Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#21

Post by the_watcher » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:40 PM UTC

frv103 wrote: post #3

I'm not sure that course completion percentage is necessarily the best metric to be drawing conclusions from. I will often sign up for MOOCs and courses for a single talk, chapter, or topic that I'm interested in with no intention of actually completing the course. I wonder I'm an outlier in this regard or if this approach is much more common than the author of this article realizes.

I've worked in this industry a bit, and MOOCs rarely use "course completion" as their primary success metric. One reason is precisely what you mentioned - that many people simply take the course for as long as they need to get their desired value out of it, then leave. Another was that the team I worked with found that, by far, the single biggest factor in terms of course completion was that a third party (usually their boss) incentivized them to complete it, and of those people, they were more likely to find ways to skip sections, get the minimum scores required to pass, etc.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#22

Post by MrEfficiency » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #2

I've learned everything I know for the last 20+ years after graduating from college at my own pace. I'm sure that's true for most developers.

When you have a project, you learn by necessity.

When you are taking a course to expand your abilities, you learn voluntarily.

I find learning via projects is the fastest and most useful. I am unsure if I will take courses ever again.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#23

Post by Grae » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

These considerations are exactly why we started Thinkful and why we emphasize expert mentorship and accountability so much.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#24

Post by j45 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

I've been a technologist in academic and industry online education for almost 20 years.

Life is not linear. Why are traditional education and MOOCs linear and monolothic? Career paths are no longer linear, but so much education continues to be linear.

The pace of innovation adoption in education is very slow, partially due to the lack of technological abilities of leadership and management in education. There is often little vision, and where there might be, there is fear.

MOOCs do not represent all, or the best forms of online learning. They represent the best of what non technical educators came up with.

MOOC structures are clearly late 90's/early 2000's, I know because I worked on a platform to deliver high school education. Little has changed. Education has moved forward very little, the devices, connectivity, and videos have gotten sexier, but it's too often more of the same.

If anything, MOOCs are a concoction of academia working to deliver traditional lectures digitally, but not using the digital medium as well as it could be.

MOOCs have a place in the world still to be effective, it's just not a gold standard or a silver bullet.

70% of learning is informal and outside of the classroom. MOOCs generally do not address this well.

Self-directed learning is going to be a real thing, because it already is. We search constantly for answers on mobile, to construct new abilities.

Academic Institutions are losing a lot of money and it's estimated at least 1/3rd will close in the next 10 years. Many simply cannot keep up with the rate of change in today's world of disruption in a few years. Most existing curriculum is for positions that don't change often.

A completion percentage is a poor metric because it does not measure comprehension and competencies/skills.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#25

Post by the_watcher » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #17

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

There are two problems with "learn on your own" (more accurate than "own pace") - No-one to guide you if you misunderstand a big concept. You are just left with a lot of reading around - Time. This is why so many contractors are accused of learning on the clients time - because there is so little of your own time.

> No-one to guide you if you misunderstand a big concept. That's partly true, but I've found that stackoverflow is actually full of people who are (surprisingly) happy to explain things and check your work when you get confused.

Stackoverflow is great, and is really one of the most valuable learning resources ever created (seriously, quantifying the total value generated by SO would result in an astoundingly large number). I use it all the time.

That said, for particularly difficult concepts (in spaces that I am not an expert), I've found that having a friend or mentor that I have a personal relationship to be more effective in helping me understand in way that makes sense to me. This is mainly because said person has a better feel for the types of explanations that make sense to me than what would be a more useful answer to a more anonymous person.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#26

Post by nicodjimenez » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

frv103 wrote: post #3

I'm not sure that course completion percentage is necessarily the best metric to be drawing conclusions from. I will often sign up for MOOCs and courses for a single talk, chapter, or topic that I'm interested in with no intention of actually completing the course. I wonder I'm an outlier in this regard or if this approach is much more common than the author of this article realizes.

Great point, courses are way too long. If a course could be completed in a day you'd have high completion rates.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#27

Post by zerkten » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

DavidHm wrote: post #5

Strongly disagree. What you get from MOOCs is directly proportional to how seriously you approach them. Yes, MOOCs do less handholding (aka: forcing adults to behave like adults) than traditional university courses. But they are also 100x cheaper and easier to access. If you approach them the right way you can get way more. I do still believe that for your 1st degree a traditional university is still the right choice…

> Yes, MOOCs do less handholding (aka: forcing adults to behave like adults) than traditional university courses.

It's interesting how much this varies globally. In the UK I had zero hand-holding for my undergraduate degree. In the last two years of high school there would be constant reminders that this would be coming. You'd turn up to lectures, occasionally have coursework that at most counted for 30% of the overall course. There was very limited access to the lecturer outside of the lectures, and occasionally their grad students would help with labs. Most of that was by design, but there was the ability for faculty to get by with minimal effort and not face consequences.

For some courses, I wish I had had access to the level of hand holding that seems to exist in the US at the undergraduate level. Overall, I think that the experience of being left to my devices has worked out better in the long-run, even if my results at the undergraduate level could have been better.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#28

Post by onemoresoop » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #10

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

There are two problems with "learn on your own" (more accurate than "own pace") - No-one to guide you if you misunderstand a big concept. You are just left with a lot of reading around - Time. This is why so many contractors are accused of learning on the clients time - because there is so little of your own time.

> No-one to guide you if you misunderstand a big concept. You are just left with a lot of reading around. Good MOOCs have tests to ensure that doesn't happen. This is in fact how you solve this problem in all large courses, even those taking place in actual physical universities. > Time. That doesn't make any sense. MOOCs require minimal time investment, and are the most flexible. Are you saying that being forced to…

I think that should certainly help procrastinators. When there's also some human interaction, fixed schedule, the cost, the incentive to finish up the course is higher, even if you hate the course...

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#29

Post by dv_dt » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

frv103 wrote: post #3

I'm not sure that course completion percentage is necessarily the best metric to be drawing conclusions from. I will often sign up for MOOCs and courses for a single talk, chapter, or topic that I'm interested in with no intention of actually completing the course. I wonder I'm an outlier in this regard or if this approach is much more common than the author of this article realizes.

Yup, concluding that MOOC formats are more effective is similar to the charter school problem. If you filter for committed people then you end up with better looking success stats. But all it might be doing is finding and filtering those motivated enough to go through a school change process, or willing to put up with some hassle factor of something "online" but still requiring scheduled times, or other commitments. Similar for attendance being a factor for success in the article - it sounded like going in person was the key way to access the extra learning resources.

Filtering for the subset of people committed in a certain way isn't really a proof of a good learning format. And to me, not necessarily the best way to bring education to a wider range of students. Filtering for commitment might be argued that it's effective on some level as an efficient use of teaching resources - but I think that needs deeper examination too.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#30

Post by thinkmassive » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

frv103 wrote: post #3

I'm not sure that course completion percentage is necessarily the best metric to be drawing conclusions from. I will often sign up for MOOCs and courses for a single talk, chapter, or topic that I'm interested in with no intention of actually completing the course. I wonder I'm an outlier in this regard or if this approach is much more common than the author of this article realizes.

I’m taking two courses on Coursera right now but only paid for a certificate in one. I plan to view all content from the other course, however Coursera will not grade the end-of-section quiz for non-paying students.

It seems the only way to “complete” a Coursera course is to pay $50 so the assignments will be graded. At least this is the case for: https://www.coursera.org/learn/battery-management-systems