Critical Thinking and Thinking Critically
Critically Reflecting on MOOCs
MOOC’s - Failed disruption or successfully emerging?
Identify the key arguments. Complete the sentences:
Some people think that MOOC’s have the potential to cause genuine disruption to the status quo in the education sector. The hope was they would be a paradigm-shifting model for education - providing personalised learning as a solution to a failing industrialised model of education.
MOOC’s have the potential to disrupt education but have so far not had the impact that many predicted. Rather than evidencing and achieving a paradigm shift in education, they have instead tended to be simply an alternative platform for accessing learning material.
MOOC’s have some downsides and these are that they have tended to reflect a transmission pedagogy and are lacking in sufficient social interaction.
Conclusion:
MOOCs were developed with a noble vision in mind - the democratisation of higher education — learning available to all unaffected by the tyranny of distance and cost.
The expectation was that by now 50% of High School courses would be delivered online. The reality has fallen far short of that target.
Nevertheless, there is evidence of high levels of engagement. Phillip Dawson writing for Digital Education Research at Monash University states, “ If their purpose was broadening access to chunks of higher education, they’re a success: Coursera alone has more than four times as many students as the entire Australian higher education system.” (1) Dawson goes on to compare MOOCs with Exercycles — we start out with good intentions, but because we have to rely on our own motivation in our own home, they often end up unused under the bed.
Dawson’s concluding point in relation to the question have they failed is, “That depends on what their purpose is: broadening access to higher education, or real higher education opportunity for all. One does not necessarily imply the other. In higher education, access without support is not opportunity.” (1) This connects well to Flavin’s point that MOOCs …”are lacking in sufficient social interaction.”
As a counter to the Exercycle model, there are many examples to be found of students who have accessed MOOCs and stayed the course. Quoting Dawson, “Some MOOC completers have even been first-time students from developing nations, and one was dux of their course.” It would be easy to counter this with homilies such as ,’one swallow a summer does not make’, or ‘there is an exception to every rule.’
Instead I would see these success stories as a challenge to MOOC organisers and educational leaders to consider again what MOOCs could be. The data on completion rates does not read well overall. The lack of face to face interaction and personalised support must be faced, addressed and overcome if MOOCs are to achieve their visionary potential.
“To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.” — Henri Poincaré
The failure of MOOCs | Digital Education Research @ Monash. (2019). Newmediaresearch.educ.monash.edu.au. Retrieved 31 May 2019, from http://newmediaresearch.educ.monash.edu.au/lnm/the-failure-of-moocs/
MOOC’s - Failed disruption or successfully emerging?
Identify the key arguments. Complete the sentences:
Some people think that MOOC’s have the potential to cause genuine disruption to the status quo in the education sector. The hope was they would be a paradigm-shifting model for education - providing personalised learning as a solution to a failing industrialised model of education.
MOOC’s have the potential to disrupt education but have so far not had the impact that many predicted. Rather than evidencing and achieving a paradigm shift in education, they have instead tended to be simply an alternative platform for accessing learning material.
MOOC’s have some downsides and these are that they have tended to reflect a transmission pedagogy and are lacking in sufficient social interaction.
Conclusion:
MOOCs were developed with a noble vision in mind - the democratisation of higher education — learning available to all unaffected by the tyranny of distance and cost.
The expectation was that by now 50% of High School courses would be delivered online. The reality has fallen far short of that target.
Nevertheless, there is evidence of high levels of engagement. Phillip Dawson writing for Digital Education Research at Monash University states, “ If their purpose was broadening access to chunks of higher education, they’re a success: Coursera alone has more than four times as many students as the entire Australian higher education system.” (1) Dawson goes on to compare MOOCs with Exercycles — we start out with good intentions, but because we have to rely on our own motivation in our own home, they often end up unused under the bed.
Dawson’s concluding point in relation to the question have they failed is, “That depends on what their purpose is: broadening access to higher education, or real higher education opportunity for all. One does not necessarily imply the other. In higher education, access without support is not opportunity.” (1) This connects well to Flavin’s point that MOOCs …”are lacking in sufficient social interaction.”
As a counter to the Exercycle model, there are many examples to be found of students who have accessed MOOCs and stayed the course. Quoting Dawson, “Some MOOC completers have even been first-time students from developing nations, and one was dux of their course.” It would be easy to counter this with homilies such as ,’one swallow a summer does not make’, or ‘there is an exception to every rule.’
Instead I would see these success stories as a challenge to MOOC organisers and educational leaders to consider again what MOOCs could be. The data on completion rates does not read well overall. The lack of face to face interaction and personalised support must be faced, addressed and overcome if MOOCs are to achieve their visionary potential.
“To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.” — Henri Poincaré
The failure of MOOCs | Digital Education Research @ Monash. (2019). Newmediaresearch.educ.monash.edu.au. Retrieved 31 May 2019, from http://newmediaresearch.educ.monash.edu.au/lnm/the-failure-of-moocs/
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