Faculty members in the Department of Mechanical Engineering are extending their work beyond the walls of G.G. Brown through Coursera Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
Coursera is an online learning platform that partners with leading organizations to provide free and low-cost online educational opportunities. Several faculty members in the mechanical engineering department have created Coursera MOOCs to expand their reach on subjects including 3D printing, design, and thermodynamics.
“I think MOOCs created by faculty members of premier universities make our impacts go beyond the university,” said Chinedum Okwudire, professor of mechanical engineering. “I think this is very important for public universities like ours to show that we are really trying to make an impact on the world around us.”
Okwudire launched a MOOC titled “Introduction to 3D Printing with Metals” on Dec. 2. The five-week course consists of five modules covering information about methods of printing with metals, advantages and limitations, practical applications, and more.
“We were motivated to do this course because we know that a lot of people in the general public are familiar with typical desktop 3D printers you see in libraries and other places,” Okwudire said. “But there are many people who are not familiar with 3D printing with metals. In fact, some people don’t even know it’s possible.”
His course also provides extended-reality opportunities to learners, which were developed with the assistance of the Center for Academic Innovation. Okwudire explained that adding “hands-on” engagement opportunities through virtual platforms brings learners around the world as close as possible to 3D printing.
“The learners can actually interact through their phones with the parts that have been 3D printed to compare them with what was initially designed and how well it is printed,” he said. “This really adds value to the course.”
Three Mechanical Engineering faculty members, Steve Skerlos, Shanna Daly, and Kathleen Sienko, each with the Arthur F. Thurnau professorship, also launched a MOOC in fall 2024 in partnership with the Center for Academic Innovation. This course, titled “Introduction to Socially Engaged Design,” was created in collaboration with Charlie Michaels, Managing Director of the Center for Socially Engaged Engineering & Design.
The course aims to educate learners on the critical aspects of socially engaged design as a methodology that considers society on a broad level, taking into account such elements as sustainability and social impact during the design process.
Skerlos explained that this five-week course offers a valuable avenue for students to continue learning after their initial encounters with C-SED, co-founded by Skerlos, Daly, and Sienko to advance student’s abilities to connect their engineering efforts with social and societal implications.
“C-SED reaches about 8,000 students in engineering alone each year, usually in the form of course sessions integrated into engineering science and design courses,” Skerlos said. “Students want to go in and have a deeper exposure to the social elements than we can offer in one session, but we didn’t have a vehicle for them to explore the topic independently, so we created this MOOC.”
Skerlos highlighted the growing global demand for C-SED content, emphasizing that MOOCs provide flexible, worldwide access to education, making them an effective way to meet this interest.
“The opening of the marketplace of ideas is really important,” Skerlos said. “Research papers, which we usually focus on as faculty, are at the bleeding edge. How do interested learners catch up to the bleeding edge without some on-ramp to the field?”
The impact of MOOCs is not limited only to their students. Okwudire and Skerlos emphasized that creating their courses revealed lessons relevant to their careers as educators.
“There’s that phrase, ‘the best way to learn something is to teach it,’” Skerlos said. “MOOCs force instructors to learn deeply about their own communication style since you have to speak without any jargon and bring all the principles back to the beginning, in the most basic of terms for a general audience. I took away a whole new perspective presenting content this way.”
Okwudire said one of his key takeaways from the experience was the value of working with a partner to develop a MOOC. He explained that help from Nathaniel Wood, his postdoctoral assistant, was instrumental in his ability to produce the course while also maintaining his standard workload.
“He ended up being my assistant for the course,” Okwudire said. “I think that was a very good decision, because it became this win-win scenario where his passion, excitement and talents came into play, and in a way kept driving me along when I had so many things on my plate. Having someone to keep pushing me was really a source of inspiration.”
For Okwudire, the sense of inspiration hasn’t stopped after the launch of his course. He said that he hopes to encourage more faculty members at the University of Michigan to explore MOOCs as avenues to spread the impact of their work.
“I think this is something that I want to share more,” he said. “I believe it really does help broader society appreciate what we have to offer as a university, even if they aren’t paying our tuition and taking our courses. Surrounding all of this work is the opportunity to impact society as much as possible and really make a difference across the world.”
For more information about online learning opportunities at U-M, visit the Michigan Online website.
