{"id":47952,"date":"2014-04-30T14:16:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T14:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=47952"},"modified":"2014-05-07T19:25:12","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T19:25:12","slug":"william-spaniel-recognized-for-excellence-in-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/william-spaniel-recognized-for-excellence-in-teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"William Spaniel takes on 21st century teaching tools to enhance student learning"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"William
William Spaniel during his BBC radio interview on what game theory can teach us about World War I. NPR has also turned to Spaniel for theory-based strategies on winning the popular game, \u201cWords With Friends.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Rachel Goldstein<\/p>\n

Through the innovative use of online videos, William Spaniel, a doctoral candidate studying bargaining and warfare, makes complex ideas accessible and entertaining for students at the University of Rochester and across the globe. Those innovative teaching methods and Spaniel\u2019s commitment to learners have earned him fans in the classroom and online.<\/p>\n

His Game Theory 101 YouTube channel<\/a>, a collection of 300 videos, has over ten thousand subscribers and approximately 2.2 million lifetime views. In total, Spaniel\u2019s four massive open online courses (MOOC), hosted on his Game Theory 101<\/a> website, YouTube, and Udemy, have a following of at least 7,000 students. Additionally, Spaniel has self-published two digital textbooks: Game Theory 101: The Complete Textbook<\/a><\/em> (2011) and The Rationality of War<\/a><\/em>(2012), the first of which has sold over 30,000 copies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn four years of graduate school, William has created an online teaching presence that puts him at the forefront of the revolution we are now seeing in higher education,\u201d says David Primo, the Ani and Mark Gabrellian Professor and director of graduate studies in political science. \u201cWhile many in the \u2018old guard\u2019 fear online education, William embraces it as a powerful tool that, if done well, enhances face-to-face education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spaniel began producing videos and posting them on YouTube in 2009 when he noticed the lack of online resources for learning game theory. The production requires three simple tools: a high quality microphone, PowerPoint, and a video software program called CamStudio, which essentially takes images of the computer screen while simultaneously recording the microphone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason that I started with the video format, and that I\u2019m still using it, is that it\u2019s much easier to learn game theory with someone visually showing you what\u2019s going on with a cursor,\u201d explains Spaniel. While a textbook, linear and static, is better at reinforcing issues and definitions, videos allow learners to see from slide to slide how a particular game tree is evolving.<\/p>\n

As his collection of videos progressed into something more coherent, he created an introductory course to game theory. The project \u201csnowballed,\u201d according to Spaniel, who has established a prominent online presence, gained followers, and continued producing videos for online classes\u2014creating independently what large companies such as Coursera offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is amazing to me that a company with that much reach bleeds money,\u201d says Spaniel, \u201cwhile I, by myself, with a much smaller audience, can bring in more than enough to justify the amount of time that I put into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Spaniel does not foresee online lectures replacing face-to-face interactions, he does recognize videos as a tool for learning, understanding that everyone learns at a different pace.<\/p>\n