Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention • Hacker News Board

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#101

Post by amirhhz » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 12:24 AM UTC

dpmehta02 wrote: post #91

michaelochurch wrote: post #37

The issue with Coursera is the synchronous model. The material's good and the selection's excellent, and they deserve a lot of props for solving such a critical problem. College life is sanitized. Real World interjections are rare enough, at that age, to be handled case-by-case when it comes to extensions and such. Adult life is messy and complicated-- sick parents become more common, job demands fluctuate-- and sync…

Strongly agree with all of michaelochurch's points, especially #1. Frankly, it baffles me that "career tracks" weren't (and still aren't) a core component of the MOOC product offering. (I actually applied to YC S13 with a solution to points 1-3.) Duke researchers who actually taught a course on Coursera put together a comprehensive report on their experiences. In it, they specifically address the drop-out issue. I hi…

#1 resonates strongly with me, too, as I've also been thinking about the best way to put MOOCs into tracks/streams that lead to an end goal (e.g. become a data scientist) and engage learners that way.

I'd love to talk to someone who's on the same page, do you think I could pick your brains on this? If so, a contact email is on my profile page :)

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#102

Post by cliftonmckinney » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 12:48 AM UTC

amirhhz wrote: post #100

cliftonmckinney wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is correct, for the most part. Call me a dirty capitalist, but I think that especially for problem no. 1 the solution probably needs to involve--in a significant way--those who have the most incentive to see it solved. Generally, the incentive for students comes from curiosity, desire to learn new things, and maybe the desire to broaden career options, but not really from "profit," at least in the short…

Took the words right out of my mouth. Have you had any experience with getting companies/employers involved in something like this? I've been thinking about how MOOCs would fit into streams (or tracks as someone else here said) that lead a learner to an end goal e.g. data scientist, and companies are the most qualified to come up with the criteria for meeting such goals.

Not as it relates to MOOCs. IIRC the stated business model of Udacity is related to helping graduates find jobs.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#103

Post by tripleggg » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 12:54 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #96

jcheng wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting and appealing description, but sounds pretty different than what Wikipedia has to say about ADD. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_disorder#se...

It sounds different, but I am simply giving more detail about what happens inside of the disorder. Any decent book written in the last decade will confirm my description. People with ADHD or ADD don't have executive control of what they will focus on. Inability to focus on what you're told to focus on is noticed in most environments as not listening to instructions, inability to stay on assigned task, poor attention…

Why medicate? So he can pay better attention in class? So he can pay better attention to the teachers who are mostly wasting his time and talents? Why not find alternative means of educating your son that suit his temperament.

I believe our education system is harmful and hostile to boys in general and especially ones who have "ADD." There is Khan Academy and there is your boys curiosity and then there is your own creativity. Between those three things I am sure you can arrange an alternate (better!) way of facilitating your sons education. I know this may sound like a radical idea, but felt it my duty to submit it for your consideration.

I myself did well in school, but was bored and demoralized. I would have been farther ahead in life if I could just explore on my own and educate myself on the "need or want to learn" basis. I.E. whenever I was fascinated with a subject or needed to know something to complete a project, I'd learn it.

P.S. I can relate I think I have mild ADD as well. I just don't think it's a disorder or is harmful in life.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#104

Post by mark_l_watson » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 1:00 AM UTC

That was a well thought out article, a good read, and I don't agree with most of it. I think Cousera is Amazing.

The only thing I don't particularly like is the inflexibility on turning in assignments. I completed five classes but did not pass one because something happened work wise that caused me to turn it several assignments late and that really knocked down my score. Great class though.

I have also started four other classes that I dropped after 1-3 weeks. I am still glad I was exposed to some of the material for those classes, so still a positive experience.

Accepting the figure that 95% of students drop classes on average, I would like to know if most of those people in general felt their time had been worthwhile spent. That is the important question.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#105

Post by avenger123 » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 1:07 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #67

StavrosK wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. I wouldn't be motivated enough to follow 4 courses if it weren't for the synchronous model.

I think the real "dirty little secret" is that not nearly as many people actually want to learn a topic as think they do. The author said he really "intended" to take the class, but did he? Or did he just like the idea of it? Learning is hard work. Learning difficult subjects is harder still, and it's very demanding of your time. There's really no way around that fact. Let's be honest here, a lot of subjects sound in…

I truly believe you have really identified the elephant in the room with online learning (especially the free sites).

Learning is hard work. Period. Granted, its a different kind of work, and can be really enjoyable. As you stated, you need to put in the time and certain topics cannot be "watered down" too much no matter how hard the instructor may try.

The benefit of these sites are that anyone can sample the menu as there is no real downside. If one were to actually pay some fee for the course, the chances of sampling the different courses would really go down.

I don't believe there really is an issue here. Being able to try out different courses and realizing what you like and don't like is so incredibly powerful.

What can be improved on is to identify these types of learners. Coursera could start out right of the bat asking, "How likely are you to finish this course." The metric of completion should not be used to judge a course either.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#106

Post by mark_l_watson » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 1:09 AM UTC

zura wrote: post #80

pamelafox wrote: post #13

(Coursera engineer here) It's great to see thoughtful critiques like this. Thankfully, we have a data analytics team now (3 out of our 17 engineers), and they are studying our retention statistics and the factors that affect it. They're also running A/B experiments to see what increases it and getting some interesting results. We do see some big advantages of the timed model for learning, particularly in classes with…

For me, the killer feature would be the availability of textual/reading material corresponding to 100% of the content provided by videos. So successfully completion of the course won't require watching the videos.

You may want to rethink that. For most of the classes I have taken the lectures were very enjoyable. I like the frequent quiz breaks also. The videos have captions if you like them.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#107

Post by DennisP » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 1:21 AM UTC

I actually often "never really intended to seriously take the class in the first place." Coursera doesn't let you view the materials unless you sign up for the class, so I sign up for every class I might be interested in browsing a little. Then I can view the materials at leisure, even long after the class is finished.

On the other hand, I mostly completed the first algorithms course and Model Thinking, and while Daphne's class kicked my ass the first time, I'm already reviewing to tackle it again and try to finish it this time.

It is true though that the time commitment is horrendous, especially for Daphne's class, which estimates 15-20 hours per week! If I fall behind, I may finish slower than their schedule and miss the homeworks and final exam, in which case I'll officially be an incomplete but I'll still have gotten through all the material.

In short, retention is an irrelevant metric for online classes, especially for Coursera which has such a strong incentive to sign up "unseriously." My suggestion would be to keep accepting and grading homeworks and exams at any time, and give extra props on the certs for completing on time with the other students.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#108

Post by DennisP » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 1:25 AM UTC

denzil_correa wrote: post #23

One of the main problems the author has with Coursera or EdX is that it is "too fast". To address this problem, I urge the author to try Udacity [0]. You can set learning at your own pace. That said, not all material on Coursera is "amazing". Some of the classes have very high completion rate like Functional Programming with Scala has a 19.2% completion rate [1]. Similarly, the class taken by Andrew Ng on Machine Lea…

Koller's class is difficult, but it's a graduate-level CS class with almost all the same material as the class at Stanford. I thought she taught it well. It was rough, and I didn't make it through the whole thing the first time, but I'm back to try again.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#109

Post by zallarak » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 2:06 AM UTC

The title of this article is very exaggerated and needlessly so. The only reason you see awful retention numbers is because it's so easy to sign up. Even if I'm only partially interesting in a class, I'll sign up. I often sign up for 4 or 5 classes that I'm interested in and will finish 1 or 2 per term, just so I don't miss the chance to sign up later/have access to course materials.

If you have issues with the class, that's a personal problem and you simply need to work on your willpower.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#110

Post by timedoctor » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 2:19 AM UTC

I think a major problem with retention is that the course is not a recognised qualification.

The next step for online education is get a real qualification that improves your job prospects through places like Coursera.

Also I think there are a bunch of other hacks such as collaborative motivation (getting a group of members to commit to each other to complete the course and automatically reporting to each other when they have completed each section where everyone in the group has collective responsibility to help each person in the group to complete the course.