Self-Assessment

            At the start of this semester my knowledge of MOOCs was limited to the minimal readings that I had completed as part of a different class. I understood that MOOCs were a new form of online courses that had the potential to offer free college level courses to large audiences, and that was about it.  I had no knowledge at that point of MOOC structure, format, design, pedagogical techniques, or the potential impact they could have on our current higher education system.  Because of my ignorance concerning MOOCs, I was excited to take this course.  I have a passion for instructional technologies, and I knew just enough about MOOCs to get excited about the topic. Truthfully, I entered the semester with high hopes of studying the “next big thing”, the phenomenon that would emerge as the catalysts for providing positive change to the traditional college environment.  Ultimately, although I am concluding my study of MOOCs with altered expectations, I feel that I have gained a wealth of knowledge concerning the topic, and still have hopes that MOOCs can provide a valuable education benefit to many as the phenomenon develops and matures.

            In my introductory essay for this class I wrote of MOOCs as a great medium for achieving an altruistic goal of providing high-quality education to all.  I marveled at the idea of everyday “Joes” having the opportunity to learn from world renowned Ivy League professors, and how the ever increasing financial burdens of obtaining a college education could be overcome by the freedom that MOOCs provide.  Since writing that essay I have put forth a great deal of effort in reading the still emerging literature concerning the MOOC phenomenon, and  what I have come to understand is that at this point, it is still far too early to truly understand exactly what effect MOOCs will have on our education system, and what it ultimately will be.  In my opinion, there is still too much concerning MOOCs that has yet to be determined.  As I completed my work in this course, I developed three areas of concern regarding MOOCs that I feel need to be addressed before the MOOC phenomenon could have the educational impact that so many desire; finance, certification and pedagogy. 

            One of the largest benefits of MOOCs are that they are provided free of cost to enrolled students.  Little explanation is needed to understand just how significant it would be to offer high-quality education to people world-wide at no cost to the students.  However, the more time I spent studying MOOCs, the more I questioned the sustainability of this model.  Although these courses are currently offered to student for free, they are by no means created, maintained or administered at zero cost.  In fact, I was alarmed when I learned just how much it cost to produce a MOOC.  And when you add in the value of the free labor that MOOC professors donate to these courses, it really becomes hard to fathom just how companies like Coursera, Udemy and EdX will be able to continue to offer these courses for free.  It seems logical to conclude that at some point, the financial model will have to change, either by charging students to enroll in MOOCs, or by selling ad space.  Either way, at this point, the value of MOOC education becomes compromised.

            One of the primary reasons that people attend college is to obtain credentials that will help provide opportunities for real-world advancement.  At this point, there are very few options for people to obtain any credentials for work completed through MOOCs.  This probably explains the extremely low completion rates with MOOCs.  Although there are a few MOOCs now available that offer options for certificates of completion, and there are many discussions taking place regarding the possibilities using MOOC completion as transfer credit to traditional four year institutions, nothing at this point provides students with concrete benefits. 

            One of my largest concerns regarding the MOOC phenomenon concerns pedagogy.   When I participated in a MOOC offered by Edx, I was really unimpressed by the pedagogical structure of the course.  Although the instructor was a well-known Harvard scholar, the learning activities in which I participated were not conducive to the type of connectivist learning experience that I prefer.  Essentially, the instructor provided recorded lectures, created an outline of course readings, and provided a place for student discussions.  There was very little in the course that provided me with an experience that can compare with the quality learning experiences that I have received during my traditional college courses.  I think this is the largest issue that must be addressed if MOOCs are every truly going to make a big splash in higher education.

            Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed taking AHE 602.  Although the bubble containing my hopes for MOOCS as a paradigm shifting educational format has been popped, I still believe that the MOOC phenomenon has legitimate value to offer the global population in terms of educational impact.  The weekly readings and discussion although at times provided a great deal of stress for me; they did challenge me to continuously study and evaluate MOOCs.  I also enjoyed the little side projects that were used to demonstrate technologies that could be used as MOOC pedagogical resources.  However, my favorite part of the class was the creation of my own micro-MOOC.  This opportunity allowed me to synthesize everything that I learned from course readings and discussion and channel that into a meaningful project.  The culmination of all of the activities in this course ultimately provided me with a rich learning experience.  Now that I am at the end of this course, I have had the opportunity to reflect not only on just how much I have learned about MOOCs this semester, but I have had the opportunity to critically analyze the MOOC phenomenon as it currently is, and ponder its potential value in education.  In fact, as I worked through the AHE 602 material and engaged with my colleague in critical discussion, I have come to feel like an expert on the MOOC phenomenon, and the collaboration in which I engaged with my colleagues has provided me with rich learning experiences that I believe will serve me well. 

MOOC Review: The Ancienct Greek Hero

         While sifting through the rapidly expanding list of MOOC offerings that are available, I elected to participate this semester as part of my AHE 602 course in a MOOC entitled “The Ancient Greek Hero”.  This course was offered through EdX and taught by Gregory Nagi, a professor at Harvard University.  The course offered students an opportunity to explore ancient Greek culture and history.  I selected this course for two reasons: first, I have a natural interest in history and have a background as a history teacher; secondly, I can now say that I have taken Harvard coursework! Although I cannot say that I have actually finished Harvard coursework, I must point out that I share this in common with Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.  So, I do fully expect tremendous success in my near future.  This particular course had a start date in mid-September, and the only completion date for the course is for those students who want a certificate of completion.  In order to earn this certificate a student must complete all of the self-assessments with an average of 50% or higher by the end of 2013. 

            In regards to the pedagogical structure of this particular course, it could be characterized as an xMOOC due to the highly teacher centered approach to learning (Caulfield, 2013) that it employed.  The course was self-paced, and students could join or drop the class at any point, a fact that I found this to be disconcerting.  I prefer courses that are more linear in structure, and I did not like that after I had participated in some of the earlier discussion opportunities, new students would join the class and start at the beginning.  I felt pulled to continue discussions from the beginning of the course when I really wanted to focus on later content.  The course material was divided into 24 units which were labeled as hours.  Each unit contained a series of video lectures and presentations and assigned readings that were followed by self-administered quizzes and discussion boards.  The vast majority of learning exercises were centralized around the instructor as the disseminator of knowledge, a concept that Sharma (2013) states is problematic.  The only connectivist learning experiences provided in this MOOC were the optional discussion boards associated with each unit.   

            In my opinion, this course failed to offer the quality learning experience that I was hoping for.  The lack of online pedagogical consideration given to this course was obvious.  I attribute the lack of overall effectiveness of this course not to the lack of the professor’s expertise, because Dr. Nagi is brilliant, but to the limitations of the xMOOC structure.  Caulfield (2013) stated that xMOOCs are often cited as lacking in the ability to foster a robust learning community, and through my experience with this course, I would whole-heartily agree.  I will admit that I entered this course with really high expectations in regards to the learning experience that I would encounter, and sadly, as I write this review, I must admit that I am disappointed with the course as a whole.  Although I could envision this type of learning experience serving as a great resource for those individuals lacking the opportunity to learn in the traditional college model (Sharma, 2013), I fail to see how this method could be viewed as superior to any of the college level instruction I received during my academic career.  I certainly feel that greater learning experiences could be had through the traditional classroom model at many of the Universities and Colleges across the globe.  In addition, as Salerno (2013) points out, MOOCs have a fatal flaw in that they do not offer credentials for completed coursework, which I found to be true in my course. The certification of completion in my opinion is not enough to entice students to finish MOOC coursework.  Without these external sources of motivation (college degrees or certifications), I found it difficult to continuously put forth the effort needed to complete the self-paced work.  Finally, the feeling of isolation that I experienced as a student in this course robed me of any sense of community, which is an important part of successful learning environments.  As the student, I would question why anyone would really choose to participate in this course, if more traditional approaches were available. 

            Some experts have hailed MOOCs as the harbinger of revolution (Friedman, 2012), capable of bringing a “tsunami of change in higher education” Kolowich (2013), and who knows, maybe they will be.  But from this singular experience, I have a hard time envisioning that ever occurring in its current state.  It is quite possible that the particular MOOC in which I participated is a poor example of the power of MOOCs, or that cMOOCs provide better learning experiences, but there is very little from what I experienced in this course that would leave me to believe that the MOOC phenomenon will become a serious competitor in the higher education market.  

References

Caulfield, M. (2013, July 11). xmooc communities should learn from cmoocs. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/blogs/mcaulfield/xmooc-communities-should-learn-cmoocs

Kolowich, S. (2013, August 8). The mooc 'revolution' may not be as disruptive as some had imagined. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/MOOCs-May-Not-Be-So-Disruptive/140965/

Salerno, C. (2012, August 9). Bitter reality of mooconomics. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/08/09/real-economics-massive-online-courses-essay

Sharma, S. (2013, July 15). A mooc delusion: Why visions to educate the world are absurd. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/a-mooc-delusion-why-visions-to-educate-the-world-are-absurd/32599

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MOOC Assessment

MOOC Assessment

The topic of student assessment is one that has been near and dear to my heart for several years now, both as a classroom teacher and in my current position as the assessment coordinator for the College of Education.  Through my professional experiences, I have grown to appreciate the significance of well-designed and valid assessment, and the great skill that is needed to design them.  Sadly, far too often teachers utilize poorly designed assessment instruments that provide little insight into actual student growth.  I will be the first to admit that during my time as a classroom teacher, I was far too often guilty of using a variety of meaningless and invalid assessment techniques; such as multiple choice tests.  But the reality is that most teachers have to deal with extremely large class sizes and a variety of external pressures demanding validation of student achievement, which too often forces teachers into gathering inauthentic assessment.  When you consider the exponentially larger class sizes of MOOC courses, the challenges of time and space and the ambiguity of MOOC course credit, the issue of assessment within the MOOC environment appears to be an unsettled enigma, with the lingering challenging of determining how to authentically assess student performance within the MOOC environment.

To me, the biggest question regarding assessment within the MOOC environment is how to authentically assess student performance while maintaining a feasible work load for the instructor(s).  Unfortunately, there is no one best assessment method for all courses.  The nature of the course plays a large role in determining how to best conduct assessment.  The MOOC that I am creating for AHE 602 lends itself well to experiential learning strategies and hands on student activities.   The activities that I have in mind for this class rely more on application, and cannot be adequately measured through an exam.  As such, the auto-graded multiple choice test that is commonly used in MOOCs is not a great option for me. Neither are the proctored exams that Parry describes.  I think that peer assessment is going to be a more valid option for my MOOC. I enjoyed reading Davidson’s article on crowd source grading.  Her concept seemed like a well-timed solution for my enigma.  I plan to have the student’s actively participate in peer assessment throughout the course.  As of this moment, I am not sure if I need to designing a document outlining peer assessment groups, or to allow that to form naturally

Like all courses, traditional or online, instructors must consider how to maintain academic integrity within the course.  Young raised several valid concerns regarding plagiarism and the potential for academic dishonesty within the MOOC environment.  The MOOC frontier is so new that most of the instructor efforts still revolve designing the MOOC courses.  It seems little has been done to ensure that students abide by academic conduct policies.  I openly admit that I have no solution to offer.  That is why that I am glad that my MOOC is a not for credit course.  If a student decides to cheat, they are really just cheating themselves out of learning experiences.

References

Davidson, C. N. (2009).  How to crowdsource grading. Retrieved from http://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/how-crowdsource-grading

Parry, M. (2012). Edx offers proctored exams for open online courses. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/edx-offers-proctored-exams-for-open-online-course/39656

Young, J. (2012). Plagiarism in coursera. http://chronicle.com/article/Dozens-of-Plagiarism-Incidents/133697/

MOOC Pedagogy

Careertechnologies from James Hardin

My personal pedagogical beliefs were shaped over the course of my own education, teacher training and professional practice.  Throughout this time, these personal trials and experiences have allowed me to develop a personal pedagogy that I firmly believe in.  To this point, my personal pedagogical practices draw heavily from social constructivist theory.  I am a firm believer that knowledge is constructed through our interactions and exploration of the world around us.  As such, my personal pedagogy has led me to design my own courses in a way that draws heavily upon various instructional strategies that encourage active student participation and collaboration, and utilizes experiential learning methods such as project based learning and peer assessment.

Morris and Stommel state that much of current online instruction is nothing more than traditional pedagogical strategies that have been uploaded to the Internet, to the disservice of students.  To this point in my career, all of my teaching experiences have been in the face-to-face format, so I can provide no personal experiences validating these statements.  Furthermore, Krueger and Ross believe that online pedagogy should be drastically different from face-to-face pedagogy.  While I agree that online instruction should be much more than traditional instructional methods that have been transferred online, I am not sure how much I agree that a drastically different pedagogy is needed.  I would state that while instructional strategies intended for the online environment do need to be reconceptualized, I still believe that social constructivist’s theory provides a solid foundation for the creation of MOOC learning environment.  I firmly believe that my personal pedagogy would not drastically change when applied to the MOOC format.  In fact, I feel that the constructivist theory that I would employ could work well in this environment.