Zed rose from the dead this past week to promote MSU’s award-winning zombie apocalypse survival course, taught by social work professor Glenn Stutzky.
SW290, Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse: Disasters, Catastrophes and Human Behavior, is an online summer course that teaches students how to handle catastrophes.
Stutzky said he calls this class a MOLIE, which stands for Multimedia Online Learning Immersive Experience.
Stutzky and MSU alumni Keesa Muhammad and Christopher Irvin were developed the concept of creating a class devoted to dealing with catastrophes.
“We think education should not just be a set of facts, but something to experience, not just in our brain, but in our eyes, ears and feelings,” said Stutzky.
Stutzky said zombies make everything more interesting, which is why he chose a zombie takeover as the main catastrophe.
The course is seven weeks long and begins with traditional course work, readings and quizzes. It then leads to an online simulation where students are broken down into small groups that must work together to survive the zombie takeover.
“When in a catastrophe, information is very important. (Students) learn how to evaluate information and use it to base their decisions,” said Stutzky.
Kasey Nicholoff, an anthropology senior, said the class was not what she was expecting.
“It focused so much more on team and relationship building than I anticipated,” Nicholoff said. “I do think in a way it prepared me for a real life catastrophe because it got us thinking about how to prioritize after an event like that occurs.”
The class won the MSU-AT&T Instructional Technology Awards Competition in the “Best Online Class” category in 2013.
“We are not teaching using technology, we are using technology to connect learners and enrich the learning experience,” said Stutzky.
