The "special pedagogical challenge" of a course - or, Jay Howard argues here, a discipline - is the key concept or skill which must be unlocked to truly enable thinking like a member of the discipline. (Sometimes it's actually disabusing students of their incorrect beliefs about the subject.) This article focuses on finding that skill in sociology. What's your discipline's special challenge?
The MOOC conversation is dominated by examples of digitizing the large lecture hall. This is a deviation from the historical roots of the MOOC, and in this Chronicle article a very different kind of open educational activity is proposed.