Completion rates for MOOCs are ridiculously low – and my completion rate specifically is appalling. I did successfully complete Kevin Werbach’s Coursera MOOC on Gamification (which I can recommend although it is business not education focussed) but aside from that there has been a long string of MOOCs that I have signed up for and then slunk away from after a week or two. Most recently this includes ANU’s Edx MOOC on Ignorance. Why did I sign up for that? No idea.
This is a MOOC that ties directly to my work as a learning technologist and for which I even have a learning outcome / project in mind. I’ve been asked to find a good in-class instant response system (polling/multi-choice) to get better live learner feedback in lectures.
I’ve also read the research indicating that people who pay a small fee are far more likely to complete a MOOC than average participants, so I’ve signed up for a verified certificate.
Now I think I might try to find some study buddies to ratchet up the pressure a little further.
How do you stay motivated in a MOOC? What is your complete/abandon ratio like?
I’ve been using Moodle for 3-4 years now but as a big part of my job is to train our teachers in it, it seemed wise to sign up for the new Teaching with Moodle MOOC being offered by Moodle.
It’s run by Mary Cooch (@moodlefairy) and her deep knowledge of the tool and the pedagogical approaches that work with it are on display from the get go.
This MOOC is aimed at beginner users but I have to admit I still picked up some handy tips – the ability to show one topic/section per page – and there is already a rich bank of posts and questions on the discussion board about user experiences around the world.
Teaching with Moodle only started on Sunday this week so there is plenty of time to get up to speed. I was able to whip through the activities and resources for the week in a bit over an hour. As with all MOOCs, it does suffer from the overwhelming weight of numbers in some of the discussions (1500+ introduction posts) but this is a minor quibble.
On the weekend I wrapped up studying Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, a free 4 week/module online course offered through Open2Study
Open2Study is the MOOC* offering of Open Universities Australia, a more conventional provider of free online education and training.
Structurally, Open2Study courses use a fairly standard framework – four modules composed of ten short videos (4-10 mins) of a presenter talking to camera. After each video is a single multi-choice question and after the final video is a ten multi-choice question assessment quiz covering the content from the module. Discussion forums are also provided but not supported/moderated by the person delivering the course as far as I can see and links to additional reading/resources are also made available.
In terms of rich educational design, there’s something left to be desired in this model but at the same time, it’s a free resource drawing on the skills and knowledge of some talented people and it does provide a decent introduction to the topic.
Negotiation and Conflict Resolution was developed and presented by Dr Andrew Ley of the Macquarie University Graduate School of Management. The first two modules focus on negotiation, the third touches on conflict resolution (with a slightly heavy leaning toward understanding the origins of conflict at the expense of practical solutions in conflict resolution) and the final module focuses on communication skills.
Dr Ley is an engaging and clearly knowledgeable presenter and the videos make decent (and sparing) use of basic text and the occasional image to illustrate key points. The videos are delivered via YouTube and make effective use of the Interactive Transcript functionality. This enables learners to quickly scan the content of the video and click the text to skip to particular sections of the video.
This is an effective way of dealing with the difficulties in scanning the information presented in videos.
The discussion forums were scantly used – Dr Ley did suggest that learners discuss particular questions in the forums at several points in the later videos but it was left to the learners to start these posts and subsequently this tended not to happen. A more effective strategy for using the forums would’ve seen either Dr Ley or an Open2Study moderator facilitating discussion here by raising an initial question and providing responses to interesting student comments (while not dominating the thread). Wrapping up the discussion with a summary of the thread and/or further issues to consider would also be good practice.
A PDF with references for further reading is provided for each module, however it seems like an oversight not to provide these as URLs where possible.
Overall I’m glad to have the opportunity to access this level of training for free and at my leisure and if you are interested in gaining a richer understanding of some of the key principles and strategies of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, it is well worth signing up for this course. The next intake starts on 15/09/14 at https://www.open2study.com/courses/negotiation-and-conflict-resolution
From an educational design perspective, it’s adequate but there is room for improvement – but hey, it’s free, university level education.
*I say MOOC because this has come to be the default usage of the term but my personal feeling is that true MOOCs should have a far richer learning model than content/quiz/content/quiz
Stephen Downes pulls few punches as he discusses how the current iteration of the MOOC is far removed from the original ideas behind it.
This has also been a concern of mine – the much touted innovation seems like anything but. While I remain unconvinced of the strengths of the connectivist model – at the very least for my preferred learning style – the original form of the MOOC was very much about embracing a substantially different learning paradigm than we see today.
Among other things, he says “I think they are marvels of marketing and of the naivety of venture capitalists. Looking at the platforms from a technological point of view, I see virtually nothing innovative. These courses [reach] 100,000 or more people, but use video lectures and old-style threaded discussion lists. The idea of Moocs as an experiment in pedagogy and educational organisation has been completely abandoned by the new platforms, to the detriment of Moocs.”
I’ve often felt daunted by the volume of posts and chaotic nature of discussion forums in MOOCs – glad to see that I’m not the only one. Interesting that posters tend to be higher achievers though.
Some well thought out ideas about the issues surrounding the use of forums in MOOCs – what happens when there are hundreds of pages of posts on the first day or subject experts dominate discussions?
Some useful lessons about running MOOCs gained by looking at a poorly run one. The fact that these courses were still being built as they were being delivered – something perhaps not uncommon in face-to-face land but rarely an inspiring sign – should have been the first give away. It’s hard not to think that this was the result of a top-down “OMG, everyone else has a MOOC, we have to have one too, now, now now” mentality that even I have been bumping up against lately
