Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

texastribune.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 80 posts

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#41

Post by loteck »

gamesbrainiac wrote: post #28

I think this emphasis on completion rates are a problem. I take a lot of MOOCs, but not all the content in said MOOCs are important. I just watch the parts of courses that are important or relevant to what I am doing, and call it a day. For people learning from non-conventional sources, they are used to using bits and pieces from different online sources and building up their own courses and their own paths. This fas…

I think the problem here is the framing of the headline.

Considering MOOC signups are completely free, a percentage alone tells you nothing. 4% of 100 signups would be appalling. 4% of 60,000 signups is still thousands of people successfully completing courses, and is actually a success story.

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#42

Post by bythckr »

The issue is with how MOOCs is used and what the creators expect from it.

I have signed for many MOOCs but not completed even 1 till date. But I got the knowledge I needed and got the task done. To me MOOCs is an organized google search or detailed stackoverflow/wikipedia.

Plus my extreme aversion towards "exams", is also a reason. Never found an incentive to get a paper that tells I know something. Plus, despite having certificates from school & university, I don't remember the stuffs I learnt. I forgot most stuff after writing the exams. Sadly, some even before writing the exam.

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#43

Post by strken »

the_jeremy wrote: post #16
tony wrote: post #15

These are for MOOCs, not online degree courses, though. There's no certifications with these. You can't get an accounting, law, or medical degree, bachelor/associate certificate, or anything you'd need professional accreditation for. Maybe the completion rate is similar for people who buy books. I'd end up getting a book thinking it'd be an investment as it would be good as learning a subject. The next day I didn't r…

> Maybe the completion rate is similar for people who buy books. There's an even lower bar to entry: all the MOOCs I've participated in have been free.

They might be free, but all the MOOCs I've participated in have required a weekly time commitment to complete them, which is a sort of hidden cost completely separate from money. I've started the Stanford ML course on Coursera three times now, and each time some real-life thing has come up and taken me out of action for a couple of weeks.

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#44

Post by tmh88j »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #31

Georgia tech's online masters in CS is the complete opposite (and orders of magnitude closer to a normal academic environment) than MOOCs, and the reason is all obvious design decisions / incentives. Like any degree, Gatech's program has a permanent academic record, rules for grade quality in order to not be on academic probation, etc. If you don't have the incentives in place, then many people will find excuses to n…

>If you don't have the incentives in place, then many people will find excuses to not commit. MOOCs are lacking those incentives.

I haven't researched this, but I would guess the $6,600+ cost has more to do with the high completion rate than any other factors. Most MOOC's seem to be pretty cheap, if not free.

Not to mention, completion of the Georgia Tech online program results in a degree. MOOC's typically just offer a certificate of completion, which carries little weight.

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#45

Post by georgeburdell »

I have a PhD, earned while on a prestigious national fellowship, and graduated with highest honors in undergrad. I graduated earlier this decade. I have enrolled in a single MOOC to keep my skills current in my field, and I couldn’t finish it. Maybe it’s because I work now, but I simply couldn’t find the time to complete the lab assignments when only putting in 10 hours a week. My sample size is low, but I get the impression that some of these MOOCs basically demand that you have traditional student-level time and focus to complete them. Is that wrong? Perhaps not, but 4% then becomes unsurprising for a completion rate.

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#46

Post by hos234 »

Chathamization wrote: post #35
gamesbrainiac wrote: post #28

I think this emphasis on completion rates are a problem. I take a lot of MOOCs, but not all the content in said MOOCs are important. I just watch the parts of courses that are important or relevant to what I am doing, and call it a day. For people learning from non-conventional sources, they are used to using bits and pieces from different online sources and building up their own courses and their own paths. This fas…

Very much this. I think a large issue with MOOCs is that they're too focused on emulating the structure of a university class - focus on lectures, community built around specific classes, focusing on the metric of course completion rather than on attaining skills, etc. People who successfully teach themselves things (and right now, there are many people using the internet to teach themselves things) often have a very…

People who "successfully" teach themselves are overrated (good examples being Trump or Zuckerberg). They might be successful in a few dimensions (purely out of self discipline and above avg energy levels) but totally miseducated in many others because people don't know what they don't know. Without the right guides, feedback processes, environment and time(lots of time) most people usually end up taking all kinds of wrong turns.

Education not something intuitive, even if there are many paths. If it was we would just be leaving kids in libraries.

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#48

Post by vintermann »

rhacker wrote: post #47

I watched the Andrew Ng videos in coursera - I honestly didn't care about any course work, I was just trying to watch the vids... did I do something wrong?

Not exactly, but the coursework is worthwhile. It's well designed so that you get to only focus on the topic at hand, not setup or scaffolding of any sort.

You really get a feel for how to turn an equation into vectorized code, which the video lessons can't give you.

I've completed the first Ng course, the later five-course specialization, and a few other courses (Odersky's Scala course among them). Still, 4% doesn't sound unreasonable: I too have enrolled in more courses than I completed.

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#49

Post by jdc »

hos234 wrote: post #46
Chathamization wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much this. I think a large issue with MOOCs is that they're too focused on emulating the structure of a university class - focus on lectures, community built around specific classes, focusing on the metric of course completion rather than on attaining skills, etc. People who successfully teach themselves things (and right now, there are many people using the internet to teach themselves things) often have a very…

People who "successfully" teach themselves are overrated (good examples being Trump or Zuckerberg). They might be successful in a few dimensions (purely out of self discipline and above avg energy levels) but totally miseducated in many others because people don't know what they don't know. Without the right guides, feedback processes, environment and time(lots of time) most people usually end up taking all kinds of…

Your point that self-education often tends toward narrowness is well-taken, but I strongly disagree with the implication that any significant number of autodidacts are overrated in the way that your two examples are.

Re: For Online Courses, Questions Over How Success is Measured (2014)

#50

Post by ekianjo »

hos234 wrote: post #46
Chathamization wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much this. I think a large issue with MOOCs is that they're too focused on emulating the structure of a university class - focus on lectures, community built around specific classes, focusing on the metric of course completion rather than on attaining skills, etc. People who successfully teach themselves things (and right now, there are many people using the internet to teach themselves things) often have a very…

People who "successfully" teach themselves are overrated (good examples being Trump or Zuckerberg). They might be successful in a few dimensions (purely out of self discipline and above avg energy levels) but totally miseducated in many others because people don't know what they don't know. Without the right guides, feedback processes, environment and time(lots of time) most people usually end up taking all kinds of…

The rate of 12 years old kids who can barely read suggest that current school systems don't work too well either, so what do you suggest?
Post reply on HN