In Pursuit of Profession: Get him to the MOOC!

Online education is nothing new. But what is new is that more and more professionals are using online courses to advance their careers. And many of these courses are free!

You may not know the movie to which I pay homage in the title. “Get Him to the Greek” was a moderately successful 2010 comedy about a music talent scout that must get a rocker to the Greek Theatre to perform, thus reviving a failing career. The male rocker part of the story isn’t the part that is important for us. For our purposes, while we may not have a talent scout that is pushing through all of these zany scenarios to reach the goal of getting our career back on track, we do have help with our careers when it seems they’ve gone a bit off course. We can seek guidance from a career counselor, go back to school for additional degrees, get training for a certification, and even get help from our organization’s human resources department. But what if we don’t have the time or money to hire a counselor or go back to school? What if our HR department doesn’t offer the help we need? What if we just need a little push, just a nudge, to perhaps see things at our jobs with a different perspective that comes from learning something new? Thanks once again to the Internet (don’t you just love that thing?), there’s a long list of services we can use in our spare time to help us advance our careers.

What the heck is a MOOC?

Put simply, a MOOC is a massive open online course used to deliver educational content online to any person nearly anywhere in the world who wants to take the course. There is no limit on attendance and many times the MOOC is free to gain access to the course materials which often include lectures, presentations and papers. Should participants want to be graded on their courses and even earn certificates by completing course work, then there are typically fees associated. Many of the courses are taught by renowned professors from world class colleges and universities including Stanford, Duke and Johns Hopkins. While there is some concern that MOOCs, which emerged in 2012 as viable alternatives to more traditional learning programs, will one day threaten our current educational system, the numbers simply don’t add up at this time. Enrollments in many MOOC courses might be huge due to their accessibility, but because many students don’t actually obtain any credits or certifications by completing them, the completion rate is fairly low currently at roughly 10 percent.

Coursera is one of the MOOC companies that offers both free and fee courses to millions of student around the world. One of their most popular courses, “Learning How to Learn,” was created by the University of California at San Diego and has been taken by more than 1 million students since it was created in 2014. Why is it so popular? If you believe Merrill Cook, who is the editor of Online Course Report, the average person taking a MOOC is in their 30s and has a bachelor’s degree. They aren’t looking to finish a degree or go to law school online. They’re using MOOCs as a tool for lifelong learning, which can impact both a person’s personal and professional life.

Consider the description of the “Learning How to Learn” course listed on the Coursera website: “This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects.

“Using these approaches, no matter what your skill levels in topics you would like to master, you can change your thinking and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the mental hood will give you ideas for: turbocharging successful learning, including counter-intuitive test-taking tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on homework and problem sets. If you’re struggling, you’ll see a structured treasure trove of practical techniques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever wanted to become better at anything, this course will help serve as your guide.”

I don’t know about you, but my brain could always use a tune-up when it comes to my work life, especially when it comes to learning techniques to help me remember things and dealing with procrastination. (While writing this article, I looked at three VRBO places for next summer’s vacation and a car that I might buy four years from now when my oldest son starts driving and I’m no longer in the chauffer business for my boys and their friends.)

And while Coursera partners with top universities to teach students in more job and career-focused subjects such as business, computer science and data science, there are other organizations that focus on a myriad of subjects no matter how old the person. With over 45 million students, Khan Academy is a non-profit that provides free online materials and resources to support personalized education for learners of all ages. Want some more impressive numbers? Since its creation in 2008, Khan Academy has delivered over 580 million lessons in 36 languages and learners have completed over 3.8 billion exercise problems, which is around 4 million per day! Over one million registered teachers use Khan Academy in their classrooms around the world to help their students learn better. The content includes practice exercises and instructional videos that help learners study at their own pace in and out of the classroom. Subjects such as math, science, computer programming, history, art history and economics are covered at Khan Academy. And they’ve also partnered with institutions like NASA, The Museum of Modern Art, The California Academy of Sciences, and MIT to offer specialized content.

So, whether we’re learning to make ourselves better at work, or we just want to put another notch on our Lifelong Learning belts, a MOOC is a great way to dip our toes into the educational pool again, whether we’re a student already or haven’t been one for decades. With many courses free and most of them available at almost anytime, anywhere (I’m thinking sitting down for a class might go perfectly with a seasonal pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks, right?) getting yourself to a MOOC could be a great way to amp things up at work.

This story was originally published September 16, 2016 at 1:01 PM with the headline "In Pursuit of Profession: Get him to the MOOC!."