Open Courses From America Find Ea­ger Au­di­ences in Chi­na - Online Learning - The Chronicle of Higher Education

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-10-06

Summary:

"Mo Li, a Chinese post­doctoral fellow at the University of Mich­i­gan at Ann Arbor, wrote to a Yale University philosophy professor last year with a strange re­quest. Mr. Li had never met the professor, Shelly Kagan, nor had he ever at­tend­ed Yale. But while working on a doctorate in developmental biology at the Chi­nese Academy of Sciences, in Bei­jing, Mr. Li and his girlfriend had watched free online lec­tures of Mr. Ka­gan's philosophy course 'Death' in the summer of 2010. They liked the course—and the professor—so much that when the two decided to marry, Mr. Li asked Mr. Ka­gan to surprise his future wife with 'a sen­tence or two of con­grat­u­la­tions on our mar­riage.' Mr. Ka­gan did, and Mr. Li and his wife were de­light­ed to hear from the pro­fes­sor whose open courses have made him a star in a coun­try he has nev­er vis­it­ed. As more and more courses are offered free to anyone with an Internet connection, some American professors have developed a huge following abroad, particularly in China. Another such scholar is Mi­chael J. San­del, a Harvard University professor whose highly popular po­lit­i­cal-phi­los­o­phy course 'Justice' was the first Harvard course to be offered free online. He and Mr. Kagan are among the most rec­og­niz­able Amer­i­can pro­fes­sors in China, says Cici Yue, a grad­u­at­e of Nan­kai University, in Tian­jin, and the Chi­nese Academy of Sciences. The courses are wide­ly ac­ces­si­ble there, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter be­ing sub­ti­tled in Man­da­rin by a group of stu­dent vol­un­teers ... The most recent Google Analytics numbers, from July 2009 to January of this year, show that Mr. Kagan's videos on the Open Yale Courses Web site were receiving 3,000 hits per week from China, says Diana Kleiner, director of Open Yale Courses. The actual number of viewers is probably much higher: Since the videos are licensed under Creative Commons, they are also available through third-party sites, such as Youku and Tudou, used by many Chinese students to gain access to the videos ... As for Mr. San­del, he was named the most influential foreign figure of the year byChina Newsweek, a state-run magazine, last year and commanded huge audiences at lectures he gave during a recent trip to China. Students staked out the lec­ture hall hours in ad­vance, hop­ing to get a chance to hear him speak...  One explanation for the huge following may be that these courses pro­vide a glimpse into a very dif­fer­ent educational system, says Jing Lei, an as­so­ciate pro­fes­sor of edu­ca­tion at Syr­a­cuse University. The Ivy League brand is also a big draw, and the courses help people im­prove their Eng­lish.

But there's another important reason. Mr. San­del and Mr. Ka­gan both be­lieve that their pop­u­lar­i­ty also stems from the big-pic­ture ques­tions that 'Death' and 'Justice' dis­cuss. In Chi­na, where the edu­ca­tion­al fo­cus is large­ly on sci­ence and en­gi­neer­ing, attention to such ques­tions has cap­ti­vat­ed stu­dents.  'I think there is a great hun­ger, es­pe­cial­ly a­mong stu­dents around the world, to en­gage with big philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions that mat­ter to their lives,' says Mr. San­del...'  Ms. Lei of Syracuse thinks that such open, online lib­er­al-arts courses are shaping a new gen­er­a­tion of Chi­nese stu­dents who are seeking intellectual in­ter­ac­tion and want to ask ques­tions..."

Link:

http://chronicle.com/article/Open-Courses-From-America-Find/134660/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.licensing oa.comment oa.copyright oa.south oa.cc oa.oer oa.students oa.yale.u oa.harvard.u oa.china oa.philosophy oa.moocs oa.open_yale oa.video oa.libre oa.courseware oa.asia oa.humanities oa.ssh

Date tagged:

10/06/2012, 14:45

Date published:

10/06/2012, 10:45