Massive Online Open Classrooms (MOOCs) and Learning

MOOCs (massive online open classrooms) are often viewed as a threat to the traditional higher education because the free tuition and easily accessible content might be very appealing to students in lieu of tuition-based institutions. However, there are also scenarios that incorporate MOOCs into the existing structure with benefits to students, faculty, and the institutions themselves. 

We might adapt MOOCS into a blended model,  using the online portion to deliver online, well-produced content and mixing it with class time for labs and other group-based work. But, using the same technology and platform, we can re-engineer the concept so that these classes can also be used to personalize education and allow more targeted class to to taught. For example, I teach a class on librarians and instructors collaborating in the classroom. This class has a niche audience and the class does not always run as scheduled due to low enrollment. By offering the class in a larger online environment, we can scale up and attract participants from a larger geographic region (all over the world) and these classes will get the required enrollment more often. There are obviously administrative issues to be worked out, such as out of state tuition, etc., but offering these targeted classes will give faculty a chance to teach classes based on their particular expertise and build on the local attributes of a campus. Why not have a class featuring the biological diversity of a particular campus, for example? Campuses and faculty will be able to differentiate themselves based on content and in this way improve student interest in classes and therefore student retention. Faculty, of course, will have more teaching options and a more dynamic environment where a more diverse curriculum will include a more international student body (from around the world). For those interested in this concept of smaller personalized content as a way to drive student/faculty retention there is a small but growing literature concerning TOOCs (targeted online open classrooms).

MOOCs are one way to personalize an experience and also we can modify our f2f classes into modular formats so that students can work at their own pace. Some might say that the MOOC model could be threatening to higher education institutions because the free model is so alluring to people and the flexibility is also a great benefit. In terms of massive education, I believe we should surrender onto MOOCs what are MOOCs. That is to say that large, general classes (BIO 121, ENG 122) might be the type of thing delivered effectively online with well produced lectures.

We might think of MOOCs as the wholesale aspect of the learning industry. Just as companies like Aldi's and Wal-Mart upended the retail industry by providing products with a lot of general application (emulating to some extent wholesale enterprises), so too can MOOCs provide non-perishable content in terms of lecture content that is not subject to rapid change, such as mathematics, biology, history, and most other topics as education is foundational.

The retail portion of education, f2f learning, especially in competitive schools, certainly has its role, but we need to experiment with as many different environments (laboratories) as possible. Some will be more conservative than others almost by definition because f2f schools often have traditions that must (and perhaps should) be served.

I am currently taking my first MOOC and thus far I have been impressed with the level of interest and learning shown by the over 20,000 students taking a course on the French Revolution. I see a lot of value, not only for students but also for the institutions.

In terms of the institutions, in this case the University of Melbourne in Australia, there is the benefit of promoting awareness of the school itself; the instructor; and the quality of the program. There is also the indirect benefit to the students already at the institution because it raises the awareness of the school for those students that might wish to work internationally. People all over the world now know about the school. There is also the direct benefit to students because they get a chance to help with the class. For example, in addition to Professor McPhee, who teaches the class, there is also a doctoral student recognized as working on the class. I imagine this is going on her curriculum vitae, but more to the point it is probably part of her doctoral thesis. What a wonderful doctoral thesis project, for example. It is also possible that the people videotaping the professor's lectures and working on the weekly study guides are also getting credit, along with invaluable authentic learning. 

Obviously, I am learning content on the French Revolution, but I am also noticing how MOOCS reward certain academic/professional behaviors in the learning process-- critical reading, the rewards of positive posts as it builds class rank, reaching out to different people to build community.

I also really enjoy the international aspect of the MOOC. I am interesting with people from all over the world (in English of course) and in this way we can learn about other countries' education systems and other things indirectly. What do people from other cultures respond to in the French Revolution may be different from what I, as a U.S. citizen respond to. For example, there is peer grading for select essays in the class. I was struck by how vehement some participants were in challenging what another participant might have said about essay grades even though in theory there classes are not for professional credit and there is no tuition. I wondered if the people responding in a critical, entitled way (in my opinion) came from the U.S. or other more academically competitive environments where students expect their comments about grading and fairness to be listened to. Would a participant from a more authoritarian culture respond in the same way.
I wonder too how the Australian professor was responding to all this. Was he learning about international academic community in a different light than a professional conference?  

In terms of student composition, participants might also complete MOOCs with their friends, colleagues, and coworkers. It could be used as a form of team building in organizations, as it could be a shared intellectual exercise.

MOOCs also seem particularly suited to an opening up on some social restrictions. There seems to be more openness to accept things like learning online, just as there seems to be an increasing acceptance to open up to ideas like gay marriage and legalizing pot. A continuum of ideas are expanding.


MOOCs provide a way for education to scale up and address the needs of a diverse population because the content, assignments, and engagement model are fluid and easily adaptable to a variety of learning situations. For example, someone can start a class at a different time because they have access to the modular development of material.

One way that MOOCs might interact with more formal learning opportunities is by providing supplemental support, such as being used as by students during the summer or to supplement for-credit classes. 

I sense that MOOCs are in a basic way a very pure learning environment, as teaching and learning take center stage. There are no student services issues, no physical buildings to maintain, no sports teams, and very few administrators. The dynamic is all about teaching and learning, helping participants get the most out of a course.

Conceptually, the MOOC is open in so far as anyone can join it, but it also feels open in the sense that  it is more integrated into the non-academic aspects of the participants' lives.  With traditional college classes, the learning seems to be separated from family/work. With the MOOC, I have been talking about the class to friends and trying to look at current events and other learning processes in light of the class, the French Revolution. Friends have shared some of their ideas on the topic that I have used in developing my responses and understanding. The MOOC is an organizing principle more than a shell for dispensing information.  It is like being on a game show in a way.

If we look at some of the basic characteristics/elements of learning: looking for patterns; sharing interesting observations; asking questions; writing down what you see;  and taking time to wonder.  There is nothing that suggests a f2f classroom is the only place to experience these conditions. We might expand this search for characteristics to the urban environment, as we pick up elements crucial to community and a vibrant sense of engagement: gardens, libraries, colleges, transportation, architecture. Success is describable.

Learning in a classroom may be seen as more symmetrical, more uniform, but perhaps it is the asymmetrical, the irregular which will yield the best results in some (if not many) conditions. Asynchronous rather than synchronous.

Education is an industry that is inherently future oriented because the results of the education is so many years in the future. This is diametrically op[posed to the law and medicine, for example, which are concentrating on today's solutions. This is not to say that medicine and law are not forward thinking it is just that education has the responsibility to be more forward thinking because of all the fruits of its labor will take place in the haze of the future.
 
Smaller institutions, like community colleges, should develop expertise based on their faculty and/or geographic considerations such as location near mountains, urban areas, etc. Local institutions can built interest in their programs by doing the type of things that MOOCs can not do. Why should all community colleges offer the same programs? Let specific colleges offer programs unique to its environment and faculty and other colleges do the same. Allow students to partake in these unique classes at the same relative tuition, if possible, just as MOOC expenses are not tied to where the content is created or the participant lives.

MOOCs seem to be a strong alternative as education evolves from the importance of answers (more instructive based) to importance of questions (constructive based) because MOOCs add value through creating the curriculum, which is a intellectually demanding task. With good prompts, MOOCs contribute good questions, another vital part of constructivism, and, of course, with appropriate evaluations, MOOCs add the third vital part of constructivism, "gentle judgments."

Without good questions and gentle judgments, it might seem like someone is holding their hands over a map and not letting you see how things are connected. This is sometimes the feeling that the  instructive method inculcates.

MOOCs can be described as "patient" continuing to evolve, first perhaps forming a supplemental position to online/f2f higher education but then moving to a more instrumental place, like the Third Estate in the French Revolution, waiting for Royalty and Clerics to recognize they were indispensable.

Although we can describe MOOCs in a lot of complicated ways, there has long been the drive to utilize technology in education and other aspects of our lives. In Politics,  written about 350 BCE, Artistotle describes a future where all manual labor will be done by robots. Because Aristotle spoke in Ancient Greek, his rendition might sound something like this (or not).