Fascinating article on MOOCs

[Gwen in VA]

http://www.technologyreview.com/featured-story/429376/the-crisis-in-higher-education/

 

I have been interested in MOOCs for several years --

Why are they funded?

How are they funded?

Do they work?

What are the upsides/pitfalls?

 

This Technology Review article is an analysis of all of the above, weighing pros, cons, and unknowns. It is LONG, and if you stop reading in the middle you will miss the discussion of pitfalls/concerns about MOOCs. So if MOOCs interest you, get a cup of coffee and read on!

 

"With a data explosion seemingly imminent, it's hard not to get caught up in the enthusiasm of the MOOC architects. Even though their work centers on computers, their goals are deeply humanistic. They're looking to use machine learning to foster student learning, to deploy artificial intelligence in the service of human intelligence. But the enthusiasm should be tempered by skepticism. "

 

"It's a very different thing to try to replicate on a computer screen the intricate and sometimes ineffable experiences of teaching and learning that take place on a 
college campus. "

[mommamagistra]

Very interesting!!! Thanks for posting. By happenstance NPR did a show on Coursera yesterday (9/30/12) and interviewed one of its founders -- Daphne Koller (yep, a woman!!! with an endowed chair in Stanford's Computer Science Dept.). Seems like Coursera is sweeping the TT college lecture halls and giving the world access -- including Dick Durbin (the Senate Majority Whip) currently enrolled in Modern Poetry. A lot of dicussion about future accredidation and/or validation of the courses and, of course, the $$$ potential of these MOOCs.

[mommamagistra]

Here's a link for above NPR interview re Coursera:

 

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/30/162053927/online-education-grows-up-and-for-now-its-free

[Jane in NC]

Interesting indeed. Thanks for posting.

 

I had no idea that college correspondence courses had been all the rage at the turn of 20th century.

 

One of the things that has concerned me about online or video instruction in mathematics, my field, is that some students need to hear information presented a couple of times and in a couple of ways in order to process it. This part of the human element seems hard to replicate.

 

On the other hand, I am all in favor of democracy. I see MOOCs bringing college courses to people around the world who may otherwise not have the opportunity to participate in higher ed.

[regentrude]

I like the fact that this makes college courses accessible to people who can not attend a college in presence, but I am cautious and do not expect too much in terms of educational outcomes.

In order to master a subject, listening to lectures is not enough; the student needs to do active work. My experience with auditing classes myself as a student, and with auditing students as an instructor is that, unless the student does all active assignments diligently, listening to lectures is often a waste of time, at least in math and science. The real understanding comes through the problem solving.

So, unless the courses find a way to incorporate problem solving, including assistance with it, and an evaluation, they do not replace a presence course where a live instructor provides guidance and feedback.

So far, the attempts to develop computer based systems for homework fall far short of the kind of work a student has to turn in for a real class, and of the feedback a live instructor provides - having a correct number as an answer (something the computer can grade) is no guarantee that the student has mastered a procedure. And as far as I know, there is no computerized essay evaluation system that is even close to a human grader.

 

I see these courses as a valuable enrichment for continuing education - I love listening to lectures about history. But I do not see them as a substitute for actually taking a course.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I think evaluating these is a lot like evaluating state k12 standards and test. It delends on where you started and what it's replacing.

Reading Dante and listening to a TC lecture is a lot better than not reading Dante at all. Even though a class with an interesting prof, engaged students and challenging but achievable lessons is better still.

 

I am curious about the effect of relationship and personality. I had several profs who were so abrasive that it they'd told me the sky was blue I would have stepped outside to check. On the other hand, I've had a couple instructors who developed good relationships and made strong positive impressions. When they eventually came around to sharing their personal stories (one told about the experience of having her husband be one of the US hostages in Iran and the other was chief engineer onboard a ship that had a major engineering fire) it was far more compelling than if I had just listened to a broadcast of their account.

[JanetC]

I'm taking History of the World since 1300 on Coursera, from Princeton. For an active participant whose doing more than just listening in as regentrude says, I think the course is *better* than taking it at Princeton.

 

There are people from all over the world on the forums, many of them know their local histories better than the professor does. Some of them are retired professors, economists, archaeologists, etc. I wish I had more time to read them, but as a busy mom I can barely keep up.

 

I am also taking an intro to programming class. The professors are simply not as engaged in the learning experience as the Princeton professor is. They're on the forums some, but they're just not leading the kinds of discussions and explanations that the history class has. There are little bugs in the course that show that they didn't "beta test" the system with actual students before implementing automated grading of answers. I'm an experience programmer, I just don't know Python, so I'm going to get what I need out of this class. But, it's much, much less impressive to me.

 

Which just goes to show: Coursera is an aggregator of classes from different sources. Asking whether the classes from Coursera are "good" or "bad" is a bit like asking if books from Amazon are good or bad. It's a matter of the author of the specific course and the needs and engagement level of the student that matter.

 

--Janet

[JohnC3]

If the MOOC’s came into an ideal, democratic educational environment, they would be another excellent tool to engage students and to bring content to wider and wider audiences. The real benefit of online education is its ability to serve those populations who have been underserved: adults and other non-traditional students who aren’t able to access an onground campus.

 

Unfortunately, online education has come to an educational industry in severe crisis. Schools are underfunded, the administrative machine has bloated, and 70% of faculty in higher education are part-time or non-tenure track (this causes a whole host of other issues that affect student outcomes). Used properly and sparingly, the mooc could be a good supplement, but most administrators will look to it as an opportunity to further the trajectory of the all-administrative university that downplays faculty involvement and treats college like a cash-cow factory. I’m sure some university leaders have even conceived of a future where only a handful of star professors actually teach. Why hire 100 tenure track faculty when you can just hire 1 to teach all the lectures?

 

The reason small classes are good is that a teacher can actually get to know on a personal level his or her students. That means the teacher can assess the student holistically by looking at the entire person, not just one sliver. When a student and a teacher get to know one another, lots of great things happen (which is why we homeschool). The major flaw with the MOOC is that there is no personal interaction. A student will essentially have to become an autodidact—which is fine—but we all have to learn from our mentors first before we can learn to teach ourselves. To be truly democratic, online education needs to bring more and more expert teachers into “close†contact with more and more students in ratios that are reasonable, say, 1:15 (or something like that). I’m sure what most big universities envision is a MOOC taught in sections by contingent faculty, and this only repeats on a larger scale the same issues plaguing academia right now: too few qualified faculty teaching too many students.

[Joan in GE]

My sons have been wanting me to listen to

? I don't know if this is for everyone though...

[regentrude]

My sons have been wanting me to listen to

?

 

Without listening to it: my opinion is that no, you can not.

You may be able to view the course content, work with books, and participate in message boards for some interaction, and even be allowed to take exams - but an education at an institution like this is much more than just class content. The effect of being immersed in an environment of brilliant faculty and brilliant students, the opportunities for intellectually stimulating discussions, and the participation in research projects can not be substituted by distance learning.

[Gwen in VA]

Without listening to it: my opinion is that no, you can not.

You may be able to view the course content, work with books, and participate in message boards for some interaction, and even be allowed to take exams - but an education at an institution like this is much more than just class content. The effect of being immersed in an environment of brilliant faculty and brilliant students, the opportunities for intellectually stimulating discussions, and the participation in research projects can not be substituted by distance learning.

 

As an MIT alum, I totally concur with Regentrude!

[elegantlion]

Without listening to it: my opinion is that no, you can not.

You may be able to view the course content, work with books, and participate in message boards for some interaction, and even be allowed to take exams - but an education at an institution like this is much more than just class content. The effect of being immersed in an environment of brilliant faculty and brilliant students, the opportunities for intellectually stimulating discussions, and the participation in research projects can not be substituted by distance learning.

 

Another reason I see the on campus experience as necessary is networking. I didn't attend college and had no chance of experiencing many things I was quite capable of doing, because I was not in the right environment. I've seen others take part in study abroad programs that are never offered to the general public. They also gained professional connections that will be beneficial in their careers.