Tag Archives: MOOC

Me talking about MOOCs, liberal arts education, and 207x

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

I gave a talk last week on campus about my course, the new WellesleyX initiative, and the relationship between MOOCs and a traditional liberal arts education. You can watch a complete cut of the video here.

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207x snapshot: Year of birth

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

I will be doing a series of quick snapshots of my MOOC, 207x (Introduction to Human Evolution), throughout the semester. I wanted to begin with one showing the self-reported year of birth of the enrolled students. This is actually missing … Continue reading →

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A worldwide audience

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

I promise to not write solely about my EdX course, but…it is live as of this morning. And in the first three hours of being live, we have had students posting in the discussion forum from every continent outside of … Continue reading →

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Set to go live, Wellesley 207x and questions of scale…

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

In two days, Wellesley 207x – Introduction to Human Evolution, will go live. The course is the culmination of a fairly frenzied amount of work over the past three months, and I am excited to see that work actually reach … Continue reading →

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Anth 207x – Step 1, integrating the liberal arts classroom and the MOOC environment

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

Tuesday is the first day of Wellesley classes for the Fall 2013 semester. As such, it also marks the first day in Wellesley’s experiment with online education. That experiment is beginning with my course, Anth 207x (Introduction to Human Evolution). … Continue reading →

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Anthropology 207x – Making it easier to ask better questions

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

In my post yesterday, I pointed out that one of my goals in Anthropology 207x is to disseminate a lot of information about human evolution. In addition to disseminating this information, my plan is to also provide an introduction to … Continue reading →

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Anthropology 207x – My goals

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

One of the first things I want to convey about Anthropology 207x (Introduction to Human Evolution) are my goals in putting together the course. Dissemination My largest goal for this course is make available valuable teaching content related to human … Continue reading →

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Announcing Anthropology 207x

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

Last Fall, Wellesley announced its plan to partner with EdX and produce its first online, MOOC courses. Even prior to that decision, I was curious about the development of MOOCs and online teaching: Between two professors: Pros and Cons of … Continue reading →

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Differing ends of the class size spectrum

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Adam Van Arsdale

I am currently in a bit of an interesting situation regarding my own teaching. For the first time since arriving at Wellesley I am teaching a senior-level seminar (with a focus on personal genomics). By Wellesley standards, the 19 students … Continue reading →

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Online courses everywhere

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

On the same day my current employer announces its partnership with edX, my undergraduate alma mater, Emory University, announces its participation in a consortium of schools putting together a “semester online” via the 2U platform.

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