My Adventure With A MOOC

Overstatement is never a good thing. 

...the budding revolution in global online higher education. Nothing has more potential to lift more people out of poverty — by providing them an affordable education to get a job or improve in the job they have. Nothing has more potential to unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems... more potential to enable us to reimagine higher education than the massive open online course, or MOOC, platforms that are being developed by the likes of Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and companies like Coursera and Udacity. --Thomas Friedman, NY Times, 1/26/13

He's talking about college professors video recording lectures, superimposing their faces over a digital whiteboard or powerpoint slides, embedding quick quizzes to check for understanding, and giving regular tests for students to demonstrate their learning. NOTHING else has more potential to lift more people out of poverty?

I recently finished my first MOOC, using the Coursera platform mentioned by Friedman in his article.  The course, Drugs and the Brain was offered through Cal Tech. I thought it might give me a little more credibility in writing about the value of MOOCs, and as a Psychology teacher I wanted to learn more about the biology behind the interactions between drugs and the brain.

Overall, I would rate my experience as quite positive.

1)I had an opportunity to learn for free from a very accomplished instructor through a prestigious University.

2) While I could have probably found most of the information shared somewhere on the internet, having an instructor narrow the focus and give it meaningful direction added an efficiency to the process that made it possible.

3) With two jobs, three children, and a terrible writing habit, finding the time to leave home for three to five hours a week to sit in on a class is not an option.  This course was accessible.

4) Related to the third, this course was for personal and professional growth. I wasn't interested in showing full mastery or the capacity to continue a course of study or move forward in a sequence. I was able to casually devote whatever time I wished to sacrifice without the "de-motivator" of no credit or a bad grade.

I accomplished my goal through this course. I can't explain much of what I learned, and truthfully, I still don't understand some of it.  But, when I teach my students about neurons in the brain and how chemicals in the body function, I can do so with a little more clarity and understanding of my own.  I am more confident with the level of material that I'm supposed to know than before I took this class.

But does it really have the potential to "unlock a billion more brains to solve the worlds problems."  My experience wasn't all that.

1) The first two weeks were so far over my head, I learned very little. I was able to take the quizzes a first time and return to the class notes with more focused study for a second or third attempt. This process of quizzing, studying, and requizzing helped me learn a bit more.  From the discussion threads, I gather that many in the course considered this cheating. I considered this, but as a consumer, I took the course with a different purpose than finding out how high I could rank among other students. But this presents a clear problem with the platform-- how will it measure student learning in a fair way considering many of the courses have thousands of students enrolled.

2) Other than accessibility and convenience, there is little difference in the instruction from a traditional college course. It involved lectures and testing. The instructor was good, but even in a room with other humans, lecture without interaction is tedious.  The topics were delivered in 5-15 minute segments, but still accounted to hours a week of lecture. By week three, I resorted to setting the playback speed to 1.5x and 2.0x by week four, slowing down for items of interest or pausing for better understanding.  Week five was the most relevant topic for my learning goals, but other commitments that week led me to skimming over the lecture slides and giving the quiz a shot without watching the lectures. I do plan to go back and watch them, but this doesn't look much different than typical behavior in a traditional setting.

3) The course instructor notes in comments on Friedman's article that they plan to award 4400 statements of completion and remarks that the online community has generated more than 5000 postings. Over a five week course that averages to 1000/week. I considered participating in this community, but the number of people and volume of posts were overwhelming. The serious difference in MOOCs, and other forms of online courses shows itself the most here. In the half-dozen or so other online courses that I've taken, I've been a part of a community of 8-30 people, expected to interact with each other.

4) Finally, I found it easier to "compensate" for what I didn't know than to put the effort into learning it.  I ignored formulas and calculations throughout the course because they involved skills that I either didn't possess or hadn't used in several decades. I knew it would take a little time to brush up and figure out how to do it, but I also knew that the cost of not learning would be minimal and I wouldn't find myself needing it in the future anyway.

I would rather end on a positive note than a negative about my MOOC experience.  The only reason I bring up the negatives is to place a little reality check on the praise.  There is a place for MOOCs in the world of education.  They provide a valuable service that cannot be provided any other way in our current world.  I am enrolled in two more courses through Coursera for this calendar year and look forward to them.

But, they aren't going to save the world.  Maybe they'll make a boot shaped dent that's better than nothing, but they won't replace education as we know it.  And if we think they will, and try to make it happen sooner rather than later by not supporting public preK through college education appropriately, we might find that our adventure in MOOCs could have the opposite of the rosy effect Mr. Friedman predicts.

Step forward, backward or sideways?

Closing out the week of Spring Break TU noted that Virginia students who enroll in 9th grade in 2013-2014 will be required to take at least one high school course online to receive their standard or advanced diploma.  This would appear to be a step forward  advancing educational access and integration of technology.   This "blended learner" model presents a lot of future unknowns.   A few thoughts:

Thinking about it a bit it begs the questions of what exactly is the goal?  Is it improving education or getting a feather in the cap?  There is still relatively little known about how online learning and more traditional methods vary in the long run but anyone who has taken an online class has an opinion.  Testing I suppose provides an answer.  But not a complete one.  Rural communities where offerings and staffing are harder to provide might stand to benefit more.  But legislating every student to take a course might seem to originate from somewhere other than Virginia and quality.  

Likely an outgrowth of Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Educational state initiatives program, online learning has benefits and limits.    But the origin of the measure is notable.  Three things summarize the approach pushed in Florida and other states by Bush's Foundation and they are school choice, accountability through testing and more use of technology to change education. Accompanying this are a host of other reforms.   There are several posts worth of material there but I read a blog post back in October that did a good job providing some background on the issues.  So the foundation wants to transform education.  I just get worried what it will be transformed into.

Jumping back to the change in Virginia part of me I suppose gets a bit threatened by virtual or distance learning, but that is a small part and doesn't blind me to the potential value of such programs. And speaking of value I would have to assume that local divisions will asked to carry any costs associated with this.  Not that big a deal for larger divisions like the one where I work, but I suspect some will feel the pinch.  The questions is which private company will be happily take that money off their hands. 

A couple types of students typically take virtual courses now.  Often those that are behind and need to catch up or need more support in an alternative setting can be found in the computer lab.  Others include those that can benefit from the expanded offerings available online.    Now a third type will take courses(notice I didn't use the word classes) and that's kids that are made to take them.    I suspect that this measure will do little to impact most students in the long run.  I further doubt that the  experience of taking whatever they have to will make learning very fulfilling.  It will instead just be "filling" in a matter of speaking. 

 Given there do not seem to be limitations of which courses can be taken, I would guess that if allowed many students might choose to take courses already offered at the school.  Seems a bit redundant.  New state requirements like the financial literacy course seem an obvious choice for pairing with technology but I suspect localities will have to figure this stuff out.    The true value of online classes will likely always be debated.  They can get you past a test.    I've taken a few, worked with kids taking a few an they have their limits.    I've taken them for two reasons.  Some because i wanted to learn and others because it was required.  I much preferred the former and most of the latter variety were awful.   Mostly I didn't have to think, just do stuff.  That tends to worry me both as an educator and a parent.  Not that this is a bad thing.