MOOCs
TagGraded Assignments in Philosophy MOOCs
Philosophy professors generally like to assign papers to students. The format of a paper allows the student to exercise certain skills of careful exposition and argumentation in ways that quizzes and timed exams don’t. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) often do not include graded work—and certainly not graded papers. The massiveness and openness (inexpensivenes..
Good Online Philosophy Courses
A couple of weeks ago I put the entertaining promotional video for “Paradox and Infinity,” an online course by Augustín Rayo (MIT), in the Heap of Links. In case you missed it, I’ve put it at the bottom of this post. A few other online courses have been brought to my attention that look particularly good, including: two taught by large teams at the University of Ed..
The Purpose of Philosophy Class
It is not the purpose of a Philosophy class to transmit information or inculcate skills, however useful that may be. It is to introduce students to the life of the mind, with all the characterological as well as intellectual changes that requires. It is to welcome the young man or woman into a moral sphere in which argument, honesty, and a passion for ideas reign…
Making a Bioethics MOOC
A team at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown (disclosure: my graduate alma mater), is putting together a massive open online course, or MOOC, on Bioethics, set to go live next month. In the meanwhile, they are maintaining a site about their efforts, which includes various posts on the making of the course, relevant data about MOOCs, and considerations of ..