Stanford’s How to Learn Math Course

I have enrolled in Jo Boaler’s online math course this summer as have about 20,000 of my closest friends. I was excited by the prospect of this class and I urged my middle school and upper school colleagues to enroll as well. I have one MS colleague and two US colleagues who took the bait and joined in. I have to say that at this point I am a bit disappointed by the course. Perhaps I was not really the intended audience since I have done a decent amount of Carol Dweck reading before the course. Much of what Boaler is presenting is through that lens. However, my main disappointments have to do with the problems created by the size of the audience. I submitted work over three weeks ago and I have not received any feedback yet. The assessment panel of the course indicates an estimated wait of three days for feedback and I am now well past that. I know that some work has been done to streamline the discussion forum but my forays into that area of the course have not been promising. Comments are not obviously tied to lessons and too often threads are one or two comments long with no sustained dialogue occurring at all. Perhaps I have just not been persistent enough (a little in joke for those who are engaged in this course!) to find the rich veins of conversation, but it’s been a disappointment to me overall. I will try not to bring that into my opening meetings this year as my colleagues may have a different take. I’m not sad I took the course, it has helped me get my thoughts focused as the new year comes zooming in, but I cannot say that I feel really enriched by the content so far. I also have to admit that this is my first foray into the MOOC world so perhaps the concerns I have about discussion forums and feedback cycles are simply a reality of this big, brave new world. I’d love to hear about the experience of others who may have chosen to join in as well.