In September, I published an opinionated survey of education and technology. Among other things, I said that I thought that the hype around MOOCs (massive online open courses) was overdone.
Since writing that essay, one argument in favor of MOOCs has occurred to me. If you think about it, under the conventional model, most students hate many of the classes that they take. As Bryan Caplan pointed out a year ago, the fact that students are typically happy when class is canceled should give one pause. In the standard model, a sizable fraction of the students are only in the course as part of the process of getting a required certification.
With MOOCs, the student body is an all-volunteer army, as opposed to draftees. That might produce better class discussions, assuming that the technological hurdles to having class discussion over the Internet can be addressed.
I have taken three MOOCs (the first run of each): Machine Learning, AI, and Probabilistic Graphical Models.
AI was relatively easy, ML a bit more time consuming (but the work was still pretty easy), and PGM quite difficult. I know that AI ended up having a pretty low completion rate. I’m not sure about ML. Less than 10% completed PGM. The low cost of dropping out (under the current free model) really ensures that those who are left are highly motivated and engaged. The PGM forum discussions were lively and absolutely essential for me (it was also the only one in which the lectures were just taped in the brick and mortar classes, as opposed to special lectures for the online format).
Anyway, I guess I don’t have much else to add, but thought I could share my experiences.
I would think taping in front of an audience would be good because other students will point out things that the lecturer is unclear about by asking questions. Then again, some questions are just for that one student and online discussion forums might better for that as you don’t want to see the same question every time you watch the video.
I think some of these discussions are skewed by the fact that economics is taught, and received, very differently from the other social sciences and humanities.
I was a history grad student/TA and a political science grad student/professor, and more importantly I never took an econ course while double majoring in philosophy and history. The only courses that I hated were those during freshman year (as it used to be called!) that I was too inexperienced to drop right away because of a boring professor. As for the discussions, they were as good as the students were.
In these fields there is rarely more than one or two required course per major, as opposed to distribution requirements or choices from a menu (e.g., as a philosophy major I had to take 8 courses in that field). I gather that it’s very different in econ.
From my perspective the only crises in higher ed are that the administrations have ballooned, with attendant costs; and that too many students are going to college who don’t need to, don’t like it, and aren’t good at it. But for those who are suited to it, there really is no replacing the residential-college experience, most of which is beneficial not in the classroom but in the dorm rooms. Of course a society could get along without this luxury, but why would we want to?
I wonder to what extent conservatives and libertarians are seizing on MOOCs to address what they really don’t like about higher ed, which is the ideology taught there. (This is a genuine question, as I haven’t followed this debate at all.) If that’s what they are getting at, they’re barking up the wrong tree, as there’s no reason to think libertarians or conservatives are going to be more popular online than liberals or leftists.
First, in response to Bryan’s assertion based on canceling class, it’s more like a fitness coach making certain customers hold fast to their exercises. They may be happy in the short-run, but in the long-run they know they’ve missed. (I also say, it’s a problem with the teaching.)
Second, if all we do as academics is transfer words to students, then you never needed the Internet to do that; you already had textbooks. Why take the time and effort to record something when students can must read it at their leisure.
If all we’re doing is passing on information then shame on the academy. The role of the academic, properly conceived, is teaching students how to think. This comes from prodding and developing students reasoning and analytical thinking skills. That can’t be taught online just as it cannot be taught in large classrooms.
Being happy when class is cancelled has nothing to do with liking or disliking the class.
A class cancellation is a surprise vacation, and a surprise vacation is more fun than a scheduled one. (see: reward prediction error)
I teach freshman composition and enjoy my work enormously. Nevertheless, I also enjoyed canceling a class in the wake of Hurricane Sandy — even though I would have had more fun teaching the class than I did hunkering down in the faculty lounge (which, unlike my house, had electricity).
The change in routine felt like a vacation even though the vacation wasn’t fun.