Tuesday, March 26, 2013

MOOCs for Administration (humor at CHE)

Now here's an idea whose time has come: Let's apply MOOC principles to administrators!

Sample:
If the administrators cannot compete and be effective online, then it’s time to get out of the way for the people who can. After all, no student ever thought it was worth $55,000 a year for time in a room with a particular dean or vice president, but we might be able to convince them, at least for a while longer, that the educational experience of the classroom is worth it.
Not only would putting administration online cut costs and raise profits, it would also cut down on wasted faculty hours at meetings. We faculty could log on and follow administration online, just like the students in MOOCs log on to learn. And like MOOC students, if we didn’t find the administrators entertaining or educational enough, we could stop logging on and just become freer agents in the marketplace of knowledge.

4 comments:

Nitewriter said...

I haven't set foot in a classroom for years. I teach solely online. And quite a few of my administrators are also home-based. Faculty meetings are once a quarter via teleconference and it's about 10 minutes of business and the rest of the hour is chatting about issues and challenges and solutions. It's actually a lot of fun, unlike f2f meetings which absolutely suck.

undine said...

So it can work! That sounds like an interesting system.

Unknown said...

I love teaching online. I'll never set foot in a classroom again. But I don't teach huge classes either. I'd never teach a MOOC. I prefer my regular size college classes, especially since I teach writing. Check out this blog http://teachonline2008.blogspot.com/

profacero said...

Hilarious post. But they would have to pay administrators less for it to work. Otherwise, administrators would not have the right motives for being there.

I have no patience for webinars and the like, though.