Informal Teaching and Online Learning: Experience of this fall.

This is the fall of learning and teaching for me, after years. I have started taking three Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) this fall. MOOCs are the latest innovation in online teaching, pioneered by the world's top universities like Stanford, MIT, Harvard, UPenn, Berkeley, etc. These courses provide access to their course material, in curated fashion, from the same professors.

1. Introduction to Financial Accounting with Coursera (signature track): The introductory accounting course from Wharton School of Business.
2. Behavioural Economics in Action with edX  (From Univ of Toronto's affiliation with edX, TorontoX)
3. Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness with edX: MIT's introductory philosophy class, 24.00, on edX
   
   
   Alongside, I have initiated an informal course in Engineering, Economics and Regulation of Electric Power Systems at my unit in the World Bank, based on the OpenCourseWare Material for this graduate level course at MIT. 
   This blog will document my experiences in this period of learning and teaching for the next few weeks, till around December, when all these courses end.  
   
   The courses I am studying are either of deep interest, or are filling in gaps in my education thus far. The course I am coordinating at my workplace is an overarching course which all
   Between edX and Coursera, I have registered on two mutually-independent (and perhaps competing) platforms delivering online education. This decision was less driven by a specific choice to test two systems, but more by the attractiveness of courses being offered.
   
   Financial Accounting: The financial accounting course is a hard-core business and management education subject. While I do not necessarily need accounting certification for my work, sometimes I feel lost not knowing adequate accounting. I also feel that amongst all the different areas taught in a business school, accounting is the only valuable skill (with all due respect to my MBA friends, but then most of my friends with MBAs know my feelings for that degree anyway). Since I never did (and don't intend to do) an MBA, I missed out on accounting skills. So, to overcome this shortcoming, I decided to learn accounting on my own. Since it was apparent that my interest in this course is likely to flag given its famously tedious nature, I signed up for the Signature Track in Coursera, making this the only paid course. This track provides validated and verified credit for students who complete homework assignments and pass exams, scoring a certain minimum. The system verifies the identity of the person appearing for homeworks and exams using a very interesting multi-factor identification system, which I will write about separately. Paying a certain amount of money, a not insubstantial sum of $49, has ensured that I stay on track and am regular with my courseload. And this discipline, stemming from a sunk investment, typifies implementation of suggestions from another course, Behavioural Economics!
   
   Behavioural Economics in Action: Physics and Mathematics deal with physical phenomena, but use the crutch of idealized imaginary worlds to make analysis and education easier. In physics, these idealized entities are the 'blackbody' and the 'particle', which make analysis easy. In Economics, the Homo Economicus (Econ) is an all-rational, infinte-horizon-calculating, non-emotional being who makes only rational decision. This Homo Economicus is definitely not human. Humans make mistakes, lie to others and themselves, form habits, get excited and afraid, have impaired decision making facility and are generally inferior to the imaginary Econ in making economic decisions.  Moreover, most people do not even know that their decisions are flawed due to cognitive biases!
   However, all economics is studied assuming Humans are Econs, making a lot of assumptions and conclusions questionable due to their flawed assumption of an Econ actor. Behavioural Economics attempts to unravel the patterns and habits that humans use to make decisions, in an attempt to scientifically understand how humans make decisions.
   This field is of intense interest to me because I believe a lot of policy making and governance can be improved if there is better understanding of people's cognitive biases.
   
   Philosophy: 24.00 is MIT's basic philosophy course for undergraduates. I am taking this course to give me a basic, academic understanding of philosophy, which should make me more receptive when I study philosophy on my own. I want to have the nuts and bolts to understand basic philosophy, so I grasp more from higher level books we all tend to jump to.
   
   Apart from these courses I'm studying as a student, I am also currently facilitating the study of a comprehensive graduate level course at my unit. This MIT OpenCourseWare course covers the gamut from basic engineering, economics and regulation of the power sector. My unit has staff from a variety of backgrounds, from engineers to economists to MBAs. While we all work on the energy sector and help our clients tackle daily micro and macro issues, almost all of us have some shortfalls in our energy sector knowledge. This course should help my colleagues who are engineers get a better grasp of the economic underpinnings of regulation and it should help my economist colleagues understand the engineering better. And perhaps, the MBAs will get a little of both! (I'm so going to get beaten up by my MBA pals, it'll not be funny)
   
   The next few blog posts will be my commentary on the learning and teaching experience. Join in my journey if you want.
   Stay Tuned!