Abstract
This article presents view of two books on massive open online courses (MOOCs). The two books ride on a homologous theme: the revolutionary future of undergraduate education. A Whole New Engineer, by David E. Goldberg and Mark Somerville, describes the change in engineering education that is taking place at the newly minted Olin College of Engineering and the more established the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Another book, The End of College, Kevin Carey prognosticates the future of learning and the university of everywhere based upon emerging MOOCs. Rising tuition prices and a flagging global economy, combined with advances in information technology, are leading to a rapidly changing scene from traditional lecture-hall teaching to online education.
Highlights
The End of College (Riverhead Books: New York; 277 pp; 2015), Kevin Carey prognosticates the future of learning and the university of everywhere based upon emerging massive open online courses (MOOCs)
Here are the seven communiqués commanded by Goldberg and Somerville: (i) Stop taking the crisis in engineering education for granted; (ii) Stop basing the education system on an operating system of fear; (iii) Stop boring our students into dull obedience; (iv) Stop educating engineers as technical brains on a stick; (v) Stop assuming that the central actor in education is the professor; (vi) Stop throwing Ph.D.s into classrooms as experts; (vii) Stop assuming that educational transformation can be performed by a system designed in the 11th century, a system designed to maintain the status quo
The End of College has 12 chapters, endnotes, and index. Carey writes about his experience attending a very successful MOOC, Introduction to Biology—The Secret of Life, offered at MIT by Professor Eric S
Summary
Tuition is fast rising; administrators’ compensation and numbers are swelling; academe is a business; for-profit institutions of higher education are mushrooming; the end of college as we know it; online courses will one day reign supreme; engineering students need hands-on training from the get-go. Goldberg and Mark Somerville (ThreeJoy Press: Douglas, MI; 264 pp; 2014), describes the change in engineering education that is taking place at the newly minted Olin College of Engineering and the more established University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Innovation, creativity, and foremost, hands-on training early in the undergraduate experience, the authors predict a revolution in engineering education, not confined to the two pioneering institutions but rather spreading nationwide, perhaps even worldwide.
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