

What according to you is the biggest problem with MOOCs? - manishreddyt


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ekpyrotic
Self-directed learners study subjects that complement their current interests
and obsessions. Presently I am interested in the European sovereign-debt
crisis, so it is natural to go ahead and study the history of the Eurozone.

Now, taken over time, these topics will form a natural chain, networking with
my present interests and previous topics of study. I might move from studying
'neoliberalism' to 'Margaret Thatcher' to 'Ronald Reagan', and onwards.

As this example suggests, autodidacts will quite naturally get stuck in topic
chains, studying subjects that share a particular outlook, an outlook they
take an interest in (be that outlook political, economic, or otherwise).

As such, autodidacts will inevitably study a syllabus that reflects, supports,
and reinforces their current inclinations. Or, put more pointedly, there is no
obvious mechanism by which self-learners will come to grapple with divergent
viewpoints or challenging disciplines.

There is cause for confusion here. I am not claiming that self-directed
learners will consciously choose to ignore alternative perspectives, only that
this pattern naturally results from the way an autodidact studies. If I start
reading the work of some libertarian political thinker, the thinker's
intellectual predecessors or successors is the next obvious topic of study.
The starting point lays a train-track into similar material.

(Similar anxieties have been articulated by Eli Pariser about the social Web.
Pariser argues that Google's powerful filtering algorithm—informed by previous
searches—skims off content that challenges a searcher's current outlook in
order to return better search results, meaning that users browse the Web
within an intellectual bubble.)

Additionally, I do not argue that well-organised and broad-minded autodidacts
cannot escape this trap. Only that it is difficult to do so. Firstly, this
pattern usually takes place without the learner's awareness, meaning they
cannot take remedial steps. And, secondly, it is easy to imagine a learner
ceaselessly kicking divergent perspectives into the long grass; "I'll read one
more liberal thinker before I crack open Hayek".

But, importantly, universities disrupt this pattern.

Unlike critics seem to believe, universities comprise more than a succession
of uniform courses on bland topics. Instead, they are the pooling point for a
generation of young people from disparate backgrounds with divergent politico-
cultural perspectives.

This vibrant academic social fabric provides the natural environment for
informed, critical dialogue and the exchange of ideas and opinions. And, it is
through such exchanges that our ideas are challenged, deconstructed, and
rebuilt.

Of course, I am liable to an accusation of idealism. Firstly, for believing
that university is any more than a stopgap between high school and work for
young people to drink, party, and have sex. Or, for believing truly socially
mixed universities exist. I do not deny that second-rate party schools exist,
nor that the West is diseased with economic inequality. But, these are not
essential to the university system. And, I am optimistic that our governments
are taking proactive steps to rectify both problems.

Taken together, I worry that self-directed learning lends itself to an
arrogant self-belief in one's opinions and a lack of regard for the complexity
and nuances of politico-cultural debates, and that the platform universities
provide for open interaction between peoples of different socio-economic
background has been largely ignored.

(Note: from an article I wrote way back when)

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ph0rque
One of the ideas my boss and I had for a while is the concept of a knowledge
tree, with an app that shows you where your branches aren't balanced, in a
particular area. Perhaps one day we'll make that app :)

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jnord
Having done three courses with both Coursera and Udacity, I can honestly say
that my biggest gripe with MOOCs is their emphasis on transmitting information
sequentially, that is, via video lectures.

Seriously, what is wrong with putting up some nice readable-at-own-pace
lecture material that is hyperlinked and indexed correctly so that I don't
have to rewind videos if I missed something?

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ivan_ah
Wouldn't you get lost in all the content? If you are free to read in any order
you could get into a wikipedia-like situation where you keep opening new tabs
non-stop and you lose track of the original thing you were reading about.

I generally agree with you though that having a SINGLE path through the course
is too restrictive. It should be like in games: there is a main quest, but you
can go on mini-quests on the side...

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caw
Professors take side quests too in their lectures. Sometimes they turn out to
be quite lengthy.

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pdm55
I did a 6 week MOOC on statistics from Coursera. I am a Math and Chemistry
teacher and I did the course to upgrade my own knowledge. I wasn't working at
the time and I was able to put in about 10 hrs a week.

I was impressed. It was better than any other face-to-face uni courses I had
done.

I liked the interaction with other students. There was a forum and a Facebook
page where we helped each other. I liked getting study notes from other
students and I liked guiding others in solving the problems.

A video was better than sitting in a lecture hall, suffering from information
overload and unable to stop the lecturer. A video I could pause and take
notes. I could rewind to hear something explained again.

It took about an hour to get through a 20 min video. Originally the videos had
no text, but, following an outcry from the students, text was supplied. For
me, notes would have been better: I could have listened to the video, using it
to expand the notes.

What was wrong with the MOOC? A thousand and one things if you simply counted
the number of pages in the Forum. \- Video presentations are too dry. \- The
assessment doesn't match the videos. \- Videos have to be supplemented with
text. \- The course description doesn't clearly explain what prior knowledge
you need. The saying "You cannot please all the people all the time" springs
to mind.

What are deal breakers for MOOC? Paul Graham believes that online learning
will more easily cater for uni courses than school-based assessment. The block
he says is the bureaucracy oversight that surrounds schools.

Why does this bureaucracy exist? To protect and nurture the family's greatest
asset, the children. In advanced economies, with children no longer working
beside their parents in the fields, schools are a means of ensuring one's
children are safe and learning skills that will generate an income in the
future.

As one teacher with grown-up children explained it to me: "Schools will always
be necessary - with both parents working who is going to babysit/teach their
little darlings?!"

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ht_th
They're solving an educational problem -- that is, how to deliver instruction
to a large audience --, but not an learning problem. Does it support / improve
deep learning? How are social-cultural factors of learning taken care of? What
exactly is assessed? How is students' (and teachers') reflection on their own
learning process supported (if at all)

I think most of these problems can be overcome, although probably not by
translating traditional instruction and educational ideas more or less
directly to MOOCs, but by exploring new ways of instruction, teaching,
studying, and learning. I fear, however, that this will not happen (soon, or
at a large scale), and MOOCs will become the poor mans' only educational
opportunity, creating an educational/learning divide between those who will
have access to small-scale quality instruction and those that have only access
to MOOCs.

For governments and schools MOOCs make it easy to implement 'education for
all' while cutting costs. For example, I could imagine high schools to stop
offering advanced placement classes or some subjects locally, but instead
offering access to MOOCs on those topics with some local supervision by people
not schooled (and payed) as teachers. Similarly, I could imagine the
government giving free access to MOOCs to all, while, at the same time,
cutting on general scholarships.

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bakli
I don't believe I have the self discipline to complete these online courses. I
start with great enthusiasm and after one or two weeks, everything's gone. The
reason why this happened in coursera was because I had two weeks free time and
the course was of 6 weeks. After initial two weeks, I got a little busy and
neglected everything from course eventually giving up on the idea of being
able to complete it.

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queensnake
Udacity has some permanently-on courses, where you go at your own pace. It's
wonderful for the ability to binge study, but the lack of schedule might allow
you to push it off indefinitely. For my own part that's still an open
question, but I loved being able to binge during the easy part.

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tinyProton
Deadlines. I want to be able to take courses and complete them whenever I have
time.

Almost all Coursera's coursers have weekly deadlines. If you got busy for a
couple of weeks during the course time you will fall behind. And the chances
that you would get busy are quite high given that some of the courses last for
more than three months.

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brudgers
They are modeled after bricks and mortar institutions.

My wife taught online for UoP. They used NNTP and a book. No video. No
interactive games. It worked because it recognized that the sizzle was the
degree. It worked because they weren't trying to sell it to established
institutional interests - e.g. department heads and professors and
administrators who want to make sure that streaming video can go on their CV.

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queensnake
Lack of academic credit. Often being /half/ of a class.

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brwr
MOOCs don't solve a problem. In my opinion, they only perpetuate that
university is the answer to life, the universe, and everything in it. The fact
is that university-style education (inactive lectures and wrote memorization)
are not the answer for a large number of people. We need to get away from
assigning one-off projects and instead focus on projects with long-term
development potential.

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anywherenotes
Peer grading. For classes that can be tested for correctness automatically I
don't see any issues. But when your class is on writing, and you get peer
reviewed and graded ... you risk getting random grades+feedback.

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manishreddyt
That is a serious problem. Let's see how they handle this.

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aaron695
They cost nothing so are considered by participants internally to have no
value and hence are treated as such.

