UW CSE professor Dan Grossman is profiled in a UW Provost’s report on enhancing teaching with technology.
Grossman is teaching one of the UW CSE Coursera MOOCs this quarter: Programming Languages. (Arvind Krishnamurthy, David Wetherall, and John Zahorjan are teaching Introduction to Computer Networks.)
Says Grossman: “For me, it is largely about being passionate about the course material and how to present it. Given this passion, why would I not want the largest rooftop I can find from which to shout? … With so many students, some will have a transformative educational experience, others will learn very little, and most who express some interest will not end up participating. To compare it to a conventional course where students get personal attention, have significant financial investments, and have shared background as part of a coherent curriculum, is difficult. I instead prefer to compare it to writing a textbook. Just as many people touching a book do not read it and those who read it have a wide range of understanding as a result, the learning in MOOCs defies description.”
Read the profile here.