MOOCs have been derided in higher education circles as a poor substitute for real, institutional academic courses. But in reality, they are well ahead of much of academia in their teaching methods because they embody principles of the neurology of learning in a way that institutional online course do not. Here I take a look at how MOOCs integrate learning principles, the underlying structures that are holding online education back, and what needs to be done for academic online education to reach its full potential.