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72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

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Re: 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

#51

Post by chris123 »

ddlatham wrote: post #12

72 percent of professors who have taught Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) don’t believe that students should get official college credit ... which means the actual number of professors who discount the quality of MOOCs is probably much (much) higher. They are making a huge unwarranted leap when they go from a professor thinking someone doesn't deserve official credit to saying that the quality of a course is low.…

What's a credit worth, anyways? Unless its from a top university, it's worth a steaming pile of non-dischargeable student loans and a McJob.

Re: 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

#52

Post by kenthorvath »

victorh wrote: post #20

The appropriate course credit for online classes is to finish a project demonstrating publicly that you know the material. This option is available right now.

Completely agreed - plaigiarism is rampant because collaboration is so natural and doing work for its own sake does nothing to advance one's understanding of the material.

All subjects, to the greatest extent possible, should be heavily based on collaborative projects that give back to society. Demonstrate your knowledge by contributing original research and ideas to Wikipedia. Contribute to an open source project on github using algorithms and methods you've learned in the classroom.

Society should benefit from the education system, not just through run-of-the-mill degree programs, but from the fruits of the labors of its students.

There is so much untapped potential.

Re: 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

#54

Post by seanmcdirmid »

zanny wrote: post #49
numbsafari wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I ever return to school, I'm going to want what I didn't get nearly enough of in my undergraduate degree: in-person access to professors. I don't want college credit for browsing the web and watching videos. I want coaching, feedback and interaction from people with deep knowledge in their field.

Sounds like you want apprenticeships and mentors, not professors. I do think apprenticing needs to come back, big time, to complement a digital learning curriculum for the grunt work. In my undergrad, I'd say 2% of my time was actually professor-engaged, and the rest was assembly line rote work read-the-book-repeat-the-answer.

> Sounds like you want apprenticeships and mentors, not professors.

Sounds like a PhD program where you really are an apprentice and the professor is really a mentor.

Re: 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

#55

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chris123 wrote: post #51
ddlatham wrote: post #12

72 percent of professors who have taught Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) don’t believe that students should get official college credit ... which means the actual number of professors who discount the quality of MOOCs is probably much (much) higher. They are making a huge unwarranted leap when they go from a professor thinking someone doesn't deserve official credit to saying that the quality of a course is low.…

What's a credit worth, anyways? Unless its from a top university, it's worth a steaming pile of non-dischargeable student loans and a McJob.

This is pessimistic: anything in the top 50 is good enough for many jobs.

Re: 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

#56

Post by baby »

corey wrote: post #48
baby wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they are right. They are many ways to cheat. And there are no ways to prove you didn't. The system on Coursera (the one I tried) is actually very "relax". You have weeks to do your weekly tests, and weeks to do the final exam. You can edit as much as you want your answers, and you can re-do a test which is usually the same questions but with different answers (and also, when every time you submit a test they tell…

It's not just cheating, it's also the fact that when you have to use automated grading, it's much more difficult to create good tests. I hope in the future they offer you the option of taking a real test at a testing center, which is graded by a human being.

You missed the point, the idea wasn't to pass a test. The idea was to follow the course for the sake of learning.

As for the option of taking a real test at a testing center, I don't see the point since it would be US only.

Re: 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

#57

Post by victorh »

kenthorvath wrote: post #52
victorh wrote: post #20

The appropriate course credit for online classes is to finish a project demonstrating publicly that you know the material. This option is available right now.

Completely agreed - plaigiarism is rampant because collaboration is so natural and doing work for its own sake does nothing to advance one's understanding of the material. All subjects, to the greatest extent possible, should be heavily based on collaborative projects that give back to society. Demonstrate your knowledge by contributing original research and ideas to Wikipedia. Contribute to an open source project on…

Seriously, just imagine if a fraction of the students taking the massively popular ML class on Coursera had created a project on Github.

Re: 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

#59

Post by blablabla123 »

saraid216 wrote: post #43
blablabla123 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social part is difficult. I did attend a Coursera Coursera and at the beginning I though, cool, so now I make a study group. They have a dedicated forum for that. So I said, look, here's my study group and I got more feedback than I thought, someone even nearly begging to get in. ;) Then I created a Google Group and posted it in the thread. Guess what: 3 people joined the Group, one was active. (So 2 in total inc…

Well, yes. Everything you learn in education was something someone came up with on their own without being educated first. The point of education is to facilitate that process.

I think the point of structured education (school, university) is to guide you through a topic. When you learn completely autonomously, you can end up with knowledge that is not as relevant as you wished. University courses provide a collection of stuff you can learn.

Re: 72% Of Professors Who Teach Online Courses Don't Think Students Deserve Credit

#60

Post by hipsters_unite »

randomdata wrote: post #22
hipsters_unite wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a potential employer would be able to sniff out somebody unqualified pretty quickly - but at least taking and completing the course shows a certain determination... maybe that's what needs acknowledging instead.

> I think a potential employer would be able to sniff out somebody unqualified pretty quickly In the technology sector, sure. Here we do not even concern ourselves with credentialing to begin with because the work we do is out in the open and easy to evaluate. Other industries, however, are not so lucky and struggle to sniff out the unqualified even with a strong credentialing system. I'm not sure an evaluation of de…

Yeah, I guess in tech we're lucky enough to be able to say check somebody's GitHub and see if they actually can write code...
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