Lessons learned, unlearned and relearned: A semester of online class

In January, I posted of my intent to put my valuation and corporate finance classes online. As I finished my last sessions in both classes today, I thought it would be a good time to take stock of what the experience taught me about the future of education and how online education can evolve.

A quick review. I teach corporate finance and valuation classes to MBAs at the Stern School of Business at NYU and have done so for 26 years. While I have put my webcasts and material online for many years, I decided to both formalize and organize the online class this year, using a start up firm called Coursekit. It has since been able to attract more funds and has a new name, Lore.

The site allowed me to place the resources for the class (lecture notes, assignments, handouts and exams) and the webcasts of the class in one place, together with a social media add-on where anyone (me or any student registered in the class) could post links, thoughts or questions about the class. Here are the links to the classes:
Valuation: Link to Lore Valuation class
Corporate Finance: Link to Lore Corporate Finance class

I had a lot of fun, teaching these classes, and I am glad I did it, but I did get some valuable lessons in online learning.
1. Discipline is critical on both sides. I had to learn to be disciplined and organized, posting lectures on the site, as soon as I had the links, as well as any other resources I used in my regular class. On the participant side, I recognized how difficult it is for someone (often several time zones away), with a regular job and family commitments, to spend 80 minutes twice a week, watching lectures and then spending more time preparing for the class. While I don't have the statistics, I am sure that of the 2500+ people signed up for the corporate finance class and the 1900 people in the valuation class, relatively few will finish the class on time (today) and that many will not finish the class at all.
What I plan to do about it 
(1) I plan to leave the class online for at least the summer and perhaps longer. Hopefully, that will allow those whose constraint is time to catch up on the lectures and even do the projects for the class.
(2) I also plan to create a shorter (20 minute) version of each 80-minute lecture, delivering the high points of the session for those who really cannot spend the time needed for the full lecture.

2. Diverse backgrounds/experiences: I know that some people struggled more than others, partly due to language differences and partly because of diverse backgrounds (some were more well versed in statistics and accounting than others). I feel badly for those who struggled and wish I could have done more to help.
What I plan to do about it
(1) I am looking for online resources that I can direct people who are in search of basic accounting/ statistics classes to. If I cannot find anything, I will attempt to create my own makeshift versions.
(2) Next semester, I hope to rope in a  few people who have been gracious enough to offer their help and start a tutorial component to the class. Together, we may be able to fill the gap.

3. Technology:  Technology is still evolving and that there were roadblocks, on both sides. On my side, there were at least two sessions in my corporate finance class where the recording system failed, and I had to make recordings to fill in. On the other side, those users who tried to watch the webcasts on Google Chrome were stymied (Don't even ask...) and some had trouble with bandwidth.
What I plan to do about it
(1) Fix the recording system at Stern so that there are no recording failures. Improve the audio and video quality.
(2) Use more conduits for the lectures (iTunes U, YouTube) to allow those who have trouble downloading to be able to go elsewhere to get the material.

In short, there is a great deal that I can do to make the online learning experience a richer, more interactive one, and I plan to keep working on it. For those of you who were and are part of this experiment, thank you for giving it a shot. For those of you who were disappointed in it, I am sorry and I will work on making it better.

As a final point, for those who would rather take your classes in person, I am preparing for two executive valuation seminars that I will be delivering during the next month.
a. The first is a two-day valuation seminar in Mumbai, India, on May 24 and 25. You can get details about the seminar by clicking here.
b. The second is an open-enrollment three-day valuation seminar that I teach every year at the Stern School of Business in New York. This year, it will be on June 4, 5 and 6. While it is intense, I manage to cover almost all of the material that I teach in my regular MBA class (which lasts 14 weeks). You can get details about it by clicking here.