The class is Advanced Chemistry. It’s not an “in seat” class, but one offered online through the University of Kentucky and an education company called Coursera. There’s nothing new with that; colleges and univer-sities offer thousands of classes online. But the difference with this class is that it has more than 7,500 students around the state, the nation and, possibly, the world.
The free 10-week massive online open course, or MOOC, started Jan. 27. The course is designed to prepare students for the rigors of college chemistry, whether they’re in high school or already in college and anticipating taking chemistry.
The course presents such areas of chemistry as kinetics, equilibrium, thermo-dynamics and more. Students should have had some background in chemistry before taking the class, which is considered the equivalent of a high school Advanced Place-ment course.
So who is participating?
“We’re not certain yet. When they signed up, they didn’t have to give us any information about themselves,” said Kim Woodrum, senior lecturer in chemistry at UK, who along with fellow lecturer Allison Soult, teaches the class. “But we’ve done a survey of 350 of them, and most indicated they’re high school students.”
Woodrum hopes most of the students are from the United States, with a good sprinkling of Kentuckians in the mix.
This MOOC is not a live course, but pre-recorded.
“Students watch it at any time and at whatever pace they want,” Woodrum said. After passing a final exam, students may receive a certificate of completion. There is no college credit awarded.
Most MOOCs offered by Coursera do not cater to high school students or college students prepping to take more difficult subjects. UK’s course fills a niche identified by Coursera.
Other MOOCs offered through Coursera come from such prominent universities as Yale, Princeton, Duke, Stanford, Columbia and some foreign schools such as the University of London and The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
MOOCs have a fan in Stu Silberman, executive director of the Prichard Committee, the nonprofit group that works to improve education in Kentucky. Silberman is former superintendent of Fayette County and Daviess County school systems and, ironically, taught high school chemistry himself.
“Look at the learner today and how they learn. If they have a question about anything, they go online and research it from the comfort of their own home. MOOCs are one way to fill that niche,” said Silberman. “It’s the way of the future, and it’s now. It needs to be taken down to the high school level. I’ve been an advocate of them taking online courses before they graduate. It’s the way some of our kids learn best. So having this option in Kentucky is the way to go.”
Silberman also advocates students gathering credits from a variety of colleges and universities, not just the one or two they may attend in person.
“The technology is available,” he said. “We haven’t even seen all the models that will eventually appear.”
Some envision the day when a student may take individual courses from dozens of universities worldwide and cobble together credits for a bachelor’s or master’s degree. They could take the courses from the best institutions available rather than just the few to which they could travel.
Silberman said Kentucky must also improve its broadband access to help rural citizens gain access to educational opportunities.
“I hope the MOOCs will be a big springboard to ensuring that all Kentuckians have good access to broadband,” he added.
MOOCs are not perfect. A former Stanford University professor and inventor kicked off the MOOC rush with an online artificial intelligence course with 160,000-plus students. Now he has expressed a few reservations, acknowledging complaints that the human element, beyond the streamed lectures, is missing from most courses.
The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education did a survey of millions of MOOC users last year and discovered that, on average, only about half of those signed up for a class ever watched a lecture. Only about 4 percent finished their classes. San Jose State University was dismayed at the poll results. The chair of the philosophy department commented: “The people who do well in these kinds of courses are people who are already studious.”
Woodrum said MOOCs won’t mark the end of higher education as we know it. She added that she may be prejudiced because of her age but doesn’t think “technology is the be-all and end-all of everything.”
“I think it’s a resource,” she said. “Personally, I prefer to be in the presence of the learner, and watch the light bulb go on.”