The Drawbacks of Massively Open Online Courses
There is always that new craze that begins and becomes popular, and then slowly dies down. We are at the peak of popularity for online education. MOOCs, Massively Open Online Courses have become popular for students, wanting to seek education through the internet. Mathieu Plourde dissects MOOCs in this illustration.
We live in such a digital world where people are constantly tweeting, facebooking, and posting their latest pictures and comments. Through these social media sites and use of the internet students of all ages can now participate in education, through the internet and online lectures. Courses have open registration, are full with 100 to 100,000 students and have open contact with other students (Plourde). However, students involved in MOOCs miss out on the college social life, and student teacher interaction, as they work to receive a certificate that may not be viewed as reputable as a college diploma.
Those Who Made it Happen:
Anything that we would ever want to know can be gleaned from the internet. We can simply “google it.” Years ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a project called OpenCourseWare, making all of the materials including lectures and assignments from their school free and available online (What You Need to Know about MOOCs). MOOCs became popular due to five main startup companies, edX, Coursera, Udacity, Khan Academy and Udemy. Now that MOOCs have started and have become popular Universities and companies are changing what they do. These companies have made their lectures available to students and those online. “Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and several Ivy League universities were the first to offer this form of MOOC involving some of their most popular professors” (Young). Professors from all over began to see the success that these courses and online lectures had for students, as other major universities, Harvard, Berkeley, and MIT, started to offer these courses. They began to put video lectures and other useful sources online for the students.
A Network for Learning:
MOOCs are not just schools or online courses, they are sites set up so that students can collaborate and engage with other students who are also seeking learning. MOOCs are courses that are open, participatory distributed and give you a life-long network for learning (MOOC.me).
It is a place where those who care about a topic or are eager to learn more can talk with those that are also interested. Students can interact and learn together through chat boxes and sharing assignments with others. MOOCs allow for the work students put into assignments to be shared with other students. MOOCs are collaborative, students learn from one another’s work. Those who participate in MOOCs have complete control of what they do, how they participate and the only ones who can decide their success in the course (MOOC.me).
Though these courses have been seen to be successful for students they have their drawbacks. In college, there are essential elements that add to the success of the student. Students who take MOOCs miss out on the social life of college. Friendships are built as you interact with classmates and other students on campus. Most who attend universities and colleges live in dorm rooms with roommates who they may or may not know. Friendships are built upon these interactions. Communicating with others is a vital skill today. Though you can use chat boxes over the internet to talk to other classmates you do not get the full effect. Not only do MOOCs lack the student to student interaction, it also lacks student to teacher interaction.
The Vital Classroom Setting:
Environment is everything. It influences your mood your actions and much more. A classroom environment has a huge impact on your learning. Without attending a classroom setting there is no physical student to teacher interaction when taking classes in front of a computer screen. Robert Murphy, an economist for the Institute for Energy Research said, “MOOCs lacked many of the core aspects which people seek in traditional college classes. Most notably, there was almost no student to teacher interaction by which a student could get his questions answered. It is not surprising that one on one time would be scares when the students outnumber the professor by thousands to one.” (Murphy)
This graph, from Learner Weblog, illustrates the different types of interactions that are important and necessary for “deep and meaningful learning.” Having student to teacher interaction in the classroom can help students better understand the material and content of the course. Students can go up and talk to the teacher after class, and the lectures are current and live in which you can stop and have a classroom discussion by raising your hand when you have a comment or question.
Students interacted through the internet by grading and reading each other's papers and using chat boxes. In an article titled, MOOCs: Disruptive but Won’t Replace Brick-and-Mortar Institutions, the author discusses how MOOCs can do well at addressing to the needs of students but does not do well at helping all types of learners (Jane). Many learners are hands on which cannot be addressed through a computer. Other students are visual learners, and though they can watch the lecture it is not the same as sitting in front of a white board, with the teacher lecturing at the front of the room. In a classroom setting, you can use different methods to understand concepts but over the internet you cannot talk one on one with your professor, see labs, or work through homework one on one. A teacher can come to know the students better and their needs as they physically interact and speak with them. With MOOCs, students do not interact with the teacher with their homework problems, or issues which they need help with, because the students are often the ones reading and grading each others' papers, through chat boxes and leaving comments.
The Teachers’ Part:
Many may wonder how much effort these professors are really putting in to teach these courses. There are thousands of students enrolled, and to reach out to each student and help them on a personal level with their questions and needs is nearly impossible. Do they really have their whole heart into it? When there is a ratio of one teacher to thousands of students do they really put there whole heart into teaching? Or do they teach to the masses only teaching one way? Or are they really passionate about teaching the students and desire for them to be successful? Many of these professors have teaching jobs on campus, and are already busy enough with the work they put into maintaining their classrooms and course work. Professors must post their lectures respond to student’s emails and questions and fulfill the other duties that are required. Brandi Scardilli explains, “. . . a single MOOC takes between 100 and 300 hours of preparation and between 8 and 10 hours of maintenance per week. Video production costs alone can range from $15,000 to $50,000, depending on how much the MOOC creator is willing to spend.” (Scardilli) The courses always require upkeep, and the professor or instructor’s job is never done.
The Employer’s View:
Through all the money being spent the time and effort that is being put into these courses do people really think highly of them? Through my research about MOOCs, I have wondered how employers are looking at these courses. Depending on who you go through, to take these MOOCs you may or may not receive college credit. However, if you do you can receive a college diploma. But if you do not, all that is given is what we give to the soccer player a congratulations and a job well done whether they played the game or not they still get that matching trophy with their name and date engraved. Some of these courses are given a certificate of completion, and as the soccer player a job well done. Today if an employer is given two similar applications are they more inclined to hire someone with a diploma from a prestigious university or someone with a “certificate of completion” from taking an online course? I believe that nothing will ever replace a diploma. They look good on job applications and résumés, and will never “go out of style.”
Completion is easy:
Just as employers wonder how reputable some of these courses are another disadvantage is how reliable they are. Computers never work perfectly, the internet is not always a click away and there are always glitches in the system. From the article, 5 Reasons Why MOOCs Provide Little Real Value, Justin Ferriman explains, “Here is something I found interesting: I clicked on the introduction video link and waited for the video to load. My connection was a little spotty, so I closed the window. Even though I didn’t watch all but one second of the video, the line item was “checked off” as complete. Surely there is a more accurate way to track user progress, right?” (Ferriman) If something can be counted as completed when in reality one has not even fulfilled an assignment how can we rely on these courses. Cheating is so easy with these MOOCs. One can turn on the video and then go do something else, and when they come back the assignment for watching the video, or going through the PowerPoint is marked “completed” and checked of the list of requirements. Though the course claims to be completed have they really completed the learning and education that comes from it? This is what is causing employers to think.
Motivation and Accountability:
MOOCs are based completely on your own personal work ethic. There is very little accountability, and one must be highly motivated to complete and succeed in these courses. In order to complete these courses, many of which give you flexible time to complete, you have to be highly motivated and you are held accountable for what you do or do not accomplish. Many might say that in a classroom setting you have to be motivated as well which in fact is true. But in a classroom setting it is a time set aside for you to only focus on that subject and getting your work done. Classes online are often very flexible and can be done at your convenience. It is easy to say that you can do it later but it is so easy to fall behind. From the article, Online Courses The Real Challenge Is “Motivation” a tool has been created that can measure and assess the intrinsic motivation of a person. This is called the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory. This tool measures “. . . participants’ interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, effort, value/usefulness, felt pressure and tension, perceived choice while performing and given activity, and experiences of relatedness.” (Bennett and Monds) It goes on to tell of a study that was conducted using this Intrinsic Motivation Inventory to access online classes. They noted that the satisfaction that the students had with the course was significantly correlated to their intrinsic motivation and their final grade of the class. (Bennett and Monds) Because not all students have this motivation, MOOCs are not as good of a choice as courses taught in the classroom at universities.
My Solution:
Before this craze of online courses gets any more popular, I think that action needs to be taken to clean up the glitches, the sites need to run properly and rules need to be set for these online courses. These courses need to only be through universities. That way they are up to standards on what is being taught, what is required of the student, and what is learned and understood from the courses. With these guidelines students in front of a computer screen and students sitting in the classroom are still putting the same amount of time work and effort into the classes. This will help employers know that who they are hiring no matter if they received an online degree or a diploma from a university will have received the proper education required to meet the qualifications for a job. Employers will not have to debate between someone with a completion of a MOOC and someone with a college diploma because it will have all been taken from approved universities. I propose that universities require at least a couple of courses to be taken in the classroom and then the rest can be taken online, so that students can have the classroom environment and interact with other students.
During the duration of the course, professors should have sections of the class meet together in the classroom once a week or a few times during the course to do activities, labs and other classroom instruction and insure concepts are being understood. Having group conferences with the instructor could also help students on a one-on-one basis. These instructors should only have one job. And that is teaching the MOOC. There is too much to do if you are teaching a university course on top of the MOOC. These guidelines will help to make MOOCs a success.
Society needs to keep our brick-and-mortar colleges and our traditional classrooms to get our education. Students need the social life of college to interact with other students, and to communicate with them. We need people with diplomas, whether they come from universities or MOOCs. Students need to decide that they will be successful, professors need to put their heart into teaching, and MOOCs can be a collaborative success for students.
Work Cited
Delbanco, Andrew. “MOOCs of Hazard.” LexisNexis Academic, 2013. Print.
Ferriman, Justin. “5 Reasons Why MOOCs Provide Little Real Value.” Learn Dash, 2013. Print.
Murphy, Robert. “MOOCs’ Place in Education.” The Center for Innovative Justice and Technology, 2013. Print
Jane. “MOOCs: Disruptive But Won’t Replace Brick-and-Mortar Institutions.” Microbusiness Mentor, 2013. Print.
Bennett, Cynthia F.; Monds, Kathaleena E. “Online Courses the Real Challenge is “Motivation.” College Teaching Methods and Styles Journal, 2012. Print.
Scardilli, Brandi. “MOOCs: Classes for the Masses.” Information Today, 2013. Print.
Bradley, Paul. “Survey: Community Colleges Remain Wary of MOOCs.” Community College Week, 2013. Print.
Maderer, Jason. “Georgia Tech Announces Massive Online Master’s Degree in Computer Science.” The Wall Street Journal, 2013. Print.
“Economic and Business Dimensions Money Models for MOOCs.” Viewpoints, 2013. 25-28. Print.
Skolowich, Steve. “Georgia Tech, Coursera Try to Recover From MOOC Stumble.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Print.
Cormier, Dave. “What Is a MOOC?” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 8 Dec. 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2013
“What You Need to Know About MOOCs.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2013. Print.
Young, Jeffery. “In a Time of Experimentation: Excitement and Dread.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2013. Print.
Plourde, Matheiu. (Photo Credit). From: Wagner, Janet. “Education Technology Trends – Part I – Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).” Programmable Web, 2013. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment