

After Setbacks, Online Courses Are Rethought   - petethomas
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/11/us/after-setbacks-online-courses-are-rethought.html

======
thatthatis
"80 percent of those taking the university’s MOOCs had already earned a degree
"

Why is this being taken as evidence of failure?!

MOOC provides self-service re-training, self service continuing education,
ability to investigate subjects outside your original sphere of study for the
love of learning.

X fails to replace college, for which many decent substitutes exist, thus is a
failure.

Vs x unlocks pent-up demand for post college education, for which few good
substitutes currently exist, thus is a resounding success.

Sadly, the thing most evident in these articles is a lack of critical thinking
and analysis of competing hypotheses: things that are supposed to be taught in
college.

------
toblender
Wait, am I reading this right? 160,000 people signed up, and 4% completed the
course. That's 6,400 students that completed!

This isn't even an easy course it's AI for crying out loud.

I had a friend that had to take this course, because the one taught at his
local university was worse. He loved it.

How is this a failure?

~~~
adidash
Only about half of those who registered for a course ever viewed a lecture. If
this were a physical class were only 50% ever attended a lecture and only 4%
cleared the class, it would be a disaster scenario.

The key issue I feel is improving the benefits of completing a course and the
way the course is delivered. A physical class in a college or private course
for entrance tests like Gmat see a significantly higher degree of engagement
and follow through because of very clear benefits. They are a mean to an end -
be it getting a job on completing college or getting admission into a college
after taking Gmat. With the MOOCs, there is no recognized benefit which would
really matter for the larger audience. Most of them sign up because its
available for free. Having said that I have also heard of the gym subscription
syndrome in case of paid online courses - paid the fee but rarely saw a
video/performed a task or didn't utilize the service completely.

The second and a more bigger problem is the way the courses are conducted.
Learning is a very social experience. Most of us done all our learning in
group settings in schools, colleges, and even at work place. The best
lectures/classes were usually highly entertaining/engaging and generated high
degree of student interaction. MOOCs fail in most of them with no scope for
the mentors/instructors to scope the students and improv on their
presentation. Additionally, there is hardly any student interaction. The
biggest benefit of any offline class were the networking and relationship
building opportunities. Its very difficult and superficial in cases of MOOCs.

I guess some form of middle path (combination of online/offline classes) will
lead to larger interest levels.

------
001sky
The tests are not (and should not be) the end-all-be-all criterion of success
for Moocs IMHO. many people audit classes, to much benefit. also, even in
'real' classes, some of the smartest people only are paying attention the part
they _don 't know_...or perhaps only the _key bits_ they require. Moocs are
important moreso if they are <open>, theire purpose should be <transparency>
not accountability. Educational institutions that receive public funds should
be required to open their coursework for public audit. The credendial and the
test are likely to decrease in importance once this is done (which is one
reason we can expect pushback).

