Math in the News
Professors Rethink Teaching Methods
An article in USA Today discusses the recent popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and mentions the efforts of MAA columnist Keith Devlin (Stanford University).
“MOOCs first made a name for themselves last fall when Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun offered his graduate-level artificial intelligence course to anyone who was interested — 160,000 people around the world signed up,” wrote Eliza Collins for USA Today. Collins goes on to write about the growing number of institutions and instructors that are experimenting with the format and the benefits and disadvantages of Internet-style lectures.
Read the full article on USA Today.
Devlin’s MOOC, “Introduction to Mathematical Thinking”, started on September 17. He chronicles the process of creating the course in his monthly MAA column “Devlin’s Angle”.
“I’ve always looked at different media to extend reach of classroom teaching to different audiences and doing it different ways. When we get a new medium coming along like the MOOC I couldn’t resist it, I wanted to try it out and see what the advantages and disadvantages are,” said Devlin in the USA Today article.