100 MOOCs in November

A quick note: 100 MOOCS are get­ting under­way this Novem­ber, and you can peruse the many dif­fer­ent free edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties by vis­it­ing our com­pre­hen­sive list of MOOCs (Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es), which we curat­ed this month with the gen­er­ous help of ClassCentral.com. Here’s a quick sam­ple of what’s on tap:

• How to Change the World – Wes­leyan on Cours­era – Novem­ber 11 (6 weeks)
• Our Chang­ing Cli­mate: Past, Present and Future  – Uni­ver­si­ty of Read­ing on Future­Learn – Novem­ber 10 (5 weeks)
• Ori­gins – For­ma­tion of the Uni­verse, Solar Sys­tem, Earth and Life – Uni­ver­si­ty of Copen­hagen on Cours­era – Novem­ber 10 (7 weeks)
• The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours (Hours 22–24): Pla­to and Beyond – Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty on edX – Novem­ber 12 (4 weeks)
• Intro­duc­tion to Pub­lic Speak­ing: Impromp­tu Speak­ing – Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton on Canvas.net – Novem­ber 17
• Chi­na (Part 9): Com­mu­nist Lib­er­a­tions  – Har­vard on edX – Novem­ber 20 (5 weeks)
• Age­ing Well: Falls – New­cas­tle Uni­ver­si­ty on Future­Learn – Novem­ber 24 (4 weeks)

If you’re watch­ing how MOOCs are play­ing out, you might want to read the New York­er’s recent arti­cle, Will MOOCs Be Flukes?. It doc­u­ments how “enthu­si­asm for MOOCs has waned in the past year.” The prob­lem lies in MOOCs very design. By their very nature, MOOCs are “mas­sive and open, which means that it can be easy to get lost in them.” As a result, MOOC “com­ple­tion rates are abysmal.” Although some well-edu­cat­ed, self-moti­vat­ed stu­dents have suc­ceed­ed in com­plet­ing these cours­es, MOOCs have not been “effec­tive at serv­ing the stu­dents who need­ed edu­ca­tion­al resources the most.” The finan­cial­ly and geo­graph­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged. In oth­er words, the very peo­ple MOOCs were sup­posed to help. Click here to read the New York­er piece and its sug­ges­tion for get­ting the MOOC project back on track.

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