Dive Summary:
- A San Jose State University professor who made a MOOC a central part of his class and made headlines by raising his class pass rate from 59% to 91% says he had to completely rethink his course.
- Khosrow Ghadiri says he saw incorporating a MIT MOOC into his circuits class as a way of bringing a “talking textbook” to his students, which meant the classroom time could be freed up for group work and Q&As.
- The MOOC allowed him to shift his focus, but it did not mean he spent less time on the class; the professor estimates he spent as much as 80 hours a week on the course, offering personalized feedback, making quizzes and preparing for the class.
From the article:
... After each class, Ghardiri analyzed the quizzes and sent e-mails to students about their results. “I think you should put your effort here,” he might say. He appreciated the benefits of this careful analysis. “This is the first time in my entire life that I know my students one by one,” he says. In the past, he says, he would “go to a lecture hall and look at 86 students he didn’t recognize.” ...