The Professors Behind the MOOC Hype - Technology

The Evidence on Online Education WASHINGTON -- Online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning, according to a new meta-analysis released Friday by the U.S. Department of Education. The study found that students who took all or part of their instruction online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through face-to-face instruction. Further, those who took "blended" courses -- those that combine elements of online learning and face-to-face instruction -- appeared to do best of all. That finding could be significant as many colleges report that blended instruction is among the fastest-growing types of enrollment. The Education Department examined all kinds of instruction, and found that the number of valid analyses of elementary and secondary education was too small to have much confidence in the results. Using technology to give students "control of their interactions" has a positive effect on student learning, however. John R.

Teaching a MOOC: Lessons Learned & Best Balch Practices | the augmented trader I just completed teaching a MOOC on Computational Investing via coursera.org. I did some things right and a lot of things wrong. Here are my lessons learned from the first round. I’m very excited now about the second go at this, and the ability to make the course even better. Some of these items are coursera specific, but many apply more broadly. Some people will be upset: Be prepared I’m not talking about the students. Your course will be closely scrutinized. One critique MOOCs are susceptible to is an accusation of “dumbing down” or “oversimplification.” Many of these attacks arise from a belief that MOOCs are promoted as “identical” to college course content; Or that the course is “just as rigorous” as graduate course CS XXXX at Georgia Tech. That being said, I do believe that we can produce and deliver “rigorous” content via MOOCs, and many are working on that. Set expectations for the students You also want to avoid having folks in the course who are “over qualified.” More to come

Early demographic data - who takes moocs? Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are popular. This much we know. But as investors and higher ed prognosticators squint into their crystal balls for hints of what this popularity could portend for the rest of higher education, two crucial questions remains largely unanswered: Who are these students, and what do they want? Some early inquiries into this by two major MOOC providers offer a few hints. Coursera, a company started by two Stanford University professors, originated with a course called Machine Learning, which co-founder Andrew Ng taught last fall to a virtual classroom of 104,000 students. Among 14,045 students in the Machine Learning course who responded to a demographic survey, half were professionals who currently held jobs in the tech industry. Many were enrolled in some kind of traditional postsecondary education. A subset (11,686 registrants) also answered a question about why they chose to take the course.

Stephen Downes: The Role of the Educator How often do we read about the importance of teachers in education? It must be every day, it seems. We are told about "strong empirical evidence that teachers are the most important school-based determinant of student achievement" again and again. The problem with the educational system, it is argued, is that teachers need to be held accountable. The problem with focusing on the role of the teacher, from my perspective, is that it misses the point. Let me tell you how I know this. Each of these has contributed in one way or another to an overall approach not only to learning online but to learning generally. It's an approach that emphasizes open learning and learner autonomy. It's an approach that emphasizes exercises involving those competencies rather than deliberate acts of memorization or rote, an approach that seeks to grow knowledge in a manner analogous to building muscles, rather than to transfer or construct knowledge through some sort of cognitive process.

About MOOC Completion Rates: The Importance of Student Investment | the augmented trader I just finished teaching a Massive Online Open Class (MOOC) titled “Computational Investing, Part I” via coursera.org. 53,000 people “enrolled,” which is to say they clicked a “sign up” button. How many finished? related post regarding lessons learned Completion rates are low, but that statistic is misleading Much of the criticism of MOOCs centers on supposedly low completion rates. And these rates do seem low when compared to completion rates of regular university courses. One of the 53,000 students in my class watches a lecture video. What does it cost a student to enroll in a course? The economics are significantly different for a student at a traditional university than for a student starting a MOOC. At a regular university all of the students starting a course have paid tuition, they have moved to an apartment or dorm near the university, and they’ve set aside time to complete the course. What’s the cost of failure or withdrawal? What are the implications for completion rates? Like this:

WIKI - Massive open online course Education service on the web Poster, entitled "MOOC, every letter is negotiable", exploring the meaning of the words "massive open online course" A massive open online course (MOOC ) or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web.[1] In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education,[2] first introduced in 2008,[3] that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012, a year called the "Year of the MOOC".[4][5][6] History[edit] What is a MOOC? Precursors[edit] Early approaches[edit] cMOOCs and xMOOCs[edit] MOOCs and open-education timeline (updated 2015 version)[13][30] Students served[edit]

Why School? TED ebook author rethinks education when information is everywhere. The Internet has delivered an explosion of learning opportunities for today’s students, creating an abundance of information, knowledge, and teachers as well as a starkly different landscape from the one in which our ideas about school were born. Traditional educators, classrooms, and brick-and-mortar schools are no longer necessary to access information. Instead, things like blogs and wikis, as well as remote collaborations and an emphasis on critical thinking skills are the coins of the realm in this new kingdom. Yet the national dialogue on education reform focuses on using technology to update the traditional education model, failing to reassess the fundamental model on which it is built. In Why School? Why must schools change how they teach? Every generation seems to think its students are different. Students in the K-12 system have never known a world without the Internet. With so much information out there, it seems that finding information is easy but assessing it is tricky.

MOOC Student Demographics | the augmented trader I report on survey responses from 1,207 of the 25,589 students who enrolled in a Massive Online Open Class (MOOC) titled “Computational Investing, Part I” via coursera.org in Spring 2013. The responses represent 56% of the students who completed the course and 2.5% of those who initially enrolled but did not complete it. Related articles Executive summary Here are a few of the most relevant and interesting bits of data: Enrollment and completion: 25,589 enrolled (clicked “sign me up”).15,688 (61%) watched a video6,855 (27%) took a quiz.1,165 completed the course, which is: 4.5% of those who enrolled.7.4% of those who watched a video.17% of those who took a quiz. Of those who completed the course: 36% live in the US.53% are white.89% are male.9% hold Ph.D.s. And now, for a more detailed examination. Background This data concerns students who enrolled in the second offering of Computational Investing, Part I in Spring 2013. Demographics: Country of Residence Demographics: Age Demographics: Sex

2012 Histoire des moocs Part 5 of my Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2012 series The Year of the MOOC Massive Open Online Courses. MOOCs. And oh man, did we talk about it. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that 2012 was dominated by MOOCs as the trend started to really pick up in late 2011 with the huge enrollment in the three computer science courses that Stanford offered for free online during the Fall semester, along with the announcement of MITx in December. Who cares what Cormier thinks and predicts? January: Googler and Stanford professor (and professor for the university’s massive AI class) Sebastian Thrun announces he’s leaving Stanford to launch Udacity, his own online learning startup. February: MITx opens for enrollment. April: Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller (also involved with Stanford’s fall 2011 MOOCs) officially launch their online learning startup Coursera. May: June: Udacity announces it’s partnering with Pearson, which will offer onsite testing for its classes. July: August: September:

That's Great!: Why Not MOOseums? I have been interested in museums for a long time, with a special concern for museum effectiveness in offering open, informal or free-choice learning for the visitor. I've recently written about this (Barr 2013: online at "There are plenty of fascinating things about museums. But that museum focus has been almost entirely onsite. "In spite of the speed with which museums embraced the world wide web, few of them seem to have become equally enthusiastic about the prospect of expanding their on-site educational activities into the online environment. Combining the museum mandate with the learning potential of MOOCs, especially cMOOCs, seems to me like a natural. All one would need is for existing museum education staff to gain some familiarity with cMOOC structure and develop some facility with digital literacy. The connectivist learning opportunities offered through cMOOCs offer a whole new dimension to museum learning.

A Tale of Two MOOCs @ Coursera: Divided by Pedagogy The Web as a classroom is transforming how people learn, is driving the need for new pedagogy; two recently launched courses at Coursera highlight what happens when pedagogical methods fail to adapt. Divided pedagogy I wrote recently about the Fundamentals of Online: Education [FOE] the Coursera course that was suspended after its first week and is now in MOOC hibernation mode. Over thirty thousands students signed up for the course hoping to learn how to develop an online course. It was a technical malfunction when students were directed to sign-up for groups through a Google Doc that shuttered the course, along with hundreds of student complaints about lack of clear instructions, and poor lecture quality. The course was suspended on February 2, and there has been no word yet as to when it will resume :(. The Tale of the Two What made e-Learning and Digital Cultures successful and FOE not? Our current higher education system is grounded in behaviorist and cognitive theories. References

Le MOOC 2013 - Paris - Mai 2013 LabSpace - The Open University