Mindfulness, MOOCs, and Money in Higher Education

For the next three days I will be in Boulder CO at the Mindfulness, MOOCs, and Money in Higher Education conference hosted by Naropa University. Come say hello if you see me.

Tonight we had the opening panel discussion, where a number of the questions facing us over the next few days were raised:

• What should education be, and how does contemplative thought/study fit in?
• How can contemplative educators engage in decisions being made in Higher Education?
• What do we/they have to offer? How can we help?
• Why MOOCs? What promise do they hold (and what peril)?
• What can contemplative educators and contemplative education do or say about wider social issues?
• How do we address social justice, inequity, and issues of inclusion?
• How can we respond (if at all) to deeper states of crisis in Higher Education?

If you’re new to MOOCs, here’s a reasonably short and very informative lecture to get you up to speed on some of their uses and potentials:

Let me know what you think. Can we mindfully MOOC? And where/when does that third part of the title -Money- come in? Readers will remember the Coursera course on Buddhism and Modern Psychology that I went through and highly enjoyed. You’ll also be interested to know that, according to one study, only 4% of MOOC registrants actually finish a course (easy in, easy out).

• So one obvious peril is that students don’t finish (I don’t know comparable numbers for University courses, but I’d guess that they are closer to 80-90% completion per course).
• Another is the lack of depth of engagement. Listening to/watching videos at home while you do the laundry might not lead to the same level of retention one gets with in-person classes.
• Another, more sinister, possibility is that MOOCs are used not to reach more students, but to use fewer professors to reach the same number. I.E. using one “superstar” professor to “teach” all sections of a class via MOOCs with a few TAs, rather than distributing those courses out to several full time professors.

More on all of this in my next post.