The Debate on MOOCs Reaches Harvard!

Dear Commons Community,

Ambivalence about MOOCs, which has increasingly been voiced on campuses across the country, is also being heard among the faculty of Harvard University.  The speakers at a conference included faculty members from Harvard and elsewhere, many of them experts in what the day’s organizers framed as the “science” of learning and the “art” of teaching—which, when combined, result in something the speakers said is seldom realized on any campus: an excellent education.  The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article (subscription required) reporting on one of the forums::

“While the level of unease expressed at Harvard, during a conference on Wednesday and in other venues, is not as unified or oppositional as recent statements made at American, Duke, and San Jose State Universities, it is all the more notable for arising among the faculty of an institution that has invested $30-million in a nonprofit organization that produces massive open online courses.

At Wednesday’s forum, a conference on teaching and learning, several speakers touted the virtues of in-person, physically centered education. The gathering also served as an implicit and, at times, explicit pedagogical counterargument to the rise of MOOCs.

EdX, the nonprofit MOOC provider founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was “the elephant in the room,” Jennifer L. Roberts, a professor of history of art and architecture at Harvard, said after her remarks at the meeting of the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching.”

The initiative, which is supported by a $40-million gift from two benefactors, Gustave M. and Rita E. Hauser, is intended to encourage faculty members to experiment and improve the quality of teaching and learning at Harvard. While some projects supported by the grant feature technology, none are MOOCs.

Tony