Coming home from a MOOC
Werner Krauth
TL;DR
This paper describes a ten-week MOOC on computational physics covering advanced topics like Monte Carlo methods, quantum algorithms, and Bose-Einstein condensation, highlighting its design, scope, and comparison with previous online courses.
Contribution
It presents the structure, content, and challenges of a comprehensive online course in computational physics, demonstrating its approach to teaching complex scientific subjects at scale.
Findings
Engaged a large international student audience.
Covered advanced topics in computational physics.
Compared with earlier online teaching efforts.
Abstract
My ten-week Massive Open Online Course "Statistical Mechanics: Algorithms and Computations", in early 2014, focused on subjects such as Monte Carlo sampling, molecular dynamics, transition phases in hard-sphere liquids, simulated annealing, classical spin models, quantum Monte Carlo algorithms, and Bose-Einstein condensation, etc. It familiarized a huge international crowd of students with cutting-edge subjects in computational physics. Here, I present the topics of the course, its basic design ideas, its scope and challenges, and compare it with earlier attempts in online teaching.
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