Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Harvard is Looking to Scrub the Last Remnants of Paid Teaching Labor Out of the MOOC Model |

Harvard is Looking to Scrub the Last Remnants of Paid Teaching Labor Out of the MOOC Model |:



Speaking Engagement in Southern California This Thursday

Here’s something cool: I’ve just learned that a talk I’ll be giving this week in the Los Angeles area is going to be open to the public.
On Thursday afternoon I’m going to be giving the annual Stephen and Sandra Glass Humanities Lecture at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. My talk will be a discussion of “Campus Activism in America’s Past and Present.”
The lecture will be at 4:15 at the George Benson Auditorium on campus, and it will be followed by a question and answer session and a wine-and-cheese reception immediately afterwards.
If you’re in the area and so inclined, feel free to stop by.


Harvard is Looking to Scrub the Last Remnants of Paid Teaching Labor Out of the MOOC Model

The New York Times reports this morning that Harvard is attempting to recruit alumni to serve as unpaid volunteers in its first big MOOC offering.
The university is seeking alums who took the course, “The Ancient Greek Hero,” as undergrads to serve as  ”mentors and discussion group managers” — what used to, back in the olden days when people got paid for classroom labor, be called Teaching Assistants.
More than 27,000 people have enrolled in the course’s MOOC version this semester, and Harvard is apparently nervous. Online discussions in MOOCs “tend to run off the rails,” one Harvard staffer told the Times. Harvard has already recruited ten alums who have TAed the course in the past to do the same again on a volunteer basis,