"MOOCs: How effective could they possibly be?" by Victoria Meza

MOOCs: How effective could they possibly be?

Education today is improving, changing, and advancing in many different ways. One way it has advanced is through using the Internet as a means of providing that education. Online learning has been a pretty big deal in the last decade, and one thing that has emerged with regards to higher education is a free way of accessing the knowledge provided at high-end universities. This means of accessing knowledge is called a Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC. MOOCs allow for people to gain knowledge from well-qualified professors from the comfort of their own home on their own time for free. The process is simple: Sign up online for a course that runs for about twelve weeks, and then take the course as if you were enrolled in the college itself. Really, it seems like an excellent way of gaining an education. The problem is, these courses are mostly designed for providing knowledge for the sake of people gaining knowledge and doing that only. People could choose to pay for credit if they really wanted to, but that would defeat the purpose of the course being free. There is also the issue of people signing up for courses, but never actually going through and finishing them. Plus, private funders, who are expecting a return on their investment, pay for MOOCs. If the point of MOOCs is to provide a free education, how will they get their money’s worth?

The main issue, though, that should be most concerning, is how effective MOOCs are, with regards to their education value and the knowledge people gain from them. There are various websites available to gain this education and knowledge from, partnered with different top-notch universities that offer different courses. Looking at them from that perspective should make them more credible and trustworthy to provide a meaningful education, but there is another side to this. It is not only the teaching side that affects whether or not the education being provided is effective, but it also depends on the dedication and the motivation of the students of these courses. Ideally, people would be able to gain knowledge and education and treat the courses as though they were being offered for a steep price. However, this is not always the case. Although over 6.7 million people enroll in MOOCs, roughly ninety percent are not successful in completing them (Marcus).

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Online learning is tricky, in that sense. There is also a question of how students receive this education. If only about ten percent complete these courses, how many have actually learned something, or felt as though their course added a new level of excitement to their life? It is hard to tell how many people have felt as though the courses have made the subject less of a mystery, or if it was just another class they too, although it was different because it was online. From that point of view, although some people truly value courses offered online, this kind of education, via MOOCs, is ineffective at providing an education that users could consider meaningful.

Here’s the problem.

The concept of online learning is not a new one. Colleges and universities have been utilizing the Internet and the advantages of it for instructors to collect papers and offer quizzes and tests. One instructor in particular, Joyce Hurt (an instructor at the Governor’s School of South Virginia), uses her experience and research to relate to her readers the importance of a worthy Internet connection and having a “face-to-face” interaction between instructors and their students. The reason for this, she explains, is mostly a disadvantage toward the students when in a distance/online learning situation, to the point where the students taking part in distance/online learning were feeling “isolated”, or they did not possess the motivation or the “discipline” (Hurt). This is important to consider because not all students are the same, and not all instructors are effective at teaching when not physically there to provide the material. Some students do possess the skills necessary to succeed in these kinds of courses, but others do not, and they would be better off not taking the courses offered online. In a perfect world, people who did not learn well from an online environment would have the option of taking the same course in a physical location with the same benefits, but what purpose would that serve? It would completely contradict the purpose of MOOCs, or online education in general. The problem is discerning whether or not someone is willing to put themselves through rigorous courses whether or not it was for fun or to seriously learn the craft online. It is things like this that impact whether or not MOOCs are effective in providing a meaningful education.

Although it is proven by some researchers that online learning is not for everyone, students taking courses online feel as though those courses are ineffective. Online education may be convenient, and it may be flexible, but according to students taking a social work course at James Cook University, the course was ineffective at reinforcing the material being taught through these courses. In fact, the students agreed that it would be ideal if there were some degree of face-to-face interaction with the online instruction as a guiding tool (Johnston). These students provided relevant information because they were the ones to go through the course. It is important to note that these students did figure their experience was valuable, but it was ultimately considered ineffective because of the way the course was delivered. Regarding students that take MOOCs, they too take these courses because they are convenient and flexible. However, looking at the information gathered, it should be taken into consideration that the information taught would not be received as well as if it were taught face-to-face. It can be inferred that these social work students possessed the skills necessary to ideally succeed in their online course, but it is one thing to learn material face-to-face and another to absorb information from a computer screen. With this kind of evidence, it should be noted that it is also challenging to convert a face-to-face course to fit the Internet medium.

Admittedly, there has been some research done that suggests that there really is no difference between a face-to-face course and one that is taught mainly online. That is, according to Joy L.M. Brown, “[w]hen comparing the average grades in the web-based courses to the average grades in the land-based courses, there was not much difference.” With this kind of evidence, it is hard to deny that these courses may well be used in place of face-to-face instruction. However, the way courses were taught in the online setting, instructors took precautions to ensure their students were on top of their coursework. Although instructors who teach online courses via MOOCs may try to accomplish the same thing, there is no way that everyone can or will take the time for these precautions, or they may not consider taking precautions for such courses. It is a nice thought that this kind of evidence could hold true for all online courses, but realistically, not every course will be as successful as they were in Brown’s study.

Is there a solution for this?

One source, Jeffrey R. Young (Harvard educated editor for The Chronicle of Higher Education), has compiled a list of tips that help to make MOOCs a more successful experience for educators creating them, but can equally apply to prospective students, from students who have successfully completed the courses already.

The first in this list involves “clarity and organization.” According to the article, this means understanding that glitches do exist, and they will cause problems (Young). However, this also means staying on top of things to make up for the technology failures. Although MOOCs are a convenient and flexible way of attaining knowledge, they also require a certain level of self-motivation, or intrinsic motivation. In Medical Education, intrinsic motivation is defined as “the desire to do something because it is inherently interesting” (Masaaki). While formal education provides external motivators, such as grades and a degree, massive open online courses do not. They may offer certificates, but those are relatively meaningless in today’s society. That certificate proves you learned a thing, but it does not do much more than that. Unless the purpose of taking the MOOC is to expand your personal knowledge on the subject and learn for the sake of learning, it does not matter to potential employers. So it is important that to be successful with these courses to keep that factor in mind. Those who have completed MOOCs before have this understanding and complete them anyway because they love to learn, and they have this intrinsic motivation. So it is easy for them to adjust and utilize clarity and organization while taking these courses.

Another tip Young suggests to these instructors, and by extension potential students, is that “passion matters most.” This is very fitting because while it does apply to both instructor and student, it implies that to be successful in these massive open online courses, intrinsic motivation is necessary. Joseph Sanacore suggests that there is something instructors can do about their students, if they are not feeling the love of learning required to succeed in any course, whether or not it is offered online. Through his research, he has found that it is important for instructors to provide their students with “well-matched sources across the curriculum” and “well-trained…instructional support” (Sanacore). Truthfully, the issue of an instructor teaching on a MOOC being [well trained] is less likely to be a problem because the instructors teaching these courses are normally already teaching at top-notch universities. They were hired for their expansive knowledge of whatever subject they teach. The real issue here lies in whether or not instructors provide sources for their students to be intrigued by. The students taking the course have made the choice to take it already, which means they already have an interest in it. There is nothing to dictate the courses they choose to take, so their interest is a real one. The trick is to keep their interest by not only being a phenomenal instructor, but also providing them with other interesting, exciting sources that will provide information that will keep students on their toes. From a student’s perspective, it is also good for the student to take advantage of how knowledgeable their instructor is and the sources they provide. It is important for students taking these courses to realize the amazing opportunity in front of them. This will aid in igniting that passion to learn, and in essence provide some sort of motivation for students to continue in the course and be successful.

These are good ideas, but….

It is important to realize that while these are relatively okay ideas to fix this issue of MOOCs being ineffective at having some sort of lasting effect on people. However, they could be made more effective if they were tweaked a little bit. Combining and being stronger together could improve them substantially. People should recognize how intrinsically motivated they are because in the long run, it could affect how much of an impact the education they’ve earned really made a difference. It would also help if people chose the courses they really were interested in taking. Honestly, it is one thing to choose a bunch of courses to take because they sound interesting, but it is another thing to take a course because of how exciting it sounds, or how interested you are in it. Still, it is also important to take into account how extremely advantageous it is to have professors from reputable universities teaching these courses for free. They have chosen to provide their knowledge and educate the general public, and if that does not strike a chord within you, it needs to. Having someone with that much knowledge and prowess is such a gift, and while they need to take into consideration how well they’re teaching the material, there is some level of passion within their course and how they teach it. It is equally important for a student to take the initiative and go the extra mile with their studies for their courses to make their time useful. Professors should provide their students with extra sources that are equally interesting, and students should take advantage of these sources. Although, it should be noted that the extra sources do not need to be necessary to pass the course, but for the course to have some level of meaning, students should consider looking into the sources their instructors provide. A combination of the solutions listed above, with some clarifications would be more effective than simply implementing one or the other.

So… Does that mean MOOCs can be more effective?

Not exactly. While there are some things both students and instructors can work on to make their experiences better and more meaningful, there is no way for everyone to have the same kind of learning experience with these courses. Mostly, it depends on how intrinsically motivated students are. For students to be successful in these courses, they need to get over the fact that they will not get credit that serves a purpose in today’s society. They need to realize that these courses are there for the sake of educating the public. It should not deter anyone from taking the courses, but the effectiveness of a course rests on the student’s shoulders. Everything comes with a price, and in MOOCs’ case, that price is your motivation.