Art. History. Philosophy. The humanities study how people process and record their lives and ideas. In other words, they channel the human experience. As such, humanities courses tend to be small and intimate, encouraging students to deeply discuss a diversity of ideas. As large online courses become more common, that may change. What happens when students attend these courses not in traditional classrooms, but from home — where they cannot make eye contact with a professor, let alone each other? This is precisely why some education experts suggest the humanities simply do not translate well to the new digital frontier; others hope to prove them wrong.
Humanities in the Digital Age: the Challenge
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have revolutionized education on a global scale: Now, just about anyone, from just about anywhere, can take free, non-credit-bearing classes from schools like Harvard, Stanford and MIT. A recent study from Babson College in conjunction with the Sloan Consortium reports that online courses are more prevalent than ever before, yet according to The Stanford Daily, humanities are among the most underrepresented courses in the MOOC sphere. There are a few reasons for that. First, MOOCs are by definition massive, so while they have the potential to draw in a diversity of students and viewpoints, you still have groves of students taking the same course lead by the same professor. For some humanities professors, that is a major problem. Take the San Jose State University’s philosophy department, which wrote an open letter last year explaining why they would never offer Harvard professor Michael Sandel’s MOOC “Justice” as part of their curriculum:
“The thought of the exact same social justice course being taught in various philosophy departments across the country is downright scary — something out of a dystopian novel,” the letter read. “Departments across the country possess unique speciation and character, and should stay that way…Diversity in schools of thought and plurality of points of view are at the heart of liberal education.”
Another reason humanities professors are hesitant to offer massive online courses is their impersonal nature. Laptops replace small, intimate lecture halls; students are unlikely to ever meet. The sheer size of many of these online courses also makes it difficult for professors to read and review student writing, which complicates matters in a discipline that relies on essays to gauge comprehension.
In his blog, Agile Learning, Director of the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching Derek Bruff said that MOOCs use a very different instruction model than the one practice by most humanities instructors, and that so-called “digital humanists” are right to be skeptical of them. Still, he believes with a little ingenuity, they can work — and, in some cases, already are.
Making the Digital Humanities Work
Large online humanities courses may be offered infrequently, but when they are, they can be popular. The Stanford Daily reports that as of this summer, Duke University philosophy MOOC “Think Again: How to Reason and Argue” was the single most popular course ever offered by provider Coursera. According to the Sloan Consortium, Ball State University has also offered wildly popular humanities MOOCs, including “Investigating Film Noir” and “Gender through Comic Books.” How can these and other humanities MOOCs succeed? By using the following strategies.
Leveraging social media. Sloan reports that Ball State relied heavily on social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, and curated course content through Sortify and Pinterest to manage its classes. It also used these tools to loop in experts in the field — like famous comic book writers — so students could ask them live questions. In other words, students could interact and share in a way that would be difficult to replicate in the traditional classroom environment.
Peer grading. Coursera co-founder Diane Koller told The Stanford Daily that studies show students tend to give each other grades comparable to what a professor would have given them, which can give students in large-scale online humanities courses some sense for their progress. Koller admits that qualitative feedback may be lacking, but it is a start.
Online community and commentary. Ball State’s humanities MOOCs made good use of online forums that allowed students to break off into smaller groups by simply starting new threads. Students could have in-depth discussions on topics that they find particularly interesting (or confusing). Integrated comments on online materials let students ask questions or launch discussions relating to specific works and readings.
Crowdsourcing projects. Another technology-driven trend that could help save the humanities, suggests Bruff, is crowdsourcing: Professors give students tasks that encourage research while producing work with tangible benefits for other scholars. Ball State students helped annotate an open repository of public domain films noir, for instance. Because the work is more goal-oriented, it could boost retention and participation — a major plus in a course that offers no credit.
A Work in Progress
The solutions above could help make the humanities more adaptable in an online learning environment, but let’s face it — students will not have the same experience taking these MOOCs as they would on campus. Still, as Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng told The Stanford Daily, providers are working on it. These educational technologies are still new, still evolving. They may not ever replace the traditional classroom, but they do have the potential to reach — and educate — more students than ever before. In a discipline that strives for diversity, that matters.
About the Author:
Aimee Hosler is a writer and mother of two living in Virginia. She specializes in a number of topics, but is particularly passionate about education and workplace news and trends. She hold a B.S. in Journalism from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She contributes to several websites, including OnlineSchools.com.
