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    Learning To Live With MOOCs

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    edwebb
    This article discusses Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their potential impact and compatibility with liberal arts education. It notes that while MOOCs can provide inexpensive access to course materials and global learning communities, they often suffer from low completion rates. The authors believe MOOCs could be compatible with liberal arts education if done right, particularly in a connectivist model that fosters critical thinking, diverse topics, and engagement. However, MOOCs may also reduce education if they only transmit content without opportunities for discussion, collaboration or assessment. The authors invite consideration of how to ensure MOOCs support the kind of learning valued in liberal arts.

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    Learning To Live With MOOCs

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    edwebb
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    This article discusses Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their potential impact and compatibility with liberal arts education. It notes that while MOOCs can provide inexpensive access to course materials and global learning communities, they often suffer from low completion rates. The authors believe MOOCs could be compatible with liberal arts education if done right, particularly in a connectivist model that fosters critical thinking, diverse topics, and engagement. However, MOOCs may also reduce education if they only transmit content without opportunities for discussion, collaboration or assessment. The authors invite consideration of how to ensure MOOCs support the kind of learning valued in liberal arts.

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    Opinion: Learning to live with MOOCs by Ed Webb and Elizabeth Lewis in The Dickinsonian

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    Learning to Live With MOOCs

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    This article discusses Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their potential impact and compatibility with liberal arts education. It notes that while MOOCs can provide inexpensive access to course materials and global learning communities, they often suffer from low completion rates. The authors believe MOOCs could be compatible with liberal arts education if done right, particularly in a connectivist model that fosters critical thinking, diverse topics, and engagement. However, MOOCs may also reduce education if they only transmit content without opportunities for discussion, collaboration or assessment. The authors invite consideration of how to ensure MOOCs support the kind of learning valued in liberal arts.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    20 views1 page

    Learning To Live With MOOCs

    Uploaded by

    edwebb
    This article discusses Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their potential impact and compatibility with liberal arts education. It notes that while MOOCs can provide inexpensive access to course materials and global learning communities, they often suffer from low completion rates. The authors believe MOOCs could be compatible with liberal arts education if done right, particularly in a connectivist model that fosters critical thinking, diverse topics, and engagement. However, MOOCs may also reduce education if they only transmit content without opportunities for discussion, collaboration or assessment. The authors invite consideration of how to ensure MOOCs support the kind of learning valued in liberal arts.

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    of 1

    t he dickinso nian.

    co m

    http://thedickinso nian.co m/o pinio n/2013/05/02/learning-to -live-with-mo o cs/

    Learning to Live with MOOCs


    Home > Opinion >
    Prof essor Ed Webb & Prof essor Liz Lewis, Guest Columnists
    May 2, 2013
    Filed under Opinion
    T here has been a lot of hype about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), raising breathless predictions of
    radical transf ormation of higher education. Such predictions produce excitement and alarm in about equal
    measure. It is worth taking a sober look at what MOOCs are and what they might mean f or a college like
    Dickinson.
    As their name suggests, MOOCs use the Internet to deliver courses to very large numbers of participants.
    Most media attention has been directed to xMOOCs, which are those of the kind provided by Coursera, Udacity
    and others. T hese usually f eature video lectures by prominent f aculty, combined with the kind of assignments
    that can be graded easily or automatically, such as multiple choice quizzes. If there is interaction between
    learners and instructors, it is most commonly volunteer teaching assistants rather than the headline lecturer
    who take that on. T his model clearly f avors instructivist learning, or the one-way transmission of inf ormation.
    Other models include connectivist MOOCs of the kind pioneered by George Siemens and others in Canada (in
    one of which Prof essor Webb has participated). T hese build networks of learners, f ostering peer-to-peer
    connections, and f acilitating dif f ering learning goals and speeds.
    T he successes of all kinds of MOOCs so f ar are ambiguous. At their best, MOOCs can unleash the potential
    of the Internet f or inexpensive, easy sharing of materials and many-to-many communicationincluding social
    media and f ree online toolsto build global learning communities that otherwise would not be possible. More
    than f ive million people world-wide have registered f or these types of online courses, according to A.J. Jacobs
    in the April 21 issue of T he New York Times.
    However, they suf f er f rom very low completion rates, among other problems. We need to guard against the
    seductiveness of low-cost or apparently f ree online education that is not, in f act, education. At their worst,
    MOOCs will be a reduction of education to delivery of content without meaningf ul opportunity f or critical
    discussion, thoughtf ul collaboration or rigorous assessment. To of f er mere transmission of inf ormation and
    the most basic level of testing is to leverage the power of the Internet to promote a reductive,
    instrumentalized, mass-production model of education. T he potential is so much greater.
    A question we invite Dickinsonians to consider is whether MOOCs are compatible with a liberal arts education.
    We believe they can be. T hey cannot replicate the benef its of a physically co-located learning community of
    our kind. But done right, particularly in the connectivist mode, they can f oster some of the skills and attitudes
    we value. MOOCs can provide a space f or promoting critical thinking, the exploration of diverse topics, and
    creative engagement with ideas and people on a global scale. We need to be open to the possibilities. We
    should prepare to learn f rom the f ailures that will inevitably emerge as MOOCs evolve, without turning our back
    on their potential. T hose of us committed to a usef ul liberal arts education should work to ensure there is
    space f or the kind of learning we care about within the universe of MOOCs.

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