Last month, a Tech Crunch article trumpeted a Chronicle of Higher Education survey that found 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don’t Think Their Students Deserve Credit. It was a compelling story—and one that drew lots of social sharing and dire predictions about the imminent death of MOOCs.
But digging a little bit deeper, the story is more nuanced (isn’t it always?). The Chronicle piece on the survey, which evaluated responses from 103 professors who had taught a MOOC, was not nearly so dire. In fact, a surprising 79 percent of respondents felt that MOOCs were worth the hype, which is no small feat when you consider that the respondents were:
“…primarily longtime professors with no prior experience with online instruction. More than two-thirds were tenured, and most had taught college for well over a decade. The respondents were overwhelmingly white and male. In other words, these were not fringe-dwelling technophiles with a stake in upending the status quo.
Check out both the Tech Crunch and Chronicle pieces and see where you come down on all of this. Are MOOCs a not-worthy-of-credit flash in the pan, or do they have both sizzle and steak?
