Candid Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 http://chronicle.com/article/American-Council-on-Education/137155/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 It would still be at the discretion of the individual school whether a course of this content receives credit at all. Our university does not give credit for algebra, and precalculus is considered a remedial course that does not count towards the required credits for most majors - so having it from Coursera would not make a difference. Also, I do not see this as a "revolution": it has always been possible to acquire the knowledge of the material outside of the classroom, by whatever means suitable for the student, and request to receive credit by examination. I really do not see much different here - even for the non-accredited courses, students have the option of requesting credit by exam. In practice, this happens rarely. I teach introductory physics for which many different free opportunities have been existing online for a number of years, books are available - yet in eleven years of teaching, I only had one student request credit by examination. Somehow I do not think that the MOOCs are going to be a big game changer, since undisciplined student will not do well in a free online class. ETA: The one major drawback I see in this setup is the lack of detailed feedback. The instructor of a MOOC will not be able to evaluate writing assignments nor worked our physics or calculus problems and give the student constructive feedback - if any "grading" is built into a course, it will have to be an automated system, and those are horribly lacking for math and physics and impossible for English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nscribe Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 I watched a forum a couple of months ago which featured college deans discussing MOOC's. I recall the two obstacles they noted were accredidation and finding a reliable means of quality/secure assessment. This article indicates those are being addressed. I found the following quote curious: "Any hypothesis about how MOOCs might "disrupt" the American higher-education system inevitably will turn on the willingness of colleges to grant credit for courses for which students do not pay tuition. And when it comes to inviting free online courses into the world of mainstream credentialing, institutions might prefer to act conservatively for fear of undermining their own bases of revenue." Many colleges are already granting credit for AP's (not typical tuition revenue to the admitting college) and Dual Enrollment. In both of those cases it is not as easy for an admitting college to know with much specificity what skills were taught. They may know that either skills taught were in compliance with those needed for the exam or in the case of the CC's doing Dual Enrollment they may have a sense via reputation. But with a MOOC, if they wanted they could know exactly what was taught, what was read, in what sections a student did better or worse. MOOC's do have the potential to be disruptive to traditional notions of education. I could easily envision the first two years of college being online or some hybrid very soon. Frankly, the colleges will likely change before high schools and middle schools because so many parents count on school as a sitter and will resist giving up someone having responsibility during the day if they their kids were home and there are a lot of classroom teachers with a stake in this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nscribe Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 Also, I do not see this as a "revolution": it has always been possible to acquire the knowledge of the material outside of the classroom, by whatever means suitable for the student, and request to receive credit by examination. I really do not see much different here - even for the non-accredited courses, students have the option of requesting credit by exam. I actually took advantage of those possibilities as part of my undergrad (even pre-internet). I needed to work to support myself and I was able to lower my traditional daytime class load to allow my work hours via correspondence, intercollege agreements, independent study, credit by exam and such. However, it took really coming to know the system and there were limits in each option of credit toward my ultimate degree. I did not use CLEP, not sure why but there was a reason. It has been a while but I think what I ultimately patched together (not counting summers) would have totaled just over a year. It allowed me to work and I actually think in several cases I got a lot more out of the courses. The thing about MOOC's is they are far more accessible and comparatively straightforward procedurally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 The thing about MOOC's is they are far more accessible and comparatively straightforward procedurally. If they institute rigorous testing under proctored conditions and if they meet the content and rigor comparable to the in-seat class at the college where the student wants to get credit for the course. I am not sure how they would be handling the first aspect - how would the free system with massive enrollment get enough manpower to grade the tests? Not to mention the logistics of setting up with testing centers and ensuring test integrity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nscribe Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 If they institute rigorous testing under proctored conditions and if they meet the content and rigor comparable to the in-seat class at the college where the student wants to get credit for the course. I am not sure how they would be handling the first aspect - how would the free system with massive enrollment get enough manpower to grade the tests? Not to mention the logistics of setting up with testing centers and ensuring test integrity. I took proctored exams at a testing center on campus. I know our local library does certified proctoring. The article mentioned a proctoring service used by the MOOC's up for accredidation. When I listened to either that forum or maybe one on You Tube at MIT with an online curriculum provider and a bunch of ed reform folks they talked about keyboard detection. Apparently just as we each have unique fingerprints/iris, we apparently have unique keyboarding signatures that can be identified. They talked about remote proctoring using webcam and these unique typing sigs. It was fascinating stuff. I agree about wanting to maintain rigor and integrity. It is kinda like the homeschool high school transcript, I care what others do because it could wind up making what I do harder. If enough homeschoolers sport transcripts that indicate rigor that isn't there and colleges start to doubt the legitmacy, I wind up having to jump through more hoops to prove what we did was worthy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 I took proctored exams at a testing center on campus. I know our local library does certified proctoring. The article mentioned a proctoring service used by the MOOC's up for accredidation. When I listened to either that forum or maybe one on You Tube at MIT with an online curriculum provider and a bunch of ed reform folks they talked about keyboard detection. Apparently just as we each have unique fingerprints/iris, we apparently have unique keyboarding signatures that can be identified. They talked about remote proctoring using webcam and these unique typing sigs. It was fascinating stuff. That sounds great - but who would be doing massive amounts of test grading? The university who offers the free courses does not profit - so why would they invest the manpower? There are subjects where automated grading will not work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nscribe Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 What they talked about in the forum that left me a little :glare: was a bunch of stuff about advances in artificial intelligence grading for essays, math (with various solutions patterns). It was a bit creepy and cold sounding, but then I get a little creeped by med tech advances too. Apparently there is a substantial bit of research on using AI to grade. Lots of studies about dwell time kids spend on problems being weighted into assessments along with correct vs incorrect answers. I do remember someone saying (I think in another forum/panel) teachers may shift more to evaluator roles and an audience full of teachers grumbling. I wouldn't imagine people who choose to teach want to become full time graders. Isn't College Board always on the hunt for more readers? I have talked to a few teachers who are not thrilled about the flipped classroom ideas and some who are excited. Who would have thought colleges would ever give away their product? I love the access and see how it not only helps us but could be a pathway to hope for people worldwide. But, it does make for a lot of asking/answering how. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nscribe Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Regentrude: I am curious when you clicked the article link by chance did you then click the article "Great Colleges to Work For"? It leads you to a list you can scroll over and see how faculty rated their schools on various items. Apologize for the sidebar, just was curious? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane in NC Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Just to add a bit of historical perspective to this discussion: Correspondence courses were supposed to be the great equalizer of the late 19th century/early 20th. Turned out to be another fad. There have been some articles comparing MOOCs to correspondence. Fair or not? I don't know. I do know that students, in their ignorance, can assume that they know as much as a prof who has studied his field for decades. Will lack of interaction with a professor perpetuate their myth? At the same time, I do suspect that there are hungry students who benefits greatly from Internet resources, both courses and online books. We made a point of sending our son to a small LAC where he has plenty of one on one time with professors. For students who attend classes in huge lecture halls with hundreds of others, is there much difference between the large lectures and the MOOCs? I would hope that the large lectures have a smaller lab or discussion group associated with it but that is not guaranteed. I am pleased to see that people are craving knowledge. That is a good thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Regentrude: I am curious when you clicked the article link by chance did you then click the article "Great Colleges to Work For"? It leads you to a list you can scroll over and see how faculty rated their schools on various items. Apologize for the sidebar, just was curious? I had not looked before, but I have looked now. Interesting. My school is not included ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nscribe Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I had not looked before, but I have looked now. Interesting. My school is not included ;-) It would be nice if more schools were listed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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