11–20 of 85 posts
MOOC's are two things, a curriculum and a means of teaching. If either of those are subpar, you can both evaluate that, and/or make a case for why they are detrimental. Aside from that, these are just tools and pieces of content. It's not an existential threat to professors any more than Wordpress is an existential threat to web developers, and certainly not a threat to content publishers.
Educators are going to need to deliver in-person value in excess of their cost. The writing is on the wall, there is no technological limitation preventing world-class instructors from teaching everyone. This will doubtlessly be the first of many attempts by the entrenched to prevent this superior education from becoming the norm, out of fear they can't actually deliver real value aside from presenting slides.
One of the former chairs of our department (CS at the University of Chicago) has a saying, "all curriculum reforms initially succeed." So I'm not surprised that the pilot program had great pass rates, as pilot programs are usually staffed by eager people with amazing support networks who are interested in putting in the time to make it work. It'll be more interesting if SJSU does ramp up their experiments to start to…
I'm sure the acronym MOOC is obvious to those in the area, but I wasn't sure what it stood for, and it seems sloppy to me that it wasn't defined in the article. All it takes is writing "Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)" the first time it was used.
Speaking for my self, a UK student 14 ish years ago doing Computer Science... I found lectures mostly a waste of time. What I found was that the lecturers were simply presenting the latest chapter from the prescribed text book. So, I ended up reading the chapter the night before and just used the lecture as confirmation of what I thought I had learned by reading. Very occasionally I used the lecture to ask some quest…
I'm sure the acronym MOOC is obvious to those in the area, but I wasn't sure what it stood for, and it seems sloppy to me that it wasn't defined in the article. All it takes is writing "Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)" the first time it was used.
"We believe the purchasing of online and blended courses is not driven by concerns about pedagogy, but by an effort to restructure the U.S. university system in general ..."
I agree with him completely here, a large part of this discussion is not about pedagogy but is financially driven. However, unlike him, I think this is a good thing at a time where many universities are battling high costs and students loans have reached record high levels.
The problem with his main argument (and with similar arguments about teacher ratings, etc.) is that it pits the best possible case against the proposed idea in trying to refute it: Isn't having an excellent prof/teacher in flesh and blood who cares about your education better than some canned video? Well, obviously it is, but the point is a lot of professors/teachers are not like that, they, like everything else, have a distribution of excellence.
If we rephrase the argument as: Isn't having lecture videos of good faculty preferable to having an underpaid, uncaring professor/teacher or the option of canceling that course because the university cannot afford it? This is the question that Prof. Hadreas needs to answer, I think.
Educators are going to need to deliver in-person value in excess of their cost. The writing is on the wall, there is no technological limitation preventing world-class instructors from teaching everyone. This will doubtlessly be the first of many attempts by the entrenched to prevent this superior education from becoming the norm, out of fear they can't actually deliver real value aside from presenting slides.
Educators are going to need to deliver in-person value in excess of their cost. The writing is on the wall, there is no technological limitation preventing world-class instructors from teaching everyone. This will doubtlessly be the first of many attempts by the entrenched to prevent this superior education from becoming the norm, out of fear they can't actually deliver real value aside from presenting slides.
There is a limitation: questions and answers. The place professors will have value is in direct student communication.
All too often the argument is framed as "replace professors" etc, but it doesn't have to be so binary.
The coming widespread adoption of MOOCs is another great example of what Jaron Lanier calls Mass Unemployment Events. Driverless cars will be another. Together we trudge on towards a future requiring a basic minimum income.
(Funny story: I have a professor that was in the Center of Mass group for NASA, where they painstakingly calculated the center of mass of each object and part of the shuttle, then computed the center of mass for the whole shuttle. Of course, a computer can do that instantly now.)
I honestly do feel bad for the people that lose their job when new tech comes around, but why should I be forced to subsidize an outdated way of life? Plus, it isn't like new tech kills jobs overnight; the writing is on the wall, and in the case of driverless cars and MOOCs, the transition will probably take at least a decade.
History has shown that improvements in technology increase the standard of living across the board for all classes. A minimum basic income will hurt us in this instance because people will not have an incentive to have jobs that actually produce value to others.