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Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

rein.pk

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Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#131

Post by lawnchair_larry »

nbouscal wrote: post #35

I don't see how something can be a "dirty secret" when everyone already knows about it. This is not news, and I think the author is well aware of that and just wanted an eye-grabbing headline. As for courses being too fast: they're college courses. That's a core part of their value proposition. If they were slower, or did not follow a rigid schedule at all (like the "better" examples presented in the article), they w…

Or should you not criticize dissenters just because it happens to fit you? There could be a better way for more people, regardless of your personal experience.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#132

Post by lawnchair_larry »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #92
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #55

That's because online education tries to simulate traditional education. Back awhile ago free online lecture videos (e.g. Berkeley) were simply uploaded to a page and anyone could go watch them without signing up for a class or otherwise jumping through hoops. This resulted in me watching a few random lectures about subjects I know little or nothing about. Like econ classes, engineering, science, or similar. This was…

> I can go to Khan Academy right now, click on a video series, watch a few bites of information and then stop when I'm ready/bored. You can. But you wont. The sad fact is that deadline motivate people. Without having deadlines and structure coursera would have gone nowhere.

This claim is baseless. Please reserve it for after various MOOCs have tried different models and the data supports it.

It's possible and even likely that the schedule contributes to motivation for many, but my experience has been the opposite and I'm probably not unique.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#133

Post by lawnchair_larry »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #55

That's because online education tries to simulate traditional education. Back awhile ago free online lecture videos (e.g. Berkeley) were simply uploaded to a page and anyone could go watch them without signing up for a class or otherwise jumping through hoops. This resulted in me watching a few random lectures about subjects I know little or nothing about. Like econ classes, engineering, science, or similar. This was…

I agree with many of your points but the main reason I use Coursera is because it's an actual course, with structure and quizzes and assignments. I personally find Khan Academy to be useless, and I've tried to use it (Edit: useless for me, but I do think what he has created is fantastic). I think I would find it useful as a supplement to an existing course, and that's what it was originally designed as. Very few people learn anything of moderate complexity without doing exercises throughout.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#134

Post by lawnchair_larry »

darrellsilver wrote: post #51

Pacing is incredibly important to motivation. The thing is, there's no single answer. Even in traditional, full-time, in person classrooms where everyone puts in the same class hours, natural ability, different skills at the beginning and better attention mean that students will always learn at different speeds. The ideal model is one of personalized education. What's kind of shocking is that online education so far…

This is not only a shameless plug but is actually a load of crap.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#135

Post by zura »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #106
zura wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I find them enjoyable as well, but it is about time. I'd spend much less time with reading materials.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#137

Post by lessnonymous »

I find most of the comments on this post fascinating. Probably partly due to the audience, and partly due to the slant the author took on the topic.

His bait is retention .. and that's something HN readers understand from a business POV. But retention isn't his issue. Retention is a problem for Coursera et al.

His problem (and mine) is that we (personally) found it hard to stay the course. And Coursera don't help us.

I've a full time job, two side projects, a small business and a family. I'm about to start the Gamification course and I probably wont finish it because I don't have time. Not because I don't want to, but because the course expects all students to spend 4-6 hours per week studying. Those weeks would be rare for me.

How hard would it be to offer a 2 hour-per-week version? Or whatever commitment I'm able to make? Then, when the inevitable happens, let me hit the 'pause' button.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#138

Post by michaelfeathers »

We could come up with a bunch of excuses about why online education will always have worse retention, or we could figure out ways to fix it.

Or we could ask whether it is a problem. I'm not sure that it is.

I don't think the numbers are surprising or unnatural at all. The thing to compare them against is not traditional education but rather the patterns of all people who take the autodidactic route.. every person who has ever picked up a book and not finished it. Even then, the comparison isn't perfect.

In fact, we could argue that low retention numbers are actually a good thing for non-credit courses. It means that the content is challenging and focused, and that people are able to discover early whether it is or isn't for them or cherry-pick the content that they need and move on.

If there are usability problems, fix them. But if participant retention got dramatically higher, I'd worry.

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#139

Post by [deleted] »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #134
darrellsilver wrote: post #51

Pacing is incredibly important to motivation. The thing is, there's no single answer. Even in traditional, full-time, in person classrooms where everyone puts in the same class hours, natural ability, different skills at the beginning and better attention mean that students will always learn at different speeds. The ideal model is one of personalized education. What's kind of shocking is that online education so far…

This is not only a shameless plug but is actually a load of crap.

[deleted]

Re: Online Education's Dirty Secret - Awful Retention

#140

Post by darrellsilver »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #134
darrellsilver wrote: post #51

Pacing is incredibly important to motivation. The thing is, there's no single answer. Even in traditional, full-time, in person classrooms where everyone puts in the same class hours, natural ability, different skills at the beginning and better attention mean that students will always learn at different speeds. The ideal model is one of personalized education. What's kind of shocking is that online education so far…

This is not only a shameless plug but is actually a load of crap.

Please elaborate. Unless "load of crap" fully articulates your argument. If so, thanks for the feedback.
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