly accelerated his pace by 25 percent. I hit users in its first four months—a faster which, so far, have been offered for free). the plus sign again. Struck sped up to a start than either Facebook or Twitter, They live everywhere from Kansas to 1.5x clip. It seemed like a miracle. If I could according to The New York Times. Kazakhstan, and are turning to MOOCs to power through the rest of the lecture just Penn accounts for a significant portion get everything from casual intellectual a little faster, I’d be able to knock out the of that growth. So far the University has enrichment to actual college credits. weekly quiz before my kids came home offered 19 courses on the platform—more Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller aims clamoring for sandwiches. I might get the than any of Coursera’s 32 other academ- to offer “most of the full university rest of the weekend to myself—and my ic partners aside from Stanford, which curriculum”—which she pegs at about Lego partners—after all. has also offered 19. Penn’s MOOCs range 5,000 courses—within three to five years. 56 MARCH | APRIL 2013 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE ILLUSTRATION BY MELINDA BECK THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MARCH | APRIL 2013 57 “I hope that in 10 years,” she adds, “we yet developed—to think about the way he recently ran a competition in which will look back and say, “Boy, I can’t they inform not just delivering course teams of students produced product pro- believe that the most predominant meth- material, but assessing student learning, totypes, and then simulated a market in od of teaching our students was to shove and doing it on a broad scale and in more which purchasing decisions were made them into an auditorium for an hour and efficient ways.” and profits computed. a half twice a week.” One of their fondest hopes is that the “For some years now,” Price adds, “stu- Koller, along with her co-founder Andrew MOOC format holds the key to “flipping dents entering institutions like Penn have Ng and a great many other people, believes the classroom.” This idea dates back to grown up in a media environment where that MOOCs will radically change the the 1990s, but gained a fervent following many of these tools seem second-nature world of higher education. around the time an MIT grad named to them. And they’re puzzled as to why their “The question is,” as Penn Provost Salman Khan started tutoring his niece faculty members aren’t using them.” Vincent Price puts it, “How?” in math over the Internet. When Khan started uploading his instructional videos on YouTube in 2006, their popularity and PEDAGOGY AND PROFITS REBOOT THE MISSION apparent effectiveness sparked wide- University officials decided to partner “We are in the business of creating and spread enthusiasm for the notion of “flip- with Coursera for several reasons—not disseminating knowledge,” says Edward ping” the conventional balance between the least of which is that the company’s Rock L’83, the director of Open Course classroom lectures and homework. founders reached out to Penn before any- Initiatives at Penn. “That’s what we do. Perhaps high-school teachers could take one else did. Another factor, Rock and We do it on campus, teaching students advantage of Khan’s knack for YouTube Price say, was Penn’s lack of expertise and doing research. We disseminate it teaching by assigning his tutorials (or in online education. in journal articles, we disseminate our others like them) as homework, and using Free, high-quality, online collegiate research in books, and we disseminate class time to help students apply the con- classes are not a brand new invention. our research in conferences all around cepts to problem sets. MIT has been putting entire courses on the world. We have a few satellite cam- Khan left his job as a hedge fund analyst the Web since 2002, and now offers, at puses. And the Internet is a place of in 2009 to devote himself to Khan Academy, no charge, more than 2,100 classes knowledge. So to be there—to be a pres- a non-profit educational organization that encompassing “virtually the entire cur- ence on the Internet and disseminate currently offers 3,900 “micro lectures” on riculum” of the university on its Open the knowledge that we’ve created through its YouTube channel, which has racked up CourseWare (OCW) website. More recent- the Internet—isn’t some tangential kind over 230 million views. ly, MIT teamed up with Harvard to found of activity. It’s core to our mission.” Price thinks MOOCs hold the same edX, a non-profit MOOC platform that Rock, the Saul A. Fox Distinguished potential for college classrooms. currently offers 24 courses produced by Professor of Business Law, is the Uni- “If you have well-developed technolo- one of six participating colleges. versity’s designated deep thinker on all gies to provide that didactic component,” “MIT, to their credit, did much to advance matters MOOC. Last year he was tapped he says, “it actually frees you up to do those technologies, and launched in many as a senior advisor to Price and President more of the intense, smaller-scale, what’s respects the Open Course movement,” Price Amy Gutmann on the issue. often called ‘high-touch’ kind of teaching. says. “But that investment in the technol- Part of the motivation for Penn’s embrace And for places like Penn, I think that’s ogy per se is what led them down that road. of MOOCs is altruistic. But while adminis- likely where the value-added will be.” Our lack of investment in this technology trators trumpet Coursera as a way for Penn Karl Ulrich, the CIBC Endowed Profes- was what permitted us to focus on what I to spread enlightenment, the University’s sor of Entrepreneurship and e-Com- think matters, which is the content and self-interested hopes for Coursera are more merce, is already on that path. He teach- the pedagogy, and to leave the technology varied and interesting. es a handful of classes on product design, to Coursera.” “What Coursera has made possible,” says management, and innovation at Whar- In Rock’s view, “There’s a really optimal Rock, “by virtue of the hype, if you will—the ton, and a Coursera class titled “Design: division of labor with a for-profit venture- glamor, the potential of teaching hundreds Creation of Artifacts in Society.” capital company taking care of, and tak- of thousands of students—is it has jump- “I believe my Coursera videos are more ing the risk of, developing the platform— started a conversation about technology effective educationally than the same something that Penn has no comparative in the classroom at Penn that we’ve been content delivered live,” he says.
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