Russ Roberts chatted with former Stanford professor and Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller about the present and future of online education.

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Use the prompts below to start your own conversation offline.

Check Your Knowledge:

1. What are the commonalities among all of Coursera’s offerings? What makes Coursera unique in the online education community today?

Going Deeper:

2. Koller insists that Coursera and other offerings like it are not a threat to universities. How does she explain this, and to what extent do you agree?

3. Koller notes a wide variety of course completion rates among Coursera’s offerings. How would Nassim Taleb explain these results?

Extra Credit:

4. Roberts asks Koller what potential exists for online learning to be truly disruptive. How would you answer this question? Does your answer differ depending on whether the focus is K-12 or higher education? Why? Is Koller right that any transformation won’t happen in the U.S. first? To what extent does Koller’s (and your) answer and to this question match Arnold Kling’s? Explain.