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Established education providers v new contenders

economist.com

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Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#41

Post by kxyvr »

One auxiliary thing to consider with MOOCs and higher education is how it changes the power balance between administration and faculty. Faculty members own their course notes and take them with them when they retire or move universities. My understanding with MOOCs, and certainly it could be incorrect, is that the administrator of the MOOC owns the course and material even if the faculty member leaves. This leaves a clear conflict of interest for the administration because if MOOCs do take off in a substantial way, they can not only reduce the number of faculty, but reduce their negotiating power as well. That would shift power at a university.

Now, this has nothing to do with the quality of MOOCs. Mostly, it's just to say that I think there are conflicts to be mindful of as certain people and organizations either support or not support these courses.

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#42

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

jononor wrote: post #35
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonalds isn't merely a more "efficient" burger, and that's the point here. Cutting substance in favor of cutting price (or being "efficient") has been a disaster in American culture -- from food to education.

What key substance of education is being cut with a MOOC? And how can we minimize it?

Interactive lessons and Socratic style teaching, for starters. My best courses were all relatively small (10-20 people) and based around guided discovery. Technology could replicate some of that, but there are two problems for scaling -- it requires an interactive teacher that can respond not only to right answers, but wrong ones, and the group size cannot become too large. So you could do it online, but the 'M' in MOOC gets in the way.

Then there's the less class focused aspects -- office hours, homework groups, meeting classmates, etc. Some of this is replicated online, bit it would take dozens of emails or forum posts to replicate 30 minutes of one-on-one discussion with a professor (or even classmate). Much of the value in my education came out of study sessions and being exposed to other people's understandings and interpretations and needing to learn to explain my own. Small study groups using online collaboration tools (eg, voip and whiteboard apps) help with that, but MOOCs don't have the same tendancy to encourage that interaction that real classes do (and I'm not sure I buy online is the same as in person -- and I say that having worked remote before).

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#43

Post by garysieling »

misterbishop wrote: post #22

MOOCs are the McDonalds-ification of education. It's disgusting honestly. Western Capitalism is utterly failing to provide a decent, affordable secondary education even to its relatively privileged middle class, so instead they try to convince us that watching a few videos is a decent substitute. We know how capital views education, just get a service job and watch the horrific training videos. That's what Khan Acade…

Those "horrific training videos" are usually made to comply with some regulatory or insurance requirement, as opposed to being actual training.

In this issue of the economist they indicate that most of the people who are using MooCs are are already working and using them to increase their skills. While the people marketing MooCs may pitch it as a replacement for school, I don't think that's the reality for most people.

Consequently I would suggest thinking of the "credentials problem" as how you demonstrate a new skill to an employer - I the answer may be not be a certificate at all, e.g. maybe a portfolio site, side project, etc.

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#44

Post by garysieling »

TACIXAT wrote: post #38

I am really disappointed by my Masters program online courses because of the quality of the low cost online courses available on the web. I pay 3000 dollars a course for a professor reading slides and forced discussion. On the other side I have paid 27$ for 70 hours of very high quality content. Professors in universities are not primarily educators. Many are contract or research focused. Teaching is their secondary…

I always thought part of the value of a degree was the people you meet, so if you're getting a degree purely through online interaction it's hard to see how the school could compete long-term.

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#45

Post by garysieling »

pyoung wrote: post #6

I am a huge fan of MOOCs. I strongly believe that these courses and this style of education will be one of the greatest by-products of the modern internet. I was a happy and eager participant in the 'early days' (I took ~2 years off of work in 2013-2014 to re-charge, and took a number of online courses for fun), and here are some of my thoughts: - Completion rate is a very poor metric to measure the 'success' of the…

In one of the previous MooC discussions some people indicated that they felt guilty for not finishing classes, which might be a deterrent.

I think there is value in having someone pick good ones, so you don't waste time starting things that are poorly recorded, etc.

The site up thread is good for this- https://www.class-central.com/

My project (https://www.findlectures.com) is built to help discover standalone lectures (conference talks, etc), which I hope helps the people who feel guilty not finishing stuff :)

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#46

Post by posterboy »

The title is disingenuous, because the "providers" are the same universities "providing" traditional professors and infrastructure. What's new is that top universities can compete at a larger scale.

Still, if they can provide further, then because they are standing on the shoulders of giants, so it's not really a competition if the gigantic amount of competing unis has any relevance.

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#47

Post by kxyvr »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #42
jononor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What key substance of education is being cut with a MOOC? And how can we minimize it?

Interactive lessons and Socratic style teaching, for starters. My best courses were all relatively small (10-20 people) and based around guided discovery. Technology could replicate some of that, but there are two problems for scaling -- it requires an interactive teacher that can respond not only to right answers, but wrong ones, and the group size cannot become too large. So you could do it online, but the 'M' in M…

I went to an engineering school that had a very difficult time with their drop out rate. One of the biggest indicators of success, meaning graduation, was the students incoming math ability. Basically, if the student came in and took anything less than calculus when they first arrived, it was more likely than not that they'd drop out. Eventually, the math department added mandatory attendance to all lower level math courses and the affect was dramatic. The graduation rate went way up for these students.

Now, graduation rate is only one possible metric. That said, many universities do have hard data and that data generally states that classroom attendance leads to better outcomes overall. Certainly, that doesn't work for all students, but it does suggest that there still is a tangible, substantial difference between being in class and not.

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#48

Post by misterhtmlcss »

pauljaworski wrote: post #20

I'm very lucky to have started learning programming before these companies were figuring out their business models. I took the very first Udacity courses when they were completely free and was able to launch my career as a software engineer with the knowledge I gained from them. I was making barely enough money to survive at the time and had no idea if I actually wanted to make a career out of programming. If I had b…

I'm taking some Udacity courses now and mine are free, from what I understand the courses themselves are all free unless there is an inherent cost, however if you want a nanodegree or some other mentoring etc, then those added value options will require joining as a paid member which is as it should be.

As well I agree with you, for me I've learned recently that having a mentor and paying is demotivating for me. I like clocking hours and hours studying to learn software development on my own and pushing myself is far more motivational than having someone else adding structure and deadlines. I would have never thought that until it happened and I was like wow I'm slacking off now rather than clocking the huge hours I was doing before on my own.

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#49

Post by misterhtmlcss »

garysieling wrote: post #44
TACIXAT wrote: post #38

I am really disappointed by my Masters program online courses because of the quality of the low cost online courses available on the web. I pay 3000 dollars a course for a professor reading slides and forced discussion. On the other side I have paid 27$ for 70 hours of very high quality content. Professors in universities are not primarily educators. Many are contract or research focused. Teaching is their secondary…

I always thought part of the value of a degree was the people you meet, so if you're getting a degree purely through online interaction it's hard to see how the school could compete long-term.

Wow paying $10k+ to network, that's great value. I might as well go shoot myself now, because that's just idiotic. Sorry for being harsh, but that's something I couldn't disagree with more and sounds like someone coming from a very very privileged background too.

Re: Established education providers v new contenders

#50

Post by samblr »

For people who are passionate about learning - MOOCs have come as a blessing. In 2016: I've seen a VP grade candidate finish Andrew NG's Machine Learning Course with good grades and certification on linkedin. And a desktop support person in our old office has got a new job as jr programmer.
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