Live MOOC graduation: Ceremony could include nearly 1,200 names (and possibly a few cats)

June 7, 2016
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  • umichnews@umich.edu

ANN ARBOR—When students complete the University of Michigan five-course “Python for Everybody Specialization” on Coursera this month, they won’t just receive a digital certification. Instead, the instructor—who’s held office hours around the world for his classes—will read the names aloud of the students in a live online graduation ceremony.

Charles Severance, clinical associate professor in the U-M School of Information, will also mail every student a physical, printed certificate that he hand-signs. Considering that nearly 1,200 students to date have completed the recently launched capstone of the massive open online course, Severance will have some work to do. And he’s happy to do it.

“Since I first started teaching MOOCs four years ago, I have always worked to present students with a personal experience,” Severance said.

He’s held his office hours in Europe and the Far East as he’s traveled for other presentations, inviting his online students from those areas to join him.

“I like to remind us all of the human aspect of learning together whenever I can,” he said.

“Dr. Chuck and other UMSI faculty innovators continue to put learners first as they experiment critically and creatively in designing personalized learning experiences at scale,” said James DeVaney, U-M associate vice provost for digital education & innovation.

“In periods of rapid transformation, it’s so important to pause occasionally to consider the impact of the creative process. Here, we’ll celebrate more than 1,150 global learners who are now equipped to gather, clean, analyze and visualize data.”

The graduation ceremony will take place 9 a.m. Wednesday, June 8, at live.dr-chuck.com and will later be uploaded to Coursera and YouTube for those who couldn’t view it live.

“Things that are ‘outside’ the classroom are as important to a student’s development as what goes on inside the classroom,” Severance said. “I try to find ways, when I am teaching in an online environment, to get the student ‘out of the classroom.’ This graduation ceremony, like my face-to-face office hours, is one way to escape the constraints of the online classroom.”

Another UMSI faculty member, Colleen Van Lent, will kick off the ceremony with about 10 minutes of remarks, Severance said, followed by his reading the names and displaying the pictures of those students who elect to be part of the public ceremony.

“To participate in the ceremony, upload a picture of yourself to the graduation photo gallery with an optional short note in the comments section,” he wrote to his students. “If you prefer you can upload a picture of your cat or anything else that would be suitable as an avatar…There are already 1,165 students who have completed the capstone—so it might take a while to read all the names if everyone participates.”

In addition to his Python for Everybody course, Severance teaches other popular Coursera classes, including Internet History, Technology and Security. To date, his total course enrollments number more than 1.4 million.

 

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