Openness and Innovation in MOOCs

Here is my response to an insightful post on Innovation Confusion, where Cole says:

some of the best conversations I’ve ever had in this field have centered around the ideals of openness, but now that the MOOC thing has happened the same people who built rallying calls for more open access to learning are now rejecting this movement. Why? Because it is driven by corporations trying to make money? Because it isn’t really open? Because the press isn’t giving a few people the credit they believe they deserve? Because these aren’t really courses?

I can’t speak for others on pro or anti-MOOC, but for me, I have been both excited and interested in this MOOC movement since its inception in 2008. If we are being honest with integrity, in truly embracing a spirit that: Higher Education is a basic human right, and what we are aspiring to is democratising education, then I think few would oppose to this “Education Revolution or Transformation”.

Would people be more reserved or careful in stating their visions, and missions, in terms of profits or non-profits, and whether they are going to offer course (like MOOCs) truly open and free? Openness and free has been one of the hall-marks of MOOCs, at least in attracting people to join. Would that concept of openness and free change upon time?

At the start, many MOOC providers said they would not endorse or offer credits transfer or recognition. May be this is all changing, when the environment has changed. These are all good news, from certain perspective, as more learners could get a great education from the “best professors” and “elite institutions” of the world. Why not going for it? I see all these as positive movement, though it is also a disruptive innovation, from my point of view.

Most institutions have understood that the best way to combat a disruption (MOOC) is to set aside a separate institution (i.e. a MOOC provider) which is separated from their own institutions. If such MOOC succeeds, that they could safely transition into the disruptive model with MOOCs, and could then survive and thrive. On the other hand, if they don’t do anything on that, or not responding with appropriate strategy, then they could be overtaken by the MOOCs and other institutions. Embrace MOOC or face decline.  Not many people are highlighting the use of such strategies and strategic positioning, as many are educators, not education strategists.

I don’t claim I could predict this all, but the principles of safe-to-fail is evident in this MOOCs strategic adoption. Institutions cannot and would not afford to fail at this critical moment, with the strategic use of MOOCs. This together with the call cards of the superb professors and (Khan Academy) etc. would surely change the game all over, leading every one to focus on the development of MOOCs as strategic opportunities, with positive energy and direction, as also hailed by Cole.

How do I see MOOC? I see MOOC as a pedagogy, a tool, a platform and technology affordance which evolves from one generation to another, with certain ideology changes throughout the past years. I think education business has its economic and educational roots and both profits and non-profits have always evolved and emerged when education becomes a critical mass. I have shared in another comment that “we have to live with it, if that is the way education is structured. Have we tried to adapt, shape and change in a way that truly transforms education, as a community, with our transformative learning in action, especially with the early cMOOCs? It has ignited the passion of learning, for many, I think. Who want to see education left broken? May be there is a highway, though it is much more difficult for people to chart it out, as the money comes into the way. From a historical perspective, education has always been inter-mingled with business for profits, technology and culture. I do hope there are more visionaries who would take up the “lead” in truly transforming education, and not being lost in the craving of profits with greed. Learners and learning must come first, in building a better and stronger nation, and world.”

We hope we could continue to chart out all the positives from the MOOCs, though we should also be cognizant of what these mean for our and next generations. This is not just about getting a neo-liberalism sort of education, or privatization to improve education, but a whole new philosophy of education that sets off a new landscape and landmark in the historic moment of education. Don’t we want to leave a great legacy? A renewed world of education that advances human towards a better future, rather than building just empires or walls between education, and chains, as a result of competition. What do you think?

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On Higher Education

Bonnie posted an interesting post relating to education – participate or perish.  She highlights the discourse around education is broken.

Refer to FB posting.

Who decide the future of higher education? Who are the “customers” of education? In an education business, are customers always “right”? When students are treated as customers, what would happen to professors, institutions, and education? Who should be on the spotlight? Without customers, what would happen to the education business?

It may be time for me to retreat for a deep meditation, at this time of turbulence. Sounds like a tectonic shift happening in Higher Education resulting from MOOC movement. We are in such a crossroad of “participate or perish” that we don’t quite know where we are heading. Do you know?

Bonnie Stewart i agree that education as a system is less about learning than it is about management of the ceremonial societal functions of credentialing, which is a business. but it isn’t a simple divide: institutional models had a particular way of weaving the two together, and that’s currently under assault on a number of fronts. making credentialing purely a business with a profit motive will effectively leave learning out entirely, which is why i’m pushing for something else that harnesses the org structure remaining in institutions but uses the capacities of networks too.

My comment:

Yes, so true, and we have to live with it, if that is the way education is structured. Have we tried to adapt, shape and change in a way that truly transforms education, as a community, with our transformative learning in action, especially with the early cMOOCs? It has ignited the passion of learning, for many, I think. Who want to see education left broken? May be there is a highway, though it is much more difficult for people to chart it out, as the money comes into the way. From a historical perspective, education has always been inter-mingled with business for profits, technology and culture. I do hope there are more visionaries who would take up the “lead” in truly transforming education, and not being lost in the craving of profits with greed. Learners and learning must come first, in building a better and stronger nation, and world.

Yes education = credentialism especially when getting HE is used as a gateway towards getting a good job, or obtaining a set of skills. There are some learners, parents in the west who might not see the linkage between getting a degree and a good job, as the modelling from famous people like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs revealed the exact opposite to those traditional belief.

If you get a higher degree like a Master in Education, does it mean that you could teach better? There are challenges when many famous people commented on education system – that teaching might be done better by those who might be “less qualified” and have not got a teacher qualification. Why? They don’t have the baggage that most teachers have to bear – formal lesson plans, structured linear curriculum design, individualised mentoring and coaching plan etc. Compare that to the video lectures, where some are talking heads, whilst others are short video clips with a few minutes of “rush-hours” of teaching, a summary of key points, followed with a quiz. Isn’t it deep learning? It doesn’t require much thoughts, except a good memory to keep answering the questions, and remember the right answers. How do they ensure good mastery learning? Is it even close? Only rote learning is promoted.

Take a look at the eastern education system, where examinations are used to evaluate students’ “rote learning”. I could recite a whole paragraph coming from a text, or following the steps in getting the right answers to a Math problem. Am I an A+ student? In this case, I could get my certificate, and a degree, but then what follows? The real world business doesn’t ask me to do what I have remembered, it doesn’t even know if I know how to apply those skills, until I have demonstrated that at work. So, why are so many students in the US falling out of school? Why are so many students in China so excited in getting into Higher Education, and to Universities? With university degree, those Chinese students would have hopes to get a better future. Does it happen in the US? This would take another blog posts and discussion to share further. Here are some videos relating the Chinese Examination and Education System.

From Best Practice to Creative, Innovative, Emergent and Novel Practice with MOOCs

I have often come across instructional designers and institutions grappling with best practice, in instructional and curriculum design.

A research on instructional design indicates the various “best practices” ranging from teacher-centered approach with LMS, to learner-centered approach with PLE/PLN.

Here in a paper on MOOC-Design-Principles.-A-Pedagogical-Approach-from-the-Learner by Lourdes Guàrdia, Marcelo Maina, Albert Sangrà:

focus on empowering learners in networked environments for fostering critical thinking and collaboration, developing competence based outcomes, encouraging peer assistance and assessment through social appraisal, providing strategies and tools for self-regulation, and finally using a variety of media and ICTs to create and publish learning resources and outputs.

These MOOC Design Principles are well argued and grounded.  In reflection, there are many useful strategies that are applicable both for the c and x MOOCS.  I would argue that these are based on emergent practice rather than best practice experience.

What sounds like best practice often doesn’t deliver to its promise, despite huge efforts in promoting and educating various designers, instructors and assessors.  Why?  The reasons lie mainly with the assumptions behind what makes best practice, especially in MOOCs.

In my previous post relating the differences between x and c MOOCs in attracting number of participants, I discuss on:

4. Degrees of difficulties – xMOOCs are much easier compared to cMOOCs.  This is grounded on that in xMOOCs, the instructors would have done most, if not all of the ground work necessary for teaching and learning for the learners.  What the learners are normally expected to do would be to consume the knowledge transmitted or broadcasted to them, and to confirm their understanding of the concepts through repeated quizzes or assignments.  This requires certain perseverance from the learners, though it is possible to achieve a high or perfect score in test, assignments and examinations through drills, repeated practice, as is common in a rote learning scenario.   The use of standard answers in the case of multiple choices, true/false, or short case scenarios, could all be checked with automated grading or assessment software.  For peer assessment, these are done in a closed manner, with the merits of “protecting” the learners from being “criticised” in public, but the demerits of being critiqued by only a few participants (4-5 other peers) in the whole evaluation.  Nevertheless, this seems to be well accepted as a way to assessment in the xMOOCs, as that might be the only feasible and reliable way to assess students in an institutional environment, without overly involving the professors in the assessment.

On the other hand, cMOOCs are much more difficult in terms of the wide array of skills and capabilities – such as a thorough understanding of the various artifacts posted, an evaluation of the artifacts, an aggregation of information, and the re-mixing, re-purposing or re-creating of posts that are based on knowledge creation and re-creation.  These artifacts or posts are also publicly available for assessment by peers and other educators, leading to further critique and discourse.  The main assessment has still been based on the feedback of the instructors, in the case of for-credit participants, though the assessment for non-credit participants are based on an optional basis, without any particular feedback report from the instructors (as this is not possible for the instructors to deal with massive number of participants).

5. Perceptions of learners – xMOOCs are based on 1,2,3 above, and 4 – learners – cMOOCs would have to curate resources and create blog posts/join forums.  The centralised platform (LMS) typically employed in the xMOOCs may be much simpler than the blogs and Personal Learning Environment/Network (PLE/N) as used in cMOOCs.

6. Pedagogy – xMOOCs employ a familiar pedagogy – mastery learning based on an instructivist approach (behavioral/cognitivist strategy) and peer assessment, whilst cMOOCs employ a relatively demanding pedagogy – social constructivist/connectivist approach which could sound chaotic at first sight.

xMOOCs rely principally on video lectures, resources posted on the LMS/main course website,  followed by questions, quizzes, some forum discussions, assignments, tests and examination.

cMOOCs rely principally on the connectivist principles as proposed by George and Stephen, with networked learning and connectivist knowledge based on aggregating, re-mixing, re-purposing and feed-forwarding of information.  As I have suggested here.

I still think the notion of best practice would be applicable only to simple scenarios of the Cynefin Model as developed by Dave Snowden.  You could have good practice under complicated learning scenario.  In the case of complex learning scenario such as MOOCs (especially in cMOOCs), then it is important to realise the emergent practice which is relevant, rather than good or best practice.  In the case of chaotic learning scenario such as cMOOCs,  novel practice is required in the curriculum and instructional design.

In summary, design of curriculum and instruction for MOOCs could be based on sound design principles as the research into MOOC reveals.  It would be imperative to move from best practice to creative, innovative, emergent and novel practice in the case of MOOCs, based on the needs of the learners, and the learning context, rather than the traditional “best practice”.  One size doesn’t fit all, especially in learning in MOOCs and so it would be necessary to consider emergent design learning principles rather than the “static” instrumental didactic instructivist approach in MOOCs (such as xMOOCs).

Pictures: From Google image