Tuesday, August 9, 2016

From being forced to learn, to learning for fun

By Ryan Maloney, assistant women's volleyball coach



"A wonderful way of teaching we have at Sarah Lawrence, where I taught for 38 years, I'd have an individual conference with every one of my students at least once a fortnight for half an hour or so. And there you're talking on about the things that students ought to be reading, and suddenly you hit on something that the student really responds to. You could see the eyes open, the complexion changes, a life possibility has opened there. And all you can say is to yourself is, I hope this child hangs onto that, you know." ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a free college class that's available to anyone with an internet connection. Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and hundreds of other universities give some of their classes away online, for free. The two most popular services are Coursera and edX.

But most people I talk to haven't heard of them. Granted, MOOC's are still just a few years old, but you'd think a technological revolution that one-ups Gutenberg's printing press would make a little more noise.

Until you consider that 72 percent of people using this service come from outside the United States. Most users already have a post-secondary degree, and are older than the traditional 18 to 22-year-old college student. But here's the kicker: a November 2013 study by the University of Pennsylvania found that 50 percent of their users were taking the online classes just for fun.

Just for fun. There's an enormous population that wants to go online and learn for fun.

The purpose of sending an 18-year-old to college isn't to fill her with facts. It's to motivate her to join that group of people who want to learn just for fun.