The spectacular growth of massive open online courses
(MOOCs) turned higher education on its head in 2012, according to Chris Proulx,
president and CEO of eCornell. MOOCs allowed students to learn from top
universities and at their own pace, and got discussions started about
for-credit curriculum.
That was 2012, so Proulx looked ahead to 2013 in a
predictive blog post for Forbes.
He projected the growth of MOOCs to continue in 2013,
particularly at top-tier schools, while the availability of online courses at
selective schools will increase. He also anticipated that universities will
find even more ways to use the “flipped classroom” model, where students use
class time to enhance prerecorded lectures.
While MOOCs are growing, there are still questions to
be answered about the programs, such as the cost to sustain the courses and
finding ways to make credit for the courses available to students. Proulx predicted a hybrid model that has both
online and in-person components will be embraced this year, as will
peer-to-peer and peer-to-faculty instruction. He even forecast that the cost of
education will decrease—just not in 2013.
