
Is the MOOC Bubble Bursting? - jessaustin
http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/07/is-mooc-bubble-bursting.html
======
glesica
"...making the case for human intervention in teaching, at least for those
students who are not 100% self-motivated and self-assured (that is, those
students who actually need to be educated, rather than left to educate
themselves). Two relevant notes of today."

This is really important. The discussion about education in this community
(HN), and the a lot of the discussions I've seen related to the MOOC movement
(or at least where it has seen success), tends to focus on self-motivated,
usually high-aptitude students. But, almost by definition, those attributes do
not describe most students.

~~~
malexw
I agree with the main point - that MOOCs work best for students who are self-
motivated - but I think you're not giving the average college student enough
credit.

From my experiences as a student in both environments, I think the motivation
required to successfully complete a college course is about the same as
completing a MOOC. I don't think that an increase in the amount of content
delivered online at a college level would increase the failure rates, because
the students who aren't self-motivated would fail out anyway.

~~~
mgkimsal
The fact that you're here discussing this matter indicates that you're not
'average'. You probably don't associate with many 'average' college students.

~~~
malexw
That may be true, but that's not what I was trying to get at. My observation
is that the external motivating pressures are the same, whether the material
is delivered via traditional instruction or online. In both environments,
there are lectures to attend, assignments or essays to hand in, and a final
exam to write. I suspect that anyone who has enough motivation to complete
that work in a traditional setting would also be able to complete it online.

~~~
glesica
I strongly disagree. I have three college degrees but my completion rate on
MOOCs is hovering around 10% right now. Obviously I'm a sample of one, but I
just wanted to give a personal account to match your own.

The classroom setting is important because it sets up social expectations and
accountability. I tend to blow off MOOCs partly (there are obviously other
reasons as well, including the fact that they are free) because there is no
scheduled time. There is less pressure and it is up to me to make time, it
isn't blocked out for me. I also get bored more easily in MOOCs because the
communication only flows in one direction, from the teacher to the student. I
can't ask questions or challenge assumptions during lectures. To me, that
isn't as interesting, so I'm more likely to drop out.

~~~
malexw
Interesting! I don't have any college degree - I left in fourth year and
joined a startup. I mostly hated college classes. I felt that many instructors
either didn't want to be teaching, or weren't very good at it, and didn't work
at getting better. Taking a class on a subject I was interested in was a
guaranteed way to destroy all my enthusiasm for the topic (with the one
exception of a great computer graphics course). I couldn't imagine completing
three degrees.

My MOOC completion rate is also fairly low. In total I've signed up for 16
MOOCs, and successfully completed 6 of them (with 1 more in progress). I don't
consider this a failing of the MOOC style - I actually consider the freedom to
drop courses without punishment a great joy compared to my previous college
engineering degree program. I've stopped "attending" MOOCs because I didn't
like the instructor, or because I didn't enjoy the material, or just because I
had too many other things going on to set aside 6 hours a week to work on a
course.

But what if you had to complete the MOOC in a college environment, where you
didn't have the freedom to just stop working on the material without
punishment? I agree that having the lecture times blocked out is a motivating
factor - I take "classes" at the gym to motivate myself to go every day. But
when it comes to assignments, or studying for the final, that's still time you
need to set up for yourself. Since you've been so successful at self-
motivating yourself to do that already, do you think you'd be able to motivate
yourself enough to watch the video lectures in a college setting?

Thanks for sharing your data point, even if it's just a small sample size. I'm
really enjoying reading about other's experiences.

~~~
glesica
I actually took a for-credit online class last year and I did rather poorly in
it, at least by my normal standards. There were several problems. First, I
didn't find the material very interesting (it didn't cover what I thought it
was going to cover).

But second, and maybe just as important, I just hated watching the video
lectures. I had a lot of trouble motivating myself to spend several hours
watching lectures, and when I did watch them I often found I got very little
out of them because I couldn't ask questions in real time. So, for instance,
if I wasn't completely clear on a point in minute 10, I might be lost for the
next 40 minutes and my only recourse was to watch the part that confused me
over and over again in the hope that it would become clear (which is boring).

I think I simply can't learn well from video lectures. When I was in school I
was the type of student who would always engage the lecturer. I asked a lot of
questions, sometimes when I was confused, sometimes when I wanted more
information, and sometimes when I thought I had something to add or wanted to
know about some special case. This just doesn't work with video lectures.

So I think the answer to your question is that I probably wouldn't do very
well in a MOOC, even if there was some kind of consequence behind it.

Edit: I do think that MOOCs are a great thing and I hope they stay a part of
the "scene", partly because it is nice to have the option (I enjoy
participating in them even if I usually don't get very far), but mostly
because they seem to "work" for a lot of people, like yourself. More options
is good, just don't take away my in-person lectures! :)

------
memonkey
This reads as a little conceited or else disconnected. I'm not saying I don't
disagree, because I believe that MOOCs are probably better as a supplement to
college, but another fact remains that some of us don't have the same
opportunities to go to those same hand full of colleges. In other words, I
think a huge part that is missing from this is the discussion of inequality.

MOOCs are not going away any time soon. There are professors and educators
definitely taking the time to create quality lectures and make sure you get
the help you need, and I don't think that's much different from attending an
actual college. The only thing missing is probably the importance of human
interaction.

Also, I'm not sure about that math because even he seems skeptical about it.
Hope somebody can help enlighten me.

~~~
ajarmst
"The only thing missing is probably the importance of human interaction."
That's it, right there. Because, for the majority of students, human
interaction isn't merely important, it's critical. The problem with MOOCs is
that, because of this, they can never (baring some serious breakthroughs in
strong AI) provide that key component, but we pretend that they're an adequate
---some go so far as to claim superior---replacement for traditional
education. In the end, MOOCs end up being a smokescreen that helps
universities and governments avoid making substantive changes to address the
affordability of education. The fact that it also helps them collect tuition
from more students without spending any money on infrastructure or professor
salaries on top of that is why so many University administrators become
visibly aroused at the mention of MOOCs.

~~~
clavalle
Isn't there a limit to how far 'teaching dependent learners' can go? Why spend
so much time and effort accommodating people who are, by definition, self
limiting?

~~~
ajarmst
False dichotomy. It's not a case of some minority who can't learn without
teachers, but that pretty much all human beings benefit strongly from human
interaction while learning (and, in particular, from an asymmetrical pair of
roles, with an experienced/knowledgeable member and a novice). Admittedly,
some more than others, and there are a rare few who can do nearly as well
without it. You could as easily rephrase the argument as "why have MOOCs, when
only a small fraction of people wouldn't do much better in traditional
education"? My point is that pretending that MOOCs are just as good, or even
nearly as good, as more traditional forms prevent us from real effort to
actually improve upon those traditional forms, and from applying these very
valuable communication tools in ways that are actually effective.

------
dpatru
MOOC don't have to replace all colleges to be wildly successful. It is enough
if they become known as the best place for self-motivated, bright people to
get an education. When that happens, MOOC will be the new college. That is,
completion of a course of study from a MOOC provider like Udacity will be a
strong signal to employers that a student is quality.

At that point, the question employers will be asking traditional students is:
why didn't you do your education online where it is faster, of better quality,
and much cheaper? The fact that a person needs the hand-holding and extrinsic
motivation of a traditional college is not a plus.

------
michaelvkpdx
Most of my development work in recent years has been on learning management
systems (LMS). I've built lots of different types of LMS's for different types
of schools and students.

When the MOOC "bubble" started, I was sort of stunned that so many schools
thought that they could deliver a valid learning experience by just posting
videos and syllabi online. Everyone's been doing that since 1995. MOOC was
just a way to say "lots of people are watching our videos in the same
sequence!" The model started breaking down quickly as soon as tracking
objectives, assessing students, and interacting with instructors came into
play. That's when you're into LMS territory.

LMS seems to be a bad word when you talk to MOOC advocates. Like so many
buzzword people, they say that MOOC's are "disrupting" the traditional LMS.

But at the end of the day, if you're going to be successful with a MOOC,
you're going to have what amounts to an LMS to deliver it. There's no magic
bullet shortcut there that combines ("mashup"\- another favorite buzzword for
people reinventing the wheel) all the things you need to deliver a successful
learning experience.

MOOC people say they're disrupting learning systems by mashing up all these
things. It's a great idea- but once you actually implement, you've built an
LMS.

My current client's LMS could easily, today, deliver a class to 100K students
with manageable interactivity and assignments (and delivery on mobile
devices), and yet the client wants to throw the thing away because it's 10
years old. Most universities who have failed with MOOC's would spend a million
bucks or more to have this LMS, and the client is just going to throw it away.
Wasting money seems to be the true meaning of "disrupt" in the learning
context.

~~~
jmromer
Compare D2L and Blackboard on one hand and the edX platform and Coursera on
the other. Are they all LMSs? Absolutely. Is there some buzzword-mongering out
there. Undoubtedly. But if you can't see (or, as a user, feel) any significant
differences between those two groups of products, I'd suspect your faculties
of discernment have been stunted.

Also, universities have failure and money-wasting baked into their
institutional DNA. That they've failed at delivering content electronically
(and almost everything else that's socially valuable) doesn't mean MOOCs can't
be successful.

------
vivekn
Well MOOCs may not appeal to everyone but they are extremely useful to anyone
who wants to learn about certain advanced topics on their own. It will not
disrupt college education, since its not the courses or content that matters
but the credentials.

~~~
eruditely
Half baked credentials, most of the time.

------
ChuckFrank
MOOC's promise is not about disrupting the privileged collegiate experience
for the few entitled attendees. MOOC's promise is for the rest of the world.

"And none of this is to suggest that institutions with very high prices ...
aren't going to collapse. THEY WILL. And there may well be more people who get
smart <who> go to a lower priced school rather than to the unaffordable "best"
school they get into."

(Emphasis mine & I removed the aid discount, since that's all that it really
is - a discount.)

Notice that "best" is not really the "best" it's only conditionally the
"best".

And when this is applied world wide, MOOCs will transform education, and vast
numbers of educational institutions will pivot towards research, private
industry partnerships or disappear altogether.

In the end I believe that with MOOCs the world will be smarter, and the elite
institutions more exclusive and elite. They will return to being class dating
organizations that they once were before the idea of them being meritocratic
academic institutions overtook them.

Harvard, Stanford will survive. MIT, CalTech will excel. Cornell, Brown,
UPenn, Yale, Princeton, the UCs, etc will struggle. None of them will be able
to support their capital loads when the educational opportunities are
presented significantly cheaper elsewhere. Add to that the fact that the
Student Loan bubble will have burst, and student credit will be severely
curtailed, and we see a significantly changed educational future.

Kodak indeed.

~~~
Pacabel
It's a shame to see that your comment got voted down.

That said, it is a good example of why the "downvote if you disagree" policy
that has been encouraged here is a rather idiotic idea.

Your comment is clearly not commercial spam or anything of that nature. And it
does present an argument, with justification for why it may hold true.

It might "offend" thin-skinned people associated with some of the well-
established academic institutions you'd listed. That's not a problem with the
comment, however, but rather with the people who can't stand to read an
argument that they may disagree with badly enough to want to censor.

I don't know if I agree or disagree with what you said, but I do know that it
wasn't a waste of my time to read it, and it did get me thinking somewhat. The
most bothersome part was dealing with the unnecessarily gray text.

~~~
ChuckFrank
Pacabel thank you for your note. My comment was meant in all seriousness. With
so many institutions depending heavily on their students financing by student
loans, I was making a call on which institutions I thought would survive and
why and which institutions would likely fail.

So why the downvote? And why not add something substantial to the
conversation.

------
molbioguy
While the article may be correct that MOOCs will not achieve the oft-stated
outcome of displacing the current higher educational system, I think the
argument that the author is making regarding the affordability of college is
off base. Harry Lewis in the article states: "At Harvard and a handful of
other schools, nobody graduates with any debt (unless they have intentionally
borrowed so they could avoid making money in the summer, etc., and even then
the amounts are likely < $10K)."

While according to Harvard itself: "The total 2013-2014 cost of attending
Harvard College without financial aid is $38,891 for tuition and $59,950 for
tuition, room, board and fees combined."

Unless summer+part time work is a lot more lucrative than I am aware of, the
only way this would be true is if the students (or their parents) were
financially well-endowed. A student that doesn't have rich parents is going to
be incurring a fair amount of debt or spending way too much time working
instead of studying.

Edit: Harvard is generous with its financial aid, so the author's message is
more accurate than I understood (at least for Harvard). Learned something.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Unless summer+part time work is a lot more lucrative than I am aware of, the
> only way this would be true is if the students (or their parents) were
> financially well-endowed.

Or if, as is often the case at wealthy private colleges, Harvard has extensive
school-provied need-based financial aid in grant, rather than loan, form (as
well as any academic scholarships) which assure that the full cost is only
paid by (some of) those who are financially well-endowed, while those who
aren't financially well-endowed (as well as some who are, due to academic
scholarships) are paying much less out of pocket (including loans as "out of
pocket" for this purpose.)

~~~
molbioguy
Good point (and same to @ambler0). I have little first-hand experience here so
I may be way off base, but on average are families paying far less than the
retail price of 60K/yr? I mean, if your family had a 100K income, would you
still get a break? How much loss is Harvard absorbing?

~~~
smeyer
Try the net price calculator here: [https://college.harvard.edu/financial-
aid/net-price-calculat...](https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-
price-calculator) .

I was Harvard class of 2013, and I received some financial aid from Harvard
even when my family had an income well above 100k (my father is a professor
and my mom works for the federal government; both have PhDs).

Edit: I think it's more around the 180k-200k range where the aid falls off
rapidly, especially if you don't have extenuating circumstances like a sibling
also in college.

~~~
gertef
It's insane how massive the financial aid discrepency is between a family with
kids aged 18+20 (expected contribution = 50% each) vs a family with kids aged
18+22 (expected contribution = 100% each)

------
jmromer
Done properly, the flipped classroom + MOOC format would allow for _more_
personal interaction than the traditional university setting currently does
for all but the best students at the most elite schools.

That they haven't succeeded says less about MOOCs than about the distribution
of institutional power in traditional universities, where your typical
administrator will see MOOCs merely as an opportunity to cut costs that
wouldn't have to be cut if administrative bloat weren't crowding out
everything else.

------
simula67
What if we had online courses where the best educators in the world created
interactive training material. Schools still exist and students are required
to come to classes where they go through the training material. The staff
simply enforces discipline. Students can mail in questions to elite people in
the field and use college simply as a networking arena.

