Faculty panel discusses for-credit online courses

A panel lead by faculty discussed the challenges and rewards of developing for-credit online courses Friday morning.

The forum was a response to an April meeting of the Arts and Sciences Council that voted against a motion to adopt online courses for credit. Subsequently, the University’s contract with 2U—an online education company—was broken.

The Council did vote, however, to encourage further information gathering about the future of online education. Over the Summer, the Executive Council of the Arts and Sciences Council worked to develop a specific plan for implementing this goal, said Dalene Stangl, associate chair and director of undergraduate studies for the physics department, who presented the panel.

“The goal is to think really proactively about all of the possible ramifications for the undergraduate education,” Stagnl said.

“I have had students come up to other faculty and say ‘oh my God, I love this course,’” Metzloff said.

He noted that this has been one of the best teaching experiences of his career. Part of his course includes a recorded Socratic method discussion that includes posing questions for the online students to participate in through written replies. Students must first submit their own answers before they are able to see the responses of their classmates.

Metzloff’s course, which currently has 37 students enrolled, was designed to include a small seminar portion with fewer than 20 students. His course was fully designed and ready to implement when the Council voted not to continue with the 2U contract. He decided to continue teaching the course, but offer it only to Duke students.

“We have had very few glitches,” Metzloff said, noting that there is a 24-hour technological support team.

He said he “certainly hopes” that we rejoin 2U.

“We need to do more online education,” Metzloff said.

He emphasized that his course is not designed to be scaled up to a massive open online course.

Mohamed Noor, professor of biology, has taught two versions of his introductory biology course, "Genetics and Evolution," in the Coursera online platform.

He began teaching a MOOC on the topic in 2012. He then adapted the course to be simultaneous used by online students from around the world and 452 on-campus students for potential credit.

Noor highlighted the ability to rewind and review lectures as a major benefit to the student, but added that one of the largest drawbacks to online courses is the limited outside interaction between professor and students.

Coursea proctors its final exams by having students sign up for a time to take the test while being watched by someone over webcam.

He added that were are very few technological glitches that occur with online courses, and when they occur, teams work very quickly to resolve the issue.

Courses that cannot be offered every year would be more readily available to students if Duke were part of a consortium, Noor said.

Kristen Stephens, associate professor of the practice of education, teaches an online course through Duke each summer called "Issues and Innovations in the American Classroom."

Her courses were taught through individual lessons on Sakai and times where they meet at the same time through Adobe Connect.

Because her undergraduate students often take the course when living all throughout the country or abroad, Stephens noted that it was a challenge to find a time for the synchronous portions of the course.

Having a face-to-face orientation before the course starts allows her students to become familiar with one another, Stephens said.

Before the April meeting, Emma Rasiel, professor of economics, developed a course on behavioral finance through 2U. She will be teaching her course to Duke students only in the Spring, incorporating online individual portions with online whole-class time once a week.

Her course also utilizes the Socratic methods of discussion followed by questions and breakout discussion.

“We want the engagement to be as strong as possible,” Rasiel said.