Education Week - June 12, 2013 - 16

16 EDUCATION WEEK
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JUNE 12, 2013 www.edweek.org
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INDUSTRY & INNOVATION > Tracking business trends and emerging models in K-12
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‘MOOC’ Plan Could Spawn Dual-Enrollment Courses
Coursera partners
with universities
Michelle R. Davis
A recent decision by 10 large public
universities and postsecondary
systems to partner with a for-profit
company known for providing massive,
open online courses, or “MOOCs,”
is likely to have a trickle-down effect
on the world of K-12 education
in areas that could include professional
development for educators
and increased options for students
who want to earn college credits
while still in high school.
State higher education systems
in New York, Tennessee, West Virginia,
and other states announced
recently that they would use the forprofit
company Coursera—known
for creating and offering MOOCs—to
enhance their own educational offerings.
Each institution is currently
drafting a plan for how to
mine Coursera’s platform to either
develop MOOCs or their own online,
for-credit courses.
To date, MOOCs have largely been
developed by higher education institutions
for use in postsecondary
environments. But the new venture
by Coursera could provide valuable
insights for K-12 systems, particularly
when it comes to gathering
research and information about
how online courses can be made effective
and engaging, said Susan D.
Patrick, the president and chief executive
officer of the International
Association for K-12 Online Learning,
or iNACOL, an advocacy and research
group based in Vienna, Va.
“This is going to teach us a lot,”
Ms. Patrick said. “These MOOCs are
going to give us in K-12 a rapid prototyping
to [understand] learning
in these online environments and
what motivates students.”
Dual Goals
The arrangement between Moun-
tain View, Calif.-based Coursera and
the postsecondary institutions and
systems will create new options for
using MOOCs to improve access to academic
courses and promote college
completion, the company contends.
MOOCs are typically free online
courses that don’t provide credits for
class completion and can be accessed
by learners anywhere in the world.
Individual courses can reach thousands
of students.
However, this latest round of partnerships
is likely to spawn new models
of online learning, said Daphne
Koller, the co-CEO of Coursera and
a professor of computer science at
Stanford University. The University
of Kentucky, for example, is developing
a chemistry MOOC geared to
prepare high school students for its
introductory chemistry courses. The
University of Tennessee system will
use the Coursera technology platform
to develop online courses for
credit and compare student success
rates between these courses and traditional
courses in the same subject.
The agreement between Coursera
and the schools also could allow high
school students to take universitylevel
courses that could be used for
college credit, depending on which
states and institutions are involved,
Ms. Koller predicted.
“This could help correct a significant
inequity in our system,” she
said, noting that wealthier schools
can already offer dual-credit
courses because they have teachers
with advanced degrees who can
teach such classes. “Because the
content (in the MOOCs) is effectively
self-contained, students can take it
with relatively minimal supervision
by a high school teacher.”
The 10 systems and schools that
Coursera will work with are: the
State University of New York;
the Tennessee board of regents;
the University of Tennessee system;
the University of Colorado
system; the University of Houston
system; the University of
Kentucky; the University of Nebraska;
the University of New
Mexico; the University System of
Georgia; and West Virginia University.

News of Coursera’s partnership
with the postsecondary institutions
followed another announcement the
company made last month, signaling
a separate foray into K-12. The
company said it would partner with
schools of education, museums, and
other institutions to provide MOOCs
focused on professional development
for K-12 teachers, aspiring teachers,
and others, which would not be offered
for academic credit.
The new partnership could expand
the company’s reach into precollege
systems even further.
The University of Kentucky is
gearing its efforts with Coursera
directly at K-12 students. The university’s
chemistry department will
develop a MOOC to improve student
readiness for freshman, college-level
chemistry courses, said Mark Meier,
the chairman of the chemistry department.
High school students and
teachers may also use the course to
prepare for Advanced Placement
chemistry tests, he said.
“We want to address some of the
big challenges we and other universities
have with large numbers of students
who come into first-year STEM
[science, technology, engineering, and
math] courses and really struggle,”
Mr. Meier said. “Their backgrounds
in this area aren’t strong, they’re
intimidated, and they lack the confidence
to really thrive.”
The University of Kentucky chem-
istry MOOC will be taught by the
same teachers incoming freshmen
will see in class and the content will
prepare them to “walk into one of
our general chemistry classes and be
successful,” Mr. Meier said.
Tools for Teachers?
Tim Watkins, the principal of the
400-student McKenzie High School
in McKenzie, Tenn., said he welcomes
more options for students to
earn high school and college credits.
His students already take dualcredit
courses in a number of ways,
including using videoconferencing to
take part in a history course from the
University of Tennessee at Martin.
The students watch the teacher live
and can participate in the class, Mr.
Watkins said. However, an option to
take an online version at any time
would help with scheduling and
allow students to absorb coursework
when it is most convenient, he said.
“The more options we have, the
better it is,” he said. “Statistics prove
that these kids who have college
hours prior to leaving high school are
more likely to finish college.”
Mr. Watkins said he’s also interested
in the possibility of using
MOOCs for the professional-development
needs of his teachers. Though
his school offers teachers training,
subject-specific professional development
is hard to find, he said. Online
training is especially attractive
to educators at his school because
they can access it at home, or after
school hours, he added.
It remains to be seen how many of
these institutions of higher education
will use the Coursera platform
and develop MOOCs, and how they
will use that platform. Some insti-
POSTSECONDARY PARTNERS
The 10 school systems and universities that Coursera is working with
have very different plans for using the technology offered by the
company.
>> STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK: Plans to develop free, noncredit
MOOCs and incorporate some of those online curricula into traditional
courses for a blended learning approach.
>> TENNESSEE BOARD OF REGENTS AND UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE
SYSTEM: Launching an 18-month pilot program using the Coursera platform
to create four credit-generating general education courses. Has no current
plans to develop MOOCs.
>> UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SYSTEM: Plans to develop MOOCs, and
faculty may incorporate some of the curricula into existing courses.
>> UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON SYSTEM: Will start by developing free, not-forcredit
MOOCs, but will phase in college credit-bearing courses for a fee.
>> UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY: Will develop a MOOC for high school students
preparing for college-level chemistry courses or for AP exams.
>> UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA: Will develop MOOCs and use the Coursera
platform to create opportunities for faculty to collaborate with colleagues at
different institutions to share best practices.
>> UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO: Faculty may create MOOCs for their own
classroom or for a wider audience. Faculty will decide in the future whether
to accept some Coursera MOOCs for credit. Faculty may be able to submit
courses to Coursera to be taken at other universities for credit.
>> UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA: Will adapt existing Coursera MOOC
content to experiment with blended learning. Efforts will focus on Georgia
learners and will not target students outside the state.
>> WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: Plans to initially create free, noncredit
MOOCs in high-profile disciplines. Might consider using that content for
credit courses in the future.
SOURCES: Coursera; Education Week
tutions will focus on improving prep
courses for students coming into
the system, while others will serve
matriculated students both online
and on-campus. Still others will
be developing their own MOOCs to
teach students at other institutions
in their states. At least one system,
the University of Tennessee, plans a
version of an experiment cropping
up at schools around the country:
having students take both in-person
and customized MOOC-like versions
of the same course and comparing
the results.
Sue Day-Perroots, the dean of extended
learning at West Virginia
University, who will soon become the
school’s associate vice president for
academic innovation, said several
faculty members are pitching ideas
for MOOCs.
Some courses could focus on
teacher professional development.
The university’s special education
department chair suggested
a MOOC on teaching children who
have disorders on the autism spectrum,
Ms. Day-Perroots said. The
course could cover “what teachers
need to know about working with
these students and what parents
need to know,” she said.
At the 4,400-student Mason
County Schools in West Virginia,
Jack Cullen, the administrative assistant
to the superintendent, said
the district encourages students to
seek out college-level courses, and
he sees MOOCS as a viable option for
student learning.
Students in the district currently
can earn college credits—though not
high school ones—by taking online
courses at nearby Marshall University,
in Huntington, W.Va. In addition,
some teachers at the high school
level are certified by Marshall and
can teach dual-credit classes on high
school campuses. In both instances,
students must pay for those courses.
Mr. Cullen likes the idea of stu-
dents being able to take a no-cost
MOOC on a topic they’re passionate
about.
“Free is better,” he said—as long
as students are receiving academic
credit for that work.
Assistant Editor Sean Cavanagh and
the Associated Press contributed to this
report.
Coverage of entrepreneurship and
innovation in education and school
design is supported in part by a grant
from the Carnegie Corporation of New
York. Education Week retains sole
editorial control over the content of this
coverage.
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