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MOOCING About Dr Marcus O’Donnell Journalism/LTC

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Dr Marcus O'Donnell discusses the value of MOOCs

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MOOCINGAbout

Dr Marcus O’Donnell

Journalism/LTC

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The past few years have brought mounting evidence that higher education stands at a crossroads. As with any disruptive technology, MOOCs have been viewed with enthusiasm in many quarters and skepticism in some. However, the underlying facts are inarguable: that the rising cost of education, combined with the transformative potential of online teaching and learning technologies, presents a long-term challenge that no university can afford to ignore.MIT President L. Rafael Reif.

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sustaining v disrupting innovationAny industry has both sustaining and disruptive innovations. Most people are very familiar with the former, which are meant to drive up prices by delivering bigger, faster, stronger products and services for the best customers. Disruption, on the other hand, changes the nature of performance itself, usually driving down prices. Together, these two vectors keep costs in line.

Higher education, however, has historically seen only sustaining innovations. To outpace fellow institutions in the game of college rankings, schools have improved classrooms, updated technology, sponsored faculty research, increased administrative overhead, and decked out residence halls and dining facilities. Costs have spiraled out of control.

Clayton M. Christensen and Michelle R. Weise

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The learning landscape

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MOOC by numbers

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where?

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Pros and Cons

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Why?

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MOOC value proposition•  Attracting applicants and engaging alumni. Penn State’s GIS Mapping MOOC led to a 400% increase in traffic to the GIS program website.•  Creating communities of learners. In Penn State’s epidemiology MOOC, learners from high school students to doctors and public health professionals connected to discuss vaccinations and public health.•  Using MOOC components in traditional courses. Penn State professors have been using MOOC lectures and other resources in their traditional face-to-face and online courses.•  Using MOOCs to advance research. Penn State professors are also using what they learn from MOOC students for their own research projects.

Pennsylvania State University’s online provost Craig Weidermann

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levels of engagementViewers “watch lectures, handing in few if any assignments.”

Solvers “hand in assignments for a grade, viewing few if any lectures.”

All-Rounders “balance the watching of lectures with the handing in of assignments.”

Collectors “primarily download lectures.”

Bystanders are “registered for the course, but their total activity is below a very low threshold.”

2014 Coursera study of 300,000 MOOC participants

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Album or Playlist - unbundling HE

MIT Report argues for modules over subjects:

• Students could retake any module they have trouble with before moving to the next concept in a sequence.

• A modular approach would make it easier for professors to teach a course together, since faculty members could tackle a section rather than a whole course.

• Updating a module when new information emerges is easier than redesigning an entire course.

MIT Report

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6.9 million clicks - what works?

• Brevity (viewers generally tune out after six minutes)

• Informality, with professors seated at a desk, not standing behind a podium

• Lively visuals rather than static PowerPoint slides

• Fast talkers (professors seen as the most engaging spoke at 254 words per minute)

• More pauses, so viewers can soak in complex diagrams

• Web-friendly lessons (existing videos broken into shorter chunks are less effective than ones crafted for online audiences)

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab study of EdX

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LecturescapeLearning from MOOC design

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University of Wisconsin at La Crosse “UW-System College Readiness Math MOOC”

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Hybrid design-just add MOOC?MOOCs can successfully be used by traditional F2F courses as part of a learning design

Does not affect learning outcomes

Does require very careful design

Student feedback is often contradictory:

• MOOC “seemed like a separate course.”

• “learned more in this course than a usual lecture course,”

Maryland Study