by Laurie Pickard | Oct 17, 2013 | Thoughts on Higher Ed and Life
Not everybody is happy about MOOCs. It remains to be seen how exactly online courses will change higher education overall, but many people - including the author of a recent Wall Street Journal article - have predicted that smaller universities will start using video lectures from high profile professors as a supplement to or in lieu of to their own teaching staff - and some people, especially professors, are pretty upset about it. I recently came across an article on Slate.com decrying this potential development as being disastrous for both students and professors. As the author, himself a university professor, says:
“How do you teach tens of thousands of people anything at once? You don’t. What you can do over the Internet this way is deliver information, but that’s not education. Education, as any real teacher will tell you, involves more than just transmitting facts. “
Of course education is more than just transmitting facts, but learning how to use information must be an active process, one in which the teacher can guide the students, but for which students must ultimately be responsible. It doesn’t matter how many people you’re trying to teach - you’re never teaching everyone at once because everyone ultimately has to teach themselves. It isn’t that I don’t value good teaching, but I am of the opinion that learning is never passive. You can never walk into the classroom and expect the teacher to do all of the work, whether the class has 5 students or 500.
This has gotten me thinking: how exactly do we learn? Perhaps as a result of the influence of my Operations Management course, I decided to break down my own experience of learning into various components, so as to assess how well each of these can be addressed in an online platform. Here is what I came up with:
Learning activities that can easily be done alone in front of a computer
- Listening to a professor lecture. This is the hallmark of an online course, and it can certainly be done solo, in front of a computer screen.
- Reading. Also easily done outside of the traditional class format.
- Practice problems and case studies. My “hard skills” classes - Corporate Finance, Accounting, and Operations Management - all make use of practice problems and case studies. I tend to spend just as much time with the problems as with the lectures, and this is where I really start to use what I’ve learned.
- Processing new material through writing. For me, writing is one of the most powerful ways to feel ownership of something I have learned. If I can integrate new knowledge with what I already know through writing, then I really own it. Hence, this blog.
Learning activities that are more difficult to do in an online course but are still possible
- Processing course material with other students. Virtual discussion forums are definitely much more awkward than classroom discussion, but I still see some value in them. If there were a way to form small study groups - no more than 4 people - then they would really be useful.
- Processing course material with the professor. Some professors host “virtual office hours.” Not the same as regular office hours, but this format still does provide a way for students to ask questions that weren’t answered in the lectures
Learning activities that are impossible outside of the classroom
- Answering questions posed by the professor. I am a big believer in the Socratic method, in which a teacher asks questions of a student in order to make him or her think. This requires a face-to-face interaction that can’t really happen in an online course. However, it doesn’t happen easily in a large lecture course either.
- Getting individualized professor feedback. In a class of 120,000 there is no way a professor can even begin to give individualized feedback for the work students do. This to me is the biggest drawback to online courses, mostly because professor feedback is highly motivating, whether it comes in the form of comments on an essay, encouragement to keep grappling with the material, or a reaction to a student’s comments in class.
My conclusion: although online learning is not a perfect substitute for classroom learning, it is always up to the student to do the heavy lifting, and a highly motivated student can find most of what he or she needs, even in an online course.
by Laurie Pickard | Oct 15, 2013 | Courses, Platforms, and Profs, MOOC MBA Design
I recently finished my first Coursera course and received a Statement of Accomplishment. The Statement of Accomplishment is Coursera’s answer to my question in a previous post. For some of my courses students are invited to pay for a “Verified Statement of Accomplishment” by joining a “signature track” for the course. The coursework is the same, but only the paying students get the verified statement at the end. I respect Coursera’s efforts at bringing legitimacy to free coursework, but I don’t place a lot of value on the Statement of Accomplishment, primarily because the level of difficulty is highly variable from course to course. The class for which I received my first Statement of Accomplishment was interesting, but incredibly easy. I listened to the lectures each week, but I could have answered each week’s five-question quiz correctly without having done so. In contrast, last week I spent a couple of hours on the homework for my Intro to Operations Management course and had to re-watch a couple of the video lectures.
Of course, some of my college classes were pretty easy too. I once took a class called “Geology of the National Parks,” which I and the entire football team were using for our science requirement. I also got credit for an elective swimming class. But my overall degree program is what ended up counting - no employer has ever asked to see the titles (or my grades, for that matter) of individual courses.
The Statement of Accomplishment is a good start, but I would like to see Coursera (and others) offer something closer to a degree - a Statement of Accomplishment that covers multiple courses and recognizes the totality of study. If such a thing were available I might even be willing to spend a few bucks to get one.
by Laurie Pickard | Oct 9, 2013 | Courses, Platforms, and Profs, Thoughts on Higher Ed and Life
My Intro to Accounting professor recently posted some demographic information from the course pre-enrollment survey. I find this data very interesting, so I’m sharing the highlights here.
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Students enrolled:
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127,569
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Active students:
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91,865
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Number of students submitting homework:
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28,951
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Total discussion forum posts:
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5,694
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Number of students posting:
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2,876
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First, check out the number of students enrolled. Wow! Over 120,000 students. This course is really putting the MASSIVE into Massive Online Open Course. And of those, almost 92,000 are active – meaning that they are participating in the course in some form. Those roughly 29,000 submitting the homework are the ones I consider to be taking the course seriously – as previously mentioned, most people who sign up for MOOCs don’t finish them, or don’t participate fully.
Notice how many students are posting on the discussion boards. Around 3,000, with roughly two posts per person. My main frustration with online courses so far is how overwhelming the discussion boards are. I registered for emails from the International Study Group board, and my inbox was flooded. In this class, only a small fraction of the students are participating in the discussions, and it’s still totally swamped with comments.
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Male:
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54%
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First MOOC:
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53%
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Roughly evenly divided male/female. And about half having previously enrolled in a MOOC.
Ages of students:
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21 and under:
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7%
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22 – 30:
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39%
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31 – 40:
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27%
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41 – 50:
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16%
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51 – 60:
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9%
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61 and over:
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4% (including 8 students over 90!)
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I’m not sure I believe that there are 8 students over age 90 – that seems like a joke to me – but hey, it’s possible. Besides those 90-year-olds, it’s no surprise that the people taking these courses are generally post-college age. Since this method of education doesn’t have the same legitimacy as traditional university studies (yet), it makes sense that most people in the college age bracket who want to take college classes would be doing it at a regular college. The table below paints a similar picture.
Highest level of education
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High school or below:
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6%
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College up to Bachelors’ Degree:
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13%
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Bachelors’ Degree:
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44%
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Masters’ or Professional Degree:
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35%
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PhD:
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3%
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I wonder if these numbers reflect the type of course; since accounting has such obvious real-world applications, it may be that more people who have already gone to college or graduate school are interested in picking up these skills, versus – I don’t know – Intro to English Literature.
Now here’s where it really gets interesting.
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Number of Countries Represented:
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188
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Holy smokes! There are only about 190 countries in the world! (Plus or minus a few depending on how you count.) That means that almost every country in the world has a representative in this class. I wonder if there are others besides me who are taking the course from Rwanda.
Top Ten Countries
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United States:
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38%
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India:
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8%
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Canada:
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4%
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Philippines:
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2%
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Spain :
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2%
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Australia:
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2%
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Russia:
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2%
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United Kingdom:
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2%
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Brazil:
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2%
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China:
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2%
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Yes, the plurality of students in the class are from the US, but it isn’t a majority. These stats on the international composition of the class highlight for me how useful MOOCs can be for students who don’t have access to an American university education.
by Laurie Pickard | Oct 5, 2013 | Courses, Platforms, and Profs
My favorite course this semester – surprisingly – is Intro to Accounting. Accounting - and accountants - have a reputation for being terribly dull, and even the professor apologizes frequently for the dryness of the material. But I am positively loving it. Tracking accounts feels like one long logic puzzle, and I love logic puzzles. I also appreciate that the course gives specifics on how to do a particular job. I am learning how to put together the four financial statements that all accountants are responsible for creating, and how to do so in accordance with the standards of the profession.
In fact, what excites me about the MBA overall is that it is professional training, with direct on-the-job applications. My field – international development – doesn’t have a single professional degree. Most of us have master’s degrees, but in a variety of different fields. I studied geography, which gave me a solid understanding of the global context in which development occurs and some analytical tools for understanding why one place is different from another. I also learned how to write, how to do social science research, and how to think about development issues – all very useful. But understanding the context in which I perform my work is not actually the same as knowing how to do my work.
Much of the work in international development falls broadly into the category of Project Management. But my academic training didn’t include any coursework involving practical elements of managing development projects. None of my graduate or undergraduate courses dealt with the kind of questions that came up within the first week of having an office job in a development organization, for example:
What is the best way to design a budget spreadsheet?
How do you avoid circulating and saving multiple versions of the same document?
Is it possible to conduct a meeting that doesn’t waste everyone’s time?
What are TORs and how do you write them?
Intro to Accounting is skills-based, as opposed to knowledge-based. Which is to say that at the end of the course not only will there be new information that I KNOW but also new things that I can DO.
These are called T-accounts, and I know how to make them!
by Laurie Pickard | Oct 1, 2013 | Courses, Platforms, and Profs, MOOC MBA Design, Thoughts on Higher Ed and Life
Just a couple of weeks ago the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business announced it was putting free versions of its first year MBA courses on Coursera. I am taking two of these courses, and they are top notch – so good, in fact, that I think I may have missed a calling as an accountant (more on that in another post). I am of course thrilled that one of the top-ranked business schools in the US has decided to make its first year curriculum available free of charge, but why would Wharton give away this material, which is basically the same product it is selling to its regular students? Granted, Wharton isn’t granting any academic credit to people who complete these courses, but the material is the same as in the paid versions. This begs the question, isn’t Wharton undercutting its ability to attract paying students by giving away the same product it charges for? There are three reasons I can think of why the school might consider it a good idea to give away the milk from this particular cow.
- Wharton believes there is no overlap between potential paying students and students interested in taking courses for free.
- Wharton hopes to use these free courses to attract paying students.
- Wharton believes that value of its MBA lies in the degree granted by the institution, not in the skills and knowledge embodied therein. Wharton assumes that potential students will also see it this way.
In order for Wharton (and other schools) to post their courses online without risking losing their core business, they must believe in the third conclusion. Indeed, signaling is quite important when it comes to degrees of all types. If your resume says Harvard or MIT or Yale, or any of the set of big-name schools, that’s a strong signal that you a) were accepted by a prestigious school, and b) performed well enough in that environment to have graduated. Does a Statement of Accomplishment from Coursera have the same effect?
I tend to think not, so I was surprised when a decision by the instructors of my International Organizations Management course not to offer a Statement of Accomplishment option sparked a firestorm of comments on the course discussion forum. Nonetheless, when I tell people I am designing my own MBA program from free online courses, the most common question I get asked is, are you getting credit? No, I’m not. But I believe that the coursework is intrinsically valuable, with or without the piece of paper.
For me, this project’s success hinges on three things:
- The availability of enough high-quality free course material to equal what is offered in an MBA degree program. Thanks to Coursera, edX, and others, check.
- My ability to complete the courses and to absorb the information. So far, also a check.
- Future employers believing that I have acquired useful skills and knowledge through this endeavor.
The last criteria is as yet an unknown. Admittedly, my method of bringing legitimacy to my self-made MBA – blogging – is remarkably inefficient. I enjoy doing it, and I think it’s necessary if anyone at all is to take me seriously. Practically speaking, however, I can mention my project in a job interview, or even put a line or two on my resume, but an employer would need to dig a little in order to see that I really do have the skills that come with a traditional MBA. And even if he or she read my blog, they would still have to take my word for it to some extent. That takes a lot longer - and requires more trust - than reading the words “Wharton School of Business” on a CV.
Much of the discussion in the book College Unbound, one of several new books on the subject of how post-secondary education is changing, centers on how students who don’t do traditional degree programs can signal that they have acquired skills that employers desire by other methods. The information is out there, but it remains to be seen how online courses can go beyond personal edification and translate into increased job prospects. I’m optimistic about the possibilities, but we’ll all have to wait and see.
