The Diversity of MOOCs1
Leonard J. Waks, Temple University
My aim is to move the discussion of MOOCs rom
overgeneralized judgments and pro-MOOC vs. anti-MOOC arguments,
and toward informed critical judgments of particular MOOCs.
1. The question “Are MOOCs good?” is a bit like the question “Are
Books good?”
At first the latter question – “are books good?” seems silly
– we are inclined to answer that “some are good and others are
awful.” Few would condemn books tout court.
When we are considering printed books, however, one group -
the medieval scribes – did condemn them all. A cynic might say
that the scribes saw the handwriting on the wall – that printed
books would end the demand for their services. The scribes made a
less self-serving argument: that mechanical production, by
removing the human heart and hand, would suck the life out of
books. And anyone who has seen medieval illuminated manuscripts 1 Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society, Albuquerque NM, March 2014. I have made only modest modifications to the presented paper.
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knows that they had a point. Something valuable, something
inherently human, was lost. But how many illuminated books have
you read lately? Mechanical print won and scribes lost because
print books answered to too many needs and interests.
And so we now turn to MOOCs. There are many today who
condemn MOOCs. The critics are concentrated in the academy. A
good example is Jonathan Rees, the professor, blogger and Salon
columnist who proclaims himself as the knight protecting the
academy against MOOCs.2 Cynics might argue that academics like
Rees are merely protecting their turf and revenue stream, but
like many other academics, Rees puts up a different argument:
that MOOCs, by mechanizing instruction and removing the human
heart and hand, suck the life out of learning. Like the scribes,
he has a point. But I would not be too quick to place myself in
the same losing position as the medieval scribes. The mechanical
scaling up of instruction, like the mechanical scaling up of book
printing, simply answers to too many needs and interests and its
spread in some form is all but inevitable. 2 See Rees’ Blog, More or Less Bunk, online at http://moreorlessbunk.wordpress.com/
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2. The Origin of MOOCs
Many distinct objects are considered under the MOOC heading.
Once we see how diverse the objects are, the less likely we will
be to over-generalize in our evaluations. Before turning that
point, I first need to say a few words about the origin of MOOCs
and the MOOC acronym itself.
In the early 2000s two Canadian researchers and educational
designers, George Siemans and Stephen Downes, developed a new
learning theory, connectionism, which was intended to challenge
both behavioral and constructivist learning theories. To
oversimplify, connectionism, like Dewey’s experimentalism and
many feminist models of teaching and learning, emphasized the
social nature of learning – that learning, understanding and
knowing are a matter of participating collectively in communities
of practice. We speak, perhaps a bit vaguely, of e.g., “what
biologists have learned about genetics.” Connectionists assert
that connected communities – e.g. biologists – are the literal
subjects of learning; individuals learn – only in a secondary
sense – by being members and participants and contributors of
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connected communities. Connectionists attacked the learning
theory of constructivism for its individualist bias – “the
individual constructing his own knowledge”.
In 2008 Siemans and Downes designed a connectivist learning
experience, a course on connectivism at the University of
Manitoba. They designed it to demonstrate key connectivist
principles. With 25 resident students and 2200 students
participating for free online, they offered some initial lectures
which were videotaped and made available online, and then
connected their students online and set them to work on
exercises and projects. Small working groups formed and
communicated via Facebook, Twitter, and other social and
collaborative tools. The small working groups made their findings
available to the entire connected community. Dave Cormier,
another Canadian researcher, dubbed this course a MOOC – a
massive, open, online course.
3. What are MOOCs?
Today there are a number of distinct educational formats
brought together under the MOOC banner. To gain some clarity, 4
let’s work toward a definition by clarifying each term in the
acronym.
Starting with M, and given that the key driver of MOOCs is
the interest in scaling up instruction and reducing or
eliminating tuition fees, it is best to think of “massive” not in
terms of specific numbers (e.g., more than 1,000 students) but
rather in terms of underlying technologies that render the
marginal cost of additional students, no matter how many, close
to zero. In MOOCs, once fixed costs have been expended,
subsequent actions are handled mechanically and routinely by
computer software.
The first O, for “open,” has come to mean “available at no
cost to anyone with an Internet connection.” Significantly, this
is not the sense of “open” in “open source”. While the materials
in some MOOCs are indeed offered as open source, and are freely
available for re-use and mix-ups, most MOOC-based materials are
proprietary and cannot be used without a license.
The second O, for “online,” means that the course can be
undertaken and completed at an Internet computer terminal or 5
mobile device. This does not imply that MOOCs cannot be used in
blended experiences. But if off-line aspects are needed for MOOC
completion, the course is not a true MOOC.
Finally, let’s consider C, for course. A rough definition
may go like this – a course is a selection of subject matters
sequenced for completion within a given period of time.
Completion generally is achieved by satisfying pre-determined
completion criteria: e. g., so many classes attended or work
assignments completed; Grades may be determined by scores on
quizzes, exams and projects. MOOCs were designed as courses
because they aimed to duplicate conventional college courses.
More recently, the MOOC developers have acknowledged that most
MOOC users already possess diplomas, and are using MOOCs to gain
advanced professional knowledge or for adult continuing
education. These users generally do not seek certificates of
completion, and indeed rarely complete the courses. So there has
been some movement away from patterning MOOCs on college courses.
4. Dimensions of Pedagogy
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Instruction in courses typically involves three inter-acting
dimensions: didactic, discursive and heuristic. The didactic
dimension conveys knowledge through lectures and textbook
readings; the discursive facilitates understanding through
discussion and critical feedback; the heuristic shapes skills
through drill and practice.
In a geometry unit, for example, the didactic component may
present basic concepts such as line, plane, axiom or proof; the
discursive component may provide opportunities for discussion of
e.g., proof strategies; the heuristic component may provide
multiple opportunities to e.g., determine the area or perimeter
of figures, to invent proofs, or to construct bi-sections of line
segments. In a literature unit, the didactic may convey
background knowledge on the author, genre or period, the
discursive may provide opportunities for discussions of a
selected story, and the heuristic may provide opportunities to
use strategies of analysis, e.g., to locate the protagonist, the
central conflict, and the dénouement.
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Good instruction provides for the development and
integration of knowledge, understanding and skill. It aims to
engage students into worthwhile activities and practices by
melding “I know,” and “I understand,” with “I can do.” When we
think in general terms about the evaluation of particular MOOCs,
we want to ask how well these instructional dimensions can be
handled through computer software. I’ll return to this in a
moment.
4. MOOCs and their Cousins
I want to focus on evaluation of so-called “x-MOOCs”,
MOOCs organized on the platforms of the ‘big three’ provider
firms: edX, Udacity and Coursera and similar platforms now
spreading all over the world. Such x-MOOCs use learning
management system (LMS) software to manage course functions from
attendance to grading. To maintain this focus, x-MOOCs must be
distinguished from close relatives, such as c-MOOCs, DOCCs and
SPOCs.
C-MOOCs – those built on connectivist the principles
described above - disavow LMSs; they do not mechanize instruction8
with self-enclosed dedicated software systems. Instead, they rely
upon creative uses of existing social tools such as Facebook,
Twitter and Skype. Moreover, c-MOOCs are “courses” only in an
extended sense; much of the learning grows out the unpredicted
experiences of their working groups. Each group ends up with
distinct learning outcomes. Siemans has urged that c-MOOCs are
not competitors to or replacements for regular courses, and it is
not hard to see why – they are not courses at all – at least in
the conventional sense of experiences sequenced for completion on
the basis of determinate criteria. C-MOOCs are related only
tangentially to x-MOOCs.
DOCCs and SPOCs, on the other hand, are real courses. DOCCs
are “distributed open collaborative courses.” In a DOCC a faculty
group is gathered from several institutions, and collaboratively
selects and organizes subject matters and presents them online.
But then the faculty members return to their home institutions
and each develops a course around the collaborative kernel that
is open only to its (fee paying) students.
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A good example is the course on “feminism and technology”
created by members of women’s studies programs at 17 colleges and
universities. The faculty developed the lectures, interviews,
panels and core readings and made them available online for all.
These components made up the didactic kernel, but all faculty
members built distinct courses around them at their home
institutions. The DOCC was not massive, open nor predominantly
online.3
SPOCs are “small, private, online courses.” In a SPOC a
videotaped didactic kernel is presented to small groups of
classroom students, and supplemented with discursive and
heuristic instruction. In one example Prof. Khosrow Ghadiri at
San Jose State took the road rejected by his philosophy
colleagues and built his circuits and electronics course around
edX president Anant Agarwal’s MOOC. Students watched Agarwal’s
lectures at home. Ghadiri devoted the first part of each class
reviewing the parts that gave students the most difficulties.
Then the students broke into groups of three to solve problems 3 Scott Jaschik, Feminist Anti-MOOC, Inside Higher Education, August 19, 2013. Online at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/19/feminist-professors-create-alternative-moocs#ixzz2vD8KKlAu
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together. The putative advantage of such a “flipped” classroom
design is that it leaves more time in the classroom for heuristic
teaching. Students in Ghadiri’s flipped classroom sections
performed better than those in his optional unflipped sections –
his pass rate rose from 59% to 91%. 4
Stanford University president John Hennessey has recently
breathed new energy into SPOCs, dropping his support for MOOCs
(Stanford has been one of the leading producers of both MOOC
software and courses), and declaring that two letters in “MOOC” –
M for massive and O for open, are “wrong.” 5 In SPOCs “massive”
and “open” are explicitly discarded, and the online component
serves merely as the didactic kernel. SPOCs are not MOOCs,
though they may use MOOCs – or other online or video resources -
for their didactic segments.
4 Nina Shapiro, Astonishing MOOC Success More Complicated than it Seemed, Raising Questions for UW, Seattle News Weekly, September 10, 2013, available online at http://www.seattleweekly.com/home/948803-129/class-students-mooc-online-says-ghadiri
5 Andrew Hill and Richard Waters, Online ‘MOOC’ Courses are too big to work, says Stanford head, Financial Times, February 2, 2014, online at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e711c690-8c2a-11e3-bcf2-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Vi8emV00
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5. The Educational Value of x- MOOCs
A lot of the criticism of MOOCs derives from the fear that
SPOCs based on “superstar” online professors like Agarwal, will
replace local faculty, especially in lower tier institutions.
Low-paid contingent faculty and teaching assistants (or worse,
software programs and auto-graders) will then handle the
heuristic teaching and grading, leaving fee paying students
without expert human guidance.
Here is Jonathan Rees:
If you carry the hierarchical, every-student-for-
themselves assumptions inherent in an xMOOC into the
future you will never escape the reasons why so many
caring educators oppose MOOCs in the first place. . .
The problem with MOOCs isn’t the name. It’s not even
the components of the acronym. The problem with MOOCs
is that they’re being designed to create low-quality,
hierarchical courses that can be championed by
unscrupulous administrators to fire caring professors
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and leave unsuspecting students to fend entirely for
themselves.
Rees appears to be arguing here against SPOCs, not MOOCs.
But let’s take up that part of his argument directed to the
quality problems “inherent” in MOOCs. Rees says:
Cosmetic changes will not solve (MOOC quality)
problems. Only re-thinking the entire xMOOC experience
from the ground up will have even the slightest chance
of creating something worthwhile.6
The problem here is Rees’s false choice between merely “cosmetic”
changes vs. “rethinking MOOCs from the ground up”. Rees’s dualism
neglects that huge area of actual or potential positive
developments within the existing x-MOOC framework. Rees would
almost certainly know about these if he took a break from general
critique to explore particular MOOCs. I’ll turn to this task
below.
6 Rees, The MOOC don’t work ’cause the vandals took the handles, online at
http://moreorlessbunk.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/the-mooc-dont-work-cause-the-vandals-took-the-handles/
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First, we can dismiss Rees’ unsupported claim about what
MOOC designers intend. Have x-MOOCs been “designed to create low
quality courses”. On the contrary, their designers seek to create
high quality courses, as they understand them, with instruction
better than they perceive to be today’s norm. Indeed Agarwal has
made it the highest priority of edX to use the huge data sets
available in computerized courses with tens or hundreds of
thousands of students to improve instruction and learning. MOOCs
may nonetheless be low quality courses, of course, but that is
another question and would have to be addressed on relevant
terms.
Have MOOCs been “designed to suit the needs of unscrupulous
administrators?” Agarwal, Koller, Ng and the other platform
designers have had quite different aims – to scale up instruction
and make quality higher education globally available. While this
may also result in substitution of technology for labor in
already existing universities, it hardly follows that that was
the intended result. The MOOC founders’ early statements all
referred to creating opportunities for students lacked access to
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higher education. In any case is not a critique of MOOC
instruction itself. It is no critique of a hammer that an
imbecile can use it to bash in someone’s head. It might
nonetheless be a very good hammer.
Evaluating Particular MOOCs
So let’s consider the tasks of instruction - didactic,
discursive, and heuristic - in actual MOOCs. Rees and other
academic critics have condemned MOOCs as in effect using the best
of 21st century technology to deliver the worst of 19th century
instruction. The lectures, they claim, are merely videotaped
talking heads. The discussion boards are useless and riddled with
spam and flame wars. The problem sets are repetitive, trivial,
and exhausting. In short, MOOCs are poor tools for didactic,
discursive, and heuristic dimensions of instruction.
But is that so? I will consider each of the three dimensions
of instruction, with specific examples.
(1) Didactic Instruction. While MOOC critics may wish to portray
live classroom instruction as akin to Mark Hopkins dialoguing
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with a few students on a log,7 the reality is generally quite
different: faculty members serving up uninspiring lectures to
halls full of disengaged students. If talking heads are the
problem, academic critics are in no position to pin the blame on
MOOCs.
MOOC presentations, however, are not in general talking
heads. On the contrary, MOOC presentations are an entirely new
form of pedagogical experience. The large data sets and the rich
data trails of computerized instruction have enabled researchers
to explore new questions, such as the optimum length for lecture
segments, and the most effective way of articulating them with
readings and problem sets. Research suggests that 6 minutes is
optimal. MOOCs now typically break up brief lecture segments with
problem sets and free-response questions. Lecture segments are
supplemented with interviews, clips from panels at research
conferences, interviews with other scholars, research
7 President James A. Garfield, a student of Hopkins at Williams College, is said to have defined an ideal college as "Mark Hopkins on one end of a log anda student on the other". University historian Frederick Rudolph has stated: "no one can properly address himself to the question of higher education in the United States without paying homage in some way to the aphorism of the logand Mark Hopkins".
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presentations by graduate students, and on-site videos of
knowledge use in ‘real-world’ settings. While a single instructor
inevitably gives his course subject matters a personal twist,
MOOCs offer unique opportunities for presenting multiple points
of view.
Jonathan Haber, who constructed a complete college education
in the humanities– in a single year - from MOOCs - and thus
knows as much about actual MOOCs as any commentator, states:
MOOCs are often criticized for just transferring a
“sage on stage” pedagogy from the lectern to the
computer screen, scaling up the worst aspects of
oversized lecture classes. But as my year of MOOCs went
on, I saw a new visual language developing, as single
talking heads were supplemented (or replaced entirely)
with conversations among colleagues (the visual style
of one of my favorite courses: HarvardX’s ‘Ancient
Greek Hero’), interviews with experts, on-location
shots, and even on-screen performances. Such creativity
helped to make lectures one of the most engaging and,
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ironically, intimate components of massive online
courses, while also raising the bar for all other forms
of online learning (most of it far duller than your
average MOOC).8
At their best, MOOC presentations are as engaging as the
best television news magazine programs. And this is not
surprising, as the universities providing the best MOOCs are
investing in cutting-edge production studios and hiring media
professionals. The best MOOC presentations are more like segments
of “60 minutes” than talking heads. We may question whether
producing “edutainment” of this sort is the best use of scarce
institutional funds, but that is another question entirely, and
one that completely undercuts the “talking head” line of attack.
(2) Discussion and Feedback. Let’s acknowledge that the MOOC
discussion boards are far from adequate substitutes for live
discussion. Even some of the most supportive MOOC commentators
have found them to have little value. The good news is that the
8 Haber, MY Year of MOOCs, Slate, February 2, 2014, online at http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/02/degree_of_freedom_project_earning_a_one_year_b_a_through_moocs.single.html
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discursive segments of many MOOCs have moved well beyond the
discussion boards to live conversations in physical or virtual
spaces.
Coursera has sponsored “meet-ups” – where students in their
MOOCs can get together for course discussion - in dozens of
cities. Coursera has also teamed up with the U. S. State
Department to run MOOC camps for college age students in many
countries. The city of Boston has teamed up with edX to initiate
Boston-x, a project providing Internet computers and meeting
places for MOOC learners. Libraries are eagerly providing
learning spaces for MOOC learners. 9 Other cities have emulated
Boston-x, dedicating space in libraries and other public
buildings for MOOC study. The New York Public Library system, for
example, has teamed up with Coursera to create MOOC social
learning spaces in several library branches. 10
9 Merideth Schwartz, Massive Open Opportunity: Supporting MOOCs in Public and Academic Libraries, Library Journal, March 2013, online at http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/05/library-services/massive-open-opportunity-supporting-moocs/#_ 10 Matt Enis, NYPL partners with Coursera, Library Journal, May 7, 2014, online athttp://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/05/ed-tech/nypl-partners-with-coursera/
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These efforts parallel those of the Library 2.0 movement;
librarians around the world are now re-thinking optimal uses for
their brick and mortar building spaces in the age of web 2.0
technologies and digital books, and one answer is meeting spaces
for online learners. 11 C-MOOCs, and now many x-MOOCs well, make
extensive use of video-conferencing – e.g., via Skype - to
connect group members. MOOCs offering nothing more than
discussion boards are simply behind the MOOC curve.
(3) Heuristic Instruction. Academic critics claim that the “can
do” element of MOOCs is restricted to monitoring auto-or- peer
graded problem sets.
Many actual MOOCs, however, have moved way beyond such
mechanized problem sets, making project-based authentic learning
central to the MOOC experience. Here are two examples:
(1) At the University of Virginia’s Darden School of
Business, Professor Michael Lenox has offered several iterations 11 See Casey, Michael & Savastinuk, Laura, Library 2.0: A Guide to Participatory Library Service, Information Today Press, 2007. From Wikipedia: “In Library 2.0 … focusis on user-centered change and participation in the creation of content and community. The concept of Library 2.0 borrows from that of Business 2.0 and Web 2.0 and follows some of the same underlying philosophies.”
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of his “Foundations of Business Strategy” MOOC on the Coursera
platform. Lenox uses “Coursolve,” a crowdsourcing software
program, to connect his course with partner organizations where
students work to solve real-life challenges. “Entrepreneurs
don’t always have the resources to hire external support to
address their needs, but we’ve seen firsthand that students are
hungry for the chance to apply their knowledge to real-world
problems,” Lenox says. “By collaborating with organizations,
students can strengthen their skills development while
potentially providing businesses and nonprofits with valuable
insights.”
In the final course project, Lenox invited students to
undertake complete a strategic analysis of one of the partner
organizations. More than 400 students completed analyses in
partnership with 100 different organizations, including
established businesses, startups, resource-strapped nonprofits
and social enterprises. 12 78% of those students ended up
12 University of Virginia Darden Strategy MOOC Offers Student Support for For-Profit and Non-Profit Organizations, University of Virginia Darden School of Business, Media. August 14, 2013, online at http://www.darden.virginia.edu/web/Media/Darden-News-Articles/2013/UVa-Darden-
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participating directly with senior managers in the strategic
decision-making of their organizations. Reporting on the second
iteration of the MOOC, Lenox added, “Hundreds of in-person study
groups formed in over 50 countries. Students included young
entrepreneurs and mature small business owners; non-profit
organizers; a study group of Mongolia students led by a Peace
Corps volunteer; a group of unemployed women in Ohio looking to
improve their job prospects; a group of students in Bolivia led
under a program from the U.S. State Department; and a group of
Arab and Israeli students participating through the YaLa Young
Leaders program building détente through education.”13
(2) Cathy Davidson of Duke University is now offering a
Coursera MOOC on 'the history and future of higher education'.
Davidson has been a national leader in pushing the x-MOOC format
Strategy-MOOC-Offers-Student-Support-to-For-Profit-and-Nonprofit-Organizations/
13 Michael Lenox, 'More' Not 'Or': Fear And Loathing The World Of MOOCs, Forbes, January 9, 2014, online at http://www.forbes.com/sites/darden/2014/01/09/more-not-or-fear-and-loathing-the-world-of-moocs/
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in creative directions. Because her MOOC has many thousands of
students, the student group can take on projects not possible
within a classroom context. In one project, her students are
collectively creating a rich, multi-media trans-national timeline
of higher education since 1800. Each student is contributing
reports on significant historical events in higher education in
their geographic locations - countries, states, municipalities.
The students are learning historical research methods and skills
in reporting historical events. Many higher education
institutions previously neglected by historians of education,
including those long closed, are in this way being entered for
the first time in an accessible historical record. The student
group is now collaborating on editing and coordinating the
information and producing the final online product. 14
One does not need to love either of these particular skill
development efforts to recognize that they go way beyond auto-
graded problem sets.
14 Davidson lays out her plan for this course and its rationale in an interview available online at http://degreeoffreedom.org/interview-with-cathy-davidson/
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6. Conclusion
My point in the above remarks has been to show that academic
critics of MOOCs have relied on a stick-figure caricature. Real
MOOCs, even x-MOOCs, are diverse, and many have addressed the
didactic, discursive and heuristic dimensions of instruction in
creative ways. The best MOOCs replace the ‘sage on the stage’
stalking head with presentations employing a “new visual
language” of instruction; they build in group experiences,
whether physical or virtual, with opportunities for interpersonal
student dialogue; they make project-based learning the
centerpiece of the educational experience.
Of course, not all MOOCs do this. Some do, some don’t. And
that is the point. If we want to assess the pedagogical value of
MOOCs, we will have to turn our attention to particular courses
to see how they handle instructional tasks. By analyzing the most
important dimensions of instruction, the didactic, discursive and
heuristic, I have provided what I hope to be useful pegs upon
which to hang such particular evaluative judgments.
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