Slightly tangential, but this is a problem that is being worked on in MOOCs. It is ineffective to have a forum for all 10,000 or 100,000 participants in a class

Slightly tangential, but this is a problem that is being worked on in MOOCs. It is ineffective to have a forum for all 10,000 or 100,000 participants in a class. Issues may be surfaced there but it is a terrible venue for authentic discussions and building relationships with classmates. There is one startup spun out of Stanford that is doing MOOCs by emphasizing the small group. At the beginning of the course, you can either create your own group and recruit others or join a group (generally 4-8 people). Those who do neither after the first week or so of class are randomly assigned into groups with others who were also not proactive about joining a group. It is easier to do discussions and group projects when there is a permanent group of 4-6 other students, and some of the courses have components where the group will submit work together and the rest of the class can see it.