Why Professors at San Jose State Won't Use a Harvard Professor's MOOC

Certainly that's the new value prop, but wasn't a lot of that previously handled by teaching assistants?

Personally, I think the Udacity "continuous Socratic method" approach is better than traditional lectures because it forces constant thought and engagement.

I say we let the market decide. People like me who much prefer MOOCs to brick-and-mortar universities will gladly stop paying tuition, and people who value traditional universities can support them. Surely, the number of traditional universities will decrease, but it isn't inconceivable that they survive with a better learning model than the lecture-test model that has been around for centuries.

We can separate the debate in a few distinct classes:

1. Superstar class - Excellent researcher and excellent teacher - A good MOOC is not a threat but an opportunity for you to bring even more understanding to your students. Or the superstar hosts his own MOOC.

2. I'd rather do research class - Excellent researcher, but not excellent teacher - A good MOOC is not a threat but an opportunity for you to spend less time teaching, while you can still focus on teaching about your own research as a plus. Or only teach MS and PhD-level courses, where the market in courses would be too specialised for MOOCs.

3. I'd rather teach class - Not excellent researcher, but excellent teacher - A good MOOC is not a threat but an opportunity for you to get extra and world-class material to your students, while leveraging your teaching skills for that personal touch.

4. I'd rather just do nothing - Not an excellent researcher, but not an excellent teacher either - A good MOOC is a big threat to your business model. You won't cut it research-wise, so your in the C-league of universities, but the MOOC will make your failings as a teacher a lot more obvious. A good class is just a few mouse clicks away for students, and why pay if you can get it for free?

Of course there is a signalling effect at work as well. But I find it hard to imagine you would get much signalling from a school filled with class-4 teachers. Both you and your future employers know what universities and colleges are class-4.

The future that Peter J. Hadreas deplores is the one where class-4 disappears and "cheap" education is met by class-3 educators. It's a background fight IMHO. And one where students are the winners. The best students still get to go to the best universities. But all the other students at least get lectured by the best teachers, and get taught by enthusiastic teachers instead of bored B-level researchers.

I agree with your general sentiments, but, and you are certainly not alone in this, you glossed over the financial issues facing universities. In many cases, the budget issues facing universities are not all endogenous, unavoidable problems.

I think a better strategy would be to figure out why, exactly, universities are so strapped for cash (I've worked in higher education, it isn't a simple issue) and target those issues instead.

This is not to say that pedagogical advances can't be made, but as you pointed out, these advances, to the extent possible, should not be influenced by budget constraints lest we end up with cheaper, but proportionally worse, education.

For me it all comes down to class size. If you are in a philosophy class with more than 15 students, how can it be said that one is having consistent and meaningful 2 way interaction with the other students and the teacher? It's simply not possible.

To the prof's who think lecturing to a class of >15 students is teaching them in a way that is different from what the students can get thru video, I say you're fooling yourselves. And you know this to be true.

What's beautiful about where this is headed is a) it's inevitable, and b) it will lead to a better education experience. How can it not be of benefit if the 100-level mundane subject matter is handled via video (with perhaps a teacher being available for questions and tutoring), and have the higher level courses be of smaller class size with mostly in-person teaching? We could probably prune some of the teaching staff and still deliver a better experience.