Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/139946
OOC? Three business professors discuss what they learned from teaching their first massive open online courses— and why they think MOOCs are here to stay. BY TRICIA BISOUX ROB DALY/G LOW I MAG ES W hile many educators have been wondering whether massive open online courses represent revolution or ruin for higher education, a relatively small number of professors have been testing the format's potential for teaching and learning. The first business professors began experimenting with MOOCs just over a year ago. BizEd recently spoke to three professors who have delivered MOOCs through the Coursera platform. Hank Lucas, professor of information at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park, taught his first MOOC, "Surviving Disruptive Technologies," this past spring. Edward Hess is a professor of business administration and executivein-residence at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He has taught two rounds of a MOOC called "Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses," based on his book by the same name. Finally, Christian Terwiesch is a professor of operations and information management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He has taught two Coursera offerings of "An Introduction to Operations Management." BizEd asked Hess, Lucas, and Terwiesch to share what they liked, what they learned, and why they think MOOCs have such tremendous potential for education. What has been the biggest challenge of teaching a MOOC? Lucas: I've taught a fully online course for our part-time MBA, for which I've created videos. But Coursera offers its own recommendations for producing online videos. It suggests making sure you're doing other things while you're talking, such as using a special table computer so you can annotate your slides—circle elements and underline words—as you record the lecture. I think that's very effective. As a result of this, I rerecorded all my videos for my regular online course. Terwiesch: In the classroom, you can think on the fly and make up your lecture as you go along, but that doesn't work in a MOOC. This format forces you to think much more deeply about the topic, so you can teach it effectively in a series of brief ten-minute videos. That has been a very helpful exercise for me. Have you had any bad experiences? Hess: No, my MOOC has far exceeded my expectations. The quality and quantity of student engagement on the discussion forums, and the quality of their submitted work, has been in some cases as high as I've seen with my MBAs. In a single MOOC, I taught more people than Darden has graduated in its history. Lucas: The most frustrating part BizEd July/August 2013 27