David Youngberg, an assistant professor of economics at
Bethany College, was worried all the talk about massive open online courses
(MOOC) might put him on the unemployment line. After all, Udacity founder and
Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun has been quoted as saying that only 10 institutions
of higher education will remain worldwide within 50 years because of the video
lectures, online discussion boards, and instruction from some of the top minds
in the world his company offers.
So, Youngberg signed up for one of the first courses
offered by Udacity to see what the all the fuss was about. After taking the
course, he came up with five reasons why MOOCs are not all they are cracked up
to be in a commentary piece that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Youngberg outlines the problems with MOOCs as he sees
them (easy to cheat; top students can’t shine; employers expect applicants with
traditional education; computers can’t grade essays; and cheap classes cheapens
the value of education), and explains why he thinks each is an issue. For instance,
he suggests many employers look first to hire team players and not people who
might be attracted to unconventional degree programs.
One interesting thing about the column is not the ideas
Youngberg presents, but the strong reaction to them. In fact, the reason related
to earning traditional degrees elicited responses that range from “nonsense” to
“plain dangerous.”
Youngberg goes on to admit that there’s much to learn
from online education. Perhaps his real point is near the end when he writes,
“If we don’t learn from MOOCs, we will disappear.”
