Authentic Learning with projects

Does it sound familiar to you?  This may be new in the Western world.   Or is it new?

This prompted me of my learning back decades ago.  In my second year of Polytechnic University Engineering studies, I spent the whole semester (half a year) learning and working in the factory workshop, doing similar to what this girl was doing, though I was to produce objects based on drawings, with machining, and numerous engineering projects.

Learning could be fun, when working on projects of ones’ interest.

It is however a different type of learning, when learning in a workshop or factory environment, as it requires much more than the knowledge of mathematics and technology.

Remember Taylorism?  And the scientific management principles, where efficiency and effectiveness is the golden rule to achieving best performance in factory.

For those of you who have worked in years in factories, you would surely know what are most important skills at work.  These include team working, communication, information and communication technology, interpersonal skills, problem solving, critical thinking and creative thinking, and leadership skills etc.

Nevertheless, that is the authentic personal learning with projects.  A good start for teenagers!

 

Can we slay the dragon king?

Very interesting presentation on Financial Crisis and the predictions on such bubbles by Didier.

If this theory is able to rightly predict the Financial Crisis, I wonder if this could also help in predicting the Education Crisis – based on the current debates on MOOCs.

There are certain similarities between Financial Crisis and Bubbles and those with education – and Higher Education in particular.

The use of Complexity and Emergence theory could explain parts of the phenomenon we have observed in Higher Education in the past few years, and the theory of Disruptive Innovation as highlighted by Clayton Christensen significantly provides the predication on what would happen to Higher Education and MOOCs.

In the  ”MOOC bubble and attack on public education“:

The MOOC revolution, if it comes, will not be the result of a groundswell of dissatisfaction felicitously finding a technology that naturally solves problems, nor some version of the market’s invisible hand. It’s a tsunami powered by the interested speculation of interested parties in a particular industry. MOOCs are, and will be, big business, and the way that their makers see profitability at the end of the tunnel is what gives them their particular shape.

- See more at: http://www.academicmatters.ca/2013/05/the-mooc-bubble-and-the-attack-on-public-education/#sthash.4f2ukq8l.dpuf

Could we predict what happens next with education, when disrupted by technology and changes in environment?

Harvard Business School professor and disruption guru Clayton Christensen says that a disruption displaces an existing market, industry, or technology and produces something new and more efficient and worthwhile. It is at once destructive and creative.

We are still at an early stage of such innovation disruption, though the trend and pattern is apparent.

Motivation and Intention in participating and engaging with MOOCs

Is intention an appropriate measure of success of MOOCs?

I reckon each person’s intention in MOOCs is different, though the participation and engagement could likely fall into patterns similar to the four archetypes of MOOCs.

My proposition and assumptions relating to motivation and intention in participating and engaging with MOOCs include:

Psychological factors, Like/dislike of MOOCs (as public/commoditised/monetised goods), credentials achivement, & pedagogy used in MOOC as perceived by people could make a difference.

1. How would people’s perception impact on their intention to learn with MOOCs?

1.1 What factors would determine people’s intention to enroll into MOOCs?

- These students/participants intend to browse and audit the programs.  These participants could include: (a) professors, educators and experts in their field or other fields who would like to have a sense of feel on what MOOCs are, and how they are run; (b) researchers and Master or PhD students who would like to conduct researches on MOOCs, as part their faculties requirements or qualification requirements; (c) participants who are life-long learners, who might have got a degree in the field, or in other fields, but are interested in the field of study.  There might be some people who like the pedagogy, and others who dislike the pedagogy.

- These students/participants intend to engage and interact with part of the course content and or other participants with discussion boards.  These participants could include those of the above, but with an intent to complete a few to most of the activities, assessments or examinations,  but have no intention of getting credits or expecting credentials out of the MOOCs

- These students/participants intend to engage and interact fully with the course content and other participants with the LMS.  These participants are more inclined to like the pedagogy adopted, though again there may be a minority of participants who dislike the approach, but not willing to disclose their emotions or feelings in open public.  These sort of feelings towards courses are typical in learners attending most institution based courses.  Feelings of loneliness, lack of interaction with others and professors, and lack of “support” that relate to motivation could be issues and concerns.  Others include the messiness and frustration emerging from the participation in forum and discussion boards, when trolling and “tangential discussions”, negative criticisms are present in the forum postings, and the concerns of moderation.

1.2 What factors would determine people’s intention to like/dislike MOOCs?

1.3 How would such likes/dislikes translate into learning in MOOCs?

1.4 To what extent would learning styles impact on one’s motivation to learn in MOOCs (xMOOCs in particular)?

1.5 How would each of the factors, likes/dislikes and learning styles relate to the four archetypes of MOOCs – lurkers, passive learners, active learners and drop-ins?

2.  Teaching, social and cognitive presence are often cited as the most important factors in successful online presence.  To what extent are these presence contribute to the successful learning in xMOOCs?

3. What are the goals and motivation of xMOOCs participants?

In this article on 6002x-data-offer-insights-into-online-learning (full article here):

It is noteworthy that:

Participation and performance do not follow the rules by which universities have traditionally organized the teaching enterprise:  MOOCs allow free and easy registration, do not require formal withdrawals, and include a large number of students who may not have any interest in completing assignments and assessments.

This finding aligns with what have been found in previous research:

As our research on PLENK (cMOOCs) revealed, many participants of cMOOCs are putting assessment as (lowest) in priority. This is different from the xMOOCs where assessment is given a high priority by the instructors (professors), and may be some students, especially the undergraduate students who would like to use that to improve their performance with their own courses. Besides, there are lots of graduates and adult learners and educators in cMOOCs who are more interested in learning about the pedagogy, the different learning theories, and the emergent tools and technology. They may already have got their qualifications, or that they aren’t keen in being assessed, or being “instructed” under a “mastery learning approach”. There are also professors, experts, professionals who wish to know how MOOCs are designed and run, and how they might be used in their own fields. These all “contradict” to the initial design of xMOOCs, though could be easily accommodated in cMOOCs, as that is exactly what cMOOCs are designed for.

It should be stressed that over 90% of the activity on the discussion forum resulted from students who simply viewed preexisting discussion threads, without posting questions, answers, or comments.

This is not surprising at all, as such pattern of involvement in discussion forum has repeatedly appeared in previous cMOOCs (see Rita and her colleagues’ research publications on MOOCs).  It is typical to note a highly active participation or posting on the discussion forum at the start of a MOOCs followed by an exponential drop in the later part of the course.  Such pattern of engagement may vary from cMOOCs to xMOOCs though as the xMOOCs have numerous assessment components (like homework, examinations) which may lead students to post questions in the discussion forum.

Discussions were the most frequently used resource while doing homework problems and lecture videos consumed the most time.

There are also differences in the cohort of students, with xMOOCs more likely consisting of younger students compared to that of those in cMOOCs.  A more in-depth analysis of the student populations would be needed to compare the xMOOCs and cMOOCs students’ populations.

In xMOOCs, success has been defined by the research authors as the grades students earned.  Measure of success as “achievement”.

In cMOOCs, success has yet to be defined, though many researchers and educators have proposed it to be defined as the achievement of personal goals as set forth whilst participating and engaging with cMOOCs.

“This is also noteworthy that majority of students (75.7%) did not work offline with anyone on the MITx material.”  and that those who did work offline with others have achieved 3 points higher than those who didn’t.  This again illustrates that many students of xMOOCs would likely learn on their own, without resorting to the “help” or “support” from others, especially with a technical course such as MITx- 6002x.

This pattern of online learning seems to coincide with the current mode of learning in an online learning environment, where most students are still learning on their own, with or without the use of PLE/PLN.

Would this pattern of engagement be typical for xMOOCs humanities courses?

These questions posted in the article are interesting for further exploration.

What are students’ goals when they enroll in a MOOC? How do those goals relate to the interaction with various modes of instruction or course components? What facilitates or impedes their motivation to learn during a course? How can course content and its delivery support students’ self-efficacy for learning? Similarly, how can online environments support students’ metacognition and self-regulated learning? Do interventions such as metacognitive prompts and guided reflection improve student achievement or increase retention?

How to save Higher Education?

What should we do to save Higher Education?

I wonder if we could use energy as a metaphor to Higher Education.  Can we save energy (Higher Education) using a behavioral approach?  Rather than telling people how much they could save by investing in education, or what benefits they could have in receiving Higher Education, could we compare how much we could save as compared to our neighbor in terms of the expense (cost) we could save by having Higher Education?

The need of intellectual and scholastic development, not just skills

I am all for the intellectual development, creative, critical thinking skills and scientific mindset embedded in degrees courses offered by Higher Education institutions.

I still believe in degrees offered by Universities to be of great education values to students, and so Higher Education is here to stay.   As compared to Vocational Education and Training, Higher Education calls for a “higher” order education and learning which requires more than the practical and vocational skills, and are challenging people to further their advancement in the creation of new and emergent knowledge and research capability, so as to tackle more difficult and complex wicked problems in the world.

It is overly simplistic and short sighted to provide industry and businesses with a pool of “skilled” labors who could competently do the work for the existing work only.  The world requires a futuristic sets of literacies and competencies where jobs and careers are yet to be created and established.

So, my question is:  Is MOOC the answer to these problems and challenges?

I don’t have the answer.

Reflection on Higher Education, Vocational Education and Training and Online Education

Here is Sebastian Thrun’s reflection on Online Education

The approach adopted by Udacity is highlighted in this How it works.

What do I think?

This approach towards education seems to align more with the Vocational Education and Training – with learning as doing, more pragmatic and practical based approach sort of education and training.

There are some significant differences between Higher Education and Vocational Education and Training.  Higher Education seems to align more with the provision of a broad range of skills and contemporary knowledge as offered in Universities, though Vocational Education and Training relates more to the provision of skills and competencies so learners are ready for work or be more productive and skillful at work.

1.  The purpose of education is to engage with the world, and to prepare the learners to be tenacious and resourceful, imaginative and logical, self disciplined and self-aware, collaborative and inquisitive.  And one of the most important purposes of education is learning how to learn.  Learn globally and act locally, and be connected to the international communities.

2. The purpose of vocational education and training is to deliver a productive and highly skilled workforce.

Learning by doing is a practical way to achieve goals set in learning, and would surely be easily adopted when those skills set are prescriptive and pre-determined by both authorities, businesses, employers, administrators and educators.  The challenge nowadays is that such prescriptive competency often goes outdated within a few years, as Sebastian has pointed out, in particular with the computer, ICT, and Artificial Intelligence industry.  If that is the case, how would one continue to keep abreast of the current knowledge and information trends, and acquire the skills needed to perform at work?

What are the options available to accomplish those education and learning goals related to such knowledge and skills development?  Is life-long learning skills a part of any education curriculum?  Is MOOC part of such a curriculum?  What are the merits and demerits with the use of MOOCs in Higher  Education and Vocational Education and Training?

Transformation of Higher Education – Why is it so hard?

Is transformation of Higher Education possible?  My reflections:

Relating to the ideas on transformation of  Higher Education with improved teaching and education reform as discussed in this article, I reckon this is similar to the adoption of a connectivist approach in Higher Education.  There are still long roads to cross, due to the enculturated values of teaching and research that have been embraced by both professors and administrators for decades.  Besides there are demands of stability under an education system in Higher Education, it would be difficult to transform Higher Education without changing the pedagogy.  Transformation of Higher Education through improved teaching requires a review of the pedagogy adopted in HE.  I would reflect on this important aspect in another post relating to MOOCs.

Carl envisions and demands better teaching, with push backs from other academics due to challenge of traditional values and cultures that have been in the education system for decades.  I think many professors do know what could be done to improve & innovate teaching.  Higher Education values research over teaching, and that wouldn’t be changing as research “creates” & generate new knowledge, whilst teaching would at best transmit knowledge, as generally perceived by professors and students.

For those very smart & talented students, wouldn’t they just need minimum guidance and would then excel as Carl has cited in the article, under an apprenticeship model, with graduates?  For under-graduate students, only the top and talented students would learn most effectively with such model, as they are self-motivated and regulated.

For most other students, there are still needs for close support and mentoring, that are obviously absent if the only way to learn is the 50 min mass lecture method.

If I were to ask Carl: Is your Nobel Prize based on research or teaching?  If the answer is teaching, then would professors be considering how to improve teaching in a deeper way?

Besides, all PhD and Doctorate programs are still focusing on research as a principal means to gauge and evaluate a persons’ achievement in scholastic and research in the field.  How would we expect  professors to spend time in “teaching” their students when such PhD students are already good enough to learn with technology and network affordance?

But would this be an over-simplification of what teaching of under-graduate programs are all about?  Teaching concepts or correcting misunderstood or incorrect concepts in science is important.  However, would the use of MC and T/F or short answer questions be good enough to inculcate the values and applications of science in real life?

Some students would still prefer lecture method, and so many professors would continue to do so (and I think I would practice it too), as any negative comments or feedback from students would only lead to professors adopting more teacher-centered approach, when they are reminded that these are what the students want – to know the answers to the examination, tests, quizzes and assignments straight away, instead of spending time exploring themselves.

Some students are uncomfortable with this approach—even if it’s more effective. “I remember getting an evaluation from one
[UCSD] student who had just finished my course,” says Simon, a pioneer in the use of peer instruction within her field. “I loved
it. It read, ‘I just wish she’d have lectured. Instead, I had to learn the material myself.’ ” See above article.

Numerous researches have hinted that students want simple and effective means of learning, not complicated or complex tasks which are both time-consuming and difficult to perform.  That is the reality and challenge that most educators and professors are facing Higher Education.  Isn’t it?

The old motto: “Tell them what you want to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you have told them” have now been “transformed” into various formats of video lectures (both mass video lectures and short video lectures with quizzes – like those on Youtube), teaching posts or artifacts, or a combination of face-to-face lectures with online tutorials/quizzes – MC, T/F, and short answer questions, or peer assessments, or eportfolios.

Learning from Social Media

To what extent could social media be used for formal education?

As shared in my posts here and here:

For autonomous educators and learners who are learning via the broader networks, with webs and internet, it seems that blogging would likely serve their needs better in “broadcasting” and reflection of their learning or teaching.

Forum and network platforms such as Moodle, FB, wiki would then be “gateways” for open sharing and discussion of ideas.

Twitter would be ideal of information links and dissemination of news and sharing of links to blog posts or event updates, and real time postings of presentation or conference.

How far would institutions be ready for the decentralized approach (i.e. Connectivist learning) be adopted in online education and MOOC?

“The adoption of MOOCs in formal education institutions is challenging, though it opens up new opportunities to experience the co-creation of networks within communities and new and participatory forms of communication and collaboration for both learners and educators.”

Kop, R., Fournier, H., Mak, S.F. J. (2011). A Pedagogy of Abundance or a Pedagogy to Support Human Beings? Participant Support on Massive Open Online Courses. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Vol 12, No. 7 (2011).

What would be critical in the introduction of social media in formal education?  Social media should be introduced with a vision and purpose in mind, especially under a formal institution infrastructure.  What sort of pedagogy would be aligning with the design and use of social media when fused into formal education?

Reflection on MOOCs

This post reflects on: 1. MOOCs for Community Colleges 2. Reasons why xMOOCs are so successful in attracting massive number of students 3. Marketing and branding of MOOCs 4.  Impacts of xMOOCs on Community Colleges and Universities in Higher Education 5.  Interaction and teaching in MOOCs (x MOOCs)

1. MOOCs for Community Colleges Are MOOCs viable for Community Colleges?  Yes, the officials say.

“We have the opportunity to target our resources in terms of the higher interaction models to the needs of students, as opposed to having a one-size-fits-all for an entire class,” Koller said.

I think there are huge potentials in introducing xMOOCs into Community Colleges, despite the MOOC controversy throughout the past 18 months.  Such challenges include the incident where Amherst rejects edx moocs, and Harvard for free meets resistance as US professors see threat.

The latest news is that that Georgia Tech and Udacity roll out massive new low cost degree program.  There would be more xMOOCs providers partnering with Colleges and Universities in the provision of xMOOCs in the future.

2. Reasons why xMOOCs are so successful in attracting massive number of students xMOOCs have been very successful in attracting and enrolling hundreds of thousands and even millions of students to their MOOCs, and the reasons include:

1. Branding and affiliation with elite institutions and professors. Branding, is the new name of the game, under a MOOC arena.

2. Well established courses with rich support on resources and assessment (grading/peer assessment).  Both c and x MOOCs are structured courses, though cMOOCs have been based principally on a decentralised system with input and contribution from the participants whilst xMOOCs have been based principally on the curation of the organisers (course designers and instructors).

3. Granting of certificates of achievement or statements of attainment (in recognition of the learning and achievement).  This is especially the case for x MOOCs which could attract learners to attend the course, especially as they are still free.

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.

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.

3. Marketing and branding of MOOCs I could see MOOCs now entering the marketing phase – i.e. MOOC refers to Marketing Online Open Courses based on the concepts of open marketing as mentioned by Philip Kotler here, with creating, communicating and delivery value of MOOC to target market customers.

4.  Impacts of xMOOCs on Community Colleges and Universities in Higher Education

In this post relating to MOOCs: “There has been a lot of debate on the merits of xMOOCs in terms of disruption, business model and academic quality. While I think these questions are interesting, the more important impact from xMOOCs can be seen in terms of forcing higher education as a system or culture to no longer ignore online education as a self-contained side issue and instead evaluate the role of online education for all of higher education.”

What would be the reactions of administrators, college professors, educators and college students towards xMOOCs?  What are the merits and demerits of using xMOOCs in Community Colleges?  To what extent are Community College students using online education programs (or MOOCs)? How are these MOOCs perceived by the students?

Here Jonathan Haber says:

The experience I just described made me realize that I like to be taught by a “sage-on-the-stage,” or, more particularly, by someone with way more expertise on the subject than I and my fellow students have who is also skilled and experienced at transferring this knowledge to others.  In no way does this mean that xMOOCs are inherently superior to cMOOCs on the same subject.  But it does mean that different options may be needed to meet the needs of people with widely varying strengths, weaknesses and preferences that make up their learning styles.

There are different students who have different needs and such students could be served by xMOOCs well enough under the current promotion of xMOOCs. As I shared here:

Online education often requires a shift from a teacher-centered approach to a complete learner-centered approach, especially under a MOOC environment. As revealed in my previous post here, the more appealing x MOOC  would be to support and empower the learners to take charge and responsibility of learning themselves.

There is also little leeway in negotiation when massive number of learners and students are involved in MOOCs, as each participant is different in their learning goals, needs and expectations from MOOCs.  Trying to develop programs to suit everyone’s needs is simply mission impossible, especially from a teacher-centered approach of education and an instructivist pedagogy.

In this post on MOOCs by Paul:

University of Pennsylvania Professor Peter Struck shares his thoughts on what MOOCs will do, won’t do and might do: – See more at: 
http://edudemic.com/2013/01/what-moocs-will-wont-and-might-do/#sthash.eZ18ttRQ.dpuf
:

There seems to be a lot of uncertainties and doubts about the effectiveness of xMOOCs in improving education and learning, in accordance to Professor Peter Struck.

So, what may be an alternative approach towards such online education and learning with MOOCs?

The connectivist approach towards learning are far more enriching and embracing, with divergent networks and platforms as support, where distributed learning is reinforced from different expert sources, and may be even different MOOCs blended together to provide the experience. It could be fascinating, though I would argue that there won’t be any best practice model in business or teaching practice, as it is all relative to the cost, value-added and the vision and mission of the institution and the individual’s perception of learning in the ever-changing world.

If we continue to measure and evaluate learning as we used to based on a traditional competency based education and learning outcomes approach, then MOOCs would only be best modelled on a prescriptive and knowledge transfer model based on mastery learning.  Are all learning objectives measurable in MOOCs?  Would xMOOCs pass the measurable learning objectives criteria under a Quality Management framework?

If we are to enrich the curriculum and embrace the emergent education and learning approach, then learning would be based on a combination of community and personalised learning model, where each learner would develop their own personalised learning, based on their personal vision and mission, and contributing to the overall network and social capital with emergent knowledge and learning.  There may be a need to consider alternativeassessment models using ICT in MOOCs.

5.  Interaction and teaching in MOOCs (x MOOCs)

I just came across this interesting video on interaction and teaching.

One of the comments made was: “Teaching is both an art and a science”.  This is an interesting comment as I have reflected here in my previous post.  Good and great teaching must then be based on both scientific and artistic principles.

If teaching and learning relates so strongly to interaction between teacher and students, and between students in the classroom, should xMOOCs be also making interaction the focal point in the online teaching too?

Is teaching an art or a science?

Professor Daniel Willingham suggests that:

Education is about changing the world, while science is about describing the world.  Daniel concludes that teaching is neither an art nor a science, but mid way between them, as it is about creating something, based on the boundary conditions.  He also uses the house construction metaphor for scaffolding of learning.

Is teaching an art? I reckon yes, as teaching cannot be practised without consideration of the context and people (teacher and learners) involved.  As every one of us is different, what works for one person in teaching and learning may not work for others.  The concept of scaffolding of learning is an art:

Scaffolding is the process by which teachers use particular conceptual, material and linguistic tools and technologies to support student learning. Scaffolding can be used at any point of interaction between teachers and students – at the point of providing inputs and explanations, through to modelling, interacting and assessing.

Is teaching a science? May be teaching could be based on certain scientific principles (mainly psychological principles and behavioral science), but again, these principles are all based on assumptions that education on human’s learning could be objectively assessed, and teaching being assessed in association with learning performance.

To what extent would teaching be based on scientific principles?

Here are some suggested Principles of teaching and Principles of learning from Carnegie Mellon University.  In reflection, most of the principles relating to teaching are based on experience and research, and are context and situations driven.  I reckon some of the adult teaching principles are based on science, with psychology as the basis, whilst others are based on art, especially when it comes to teaching using scaffolding of learning and social interaction, and the mediation of learning through technology.

Traditions, cultures and MOOCs.

Thanks Stephen for such an insightful post on MOOC – Resurgence of Community in Online Learning. He says:

The recent MOOCs offered by companies like Coursera and Udacity have commercialized course brokering. They take a course offered by one university and make it available to other institutions to host in on-campus peer communities.

Of course, this is a model that the K-12 community has employed for any number of years. It is common to see a single course taught from one location and delivered to other locations by means such as video conferencing and interactive environments.

That’s basically a community model of education, under a MOOC banner, though quite distinct from the traditional single institution basis of formal higher education.

MOOC relates to community and community of practice, and more than ever, people have already realized the importance of sourcing education and learning from different institutions, networks (social networks), and  communities.

I have been thinking long about those three criteria that you mentioned: mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire. Based on what I have experienced in MOOC, the COPs evolved over virtual space during and after MOOC do exhibit those criteria within small clusters of COPs where some of the participants were situated. Relating to the learning, meaning, and identity of the members of COP, this is where the landscape of practice – a digital and virtual space where the members visited or resided upon. That’s why I would suggest to reformulate the criteria that are typically used in COP. This would reflect more fully the new and emerging structure of MOOC (as a conglomeration of COPs and Networks) that is evolving, emerging and morphing along the digital landscape, not being bounded by the conventional structures. In other words, the unstructure becomes the structure, and uncourse becomes the course, and finally the unCOPs become the COPs. This is happening in lots of COPs too, where the lifespan of physical COPs are transforming into a blend of COPs, all re-defining the meaning of learning, meaning and identity in new and emerging ways. I would need to restudy the research findings (our CCKs, PLENK2010, and other study) to substantiate such claims. The latest study by Wenger et al could also be used to study such patterns.

In this Network as a Learning Theory by Chatti, he says:

Within LaaN, the notion of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) – which is very close to Vygotsky’s ZPD – is absent. In LaaN, role models are not strictly defined. There is no distinction between “newcomers, novices, or peripheral participants” and “old-timers or masters”. Every
participant is equally treated as a knowledge networker. Unlike CoPs, which are characterized by a single movement from the periphery to the center, in a knowledge ecology, the center does not hold and the movements occur in unpredictable directions.

In LaaN, by contrast, the primary focus is on the individual learner and her PKN. Knowledge development in LaaN is driven by the learning demands of the learner, rather than the community in which she belongs. In contrast to Wenger’s learning theory, where learning for an individual is “an issue of engaging in and contributing to the practices of their communities” (p. 7), LaaN views learning for an individual as an issue of continuously building, maintaining, extending, and restructuring her PKN.

How do these relate to tradition, culture and cultural awareness and intelligence?

People change and learn for their own reasons, not any one else.  Some people would shape education when they have the power to do so, whilst others would change their learning habits to adapt to a certain culture, especially at work.  These are all based on certain principles on culture and change.

Involvement of the learner. When you want culture to change you have to put yourself into the shoes of the person who needs to change. You can do this by involving them as much as possible. Change brought about in a clumsy or unthoughtful way will rebound, in the end, on management. As everyone learns slightly differently, as a leader and manager it is essential that you involve your learners in deciding their own optimal learning process.

Same principles could be applied to cultural identities and their roots to education. When people of different cultures intersect, these could lead to sparks of “conflicting views” and people naturally might be rubbing against each others, when there are differences in the cultural values. This is apparent in the different perceptions and beliefs about certain traditions, cultures in education.

The latest advances in online education and learning as manifested through MOOCs challenged the status quo of HE, though at the same time has awaken the giants to respond to the grass-roots quests for changes and innovation. The MOOC phenomenon seems to have uprooted the long-held belief of one size suits all best sort of economic mass education, though it has replaced it with even stronger behaviorist-one to few winners take all sort of over-arching education model.

Would this cultural belief align with the beliefs of different cultures? As Ana said, when people are too accustomed to spoon feeding, with reactive learning rather than proactive learning, and knowledge as consumption mode of education, xMOOCs would likely be viewed as the favorite of the month and year, and cMOOCs would be viewed as education of the past, rather than the future. Even the hybrid mode would still be viewed as a mere re-configuration of the present MASSIVE EDUCATION.

As shared, there are still long held beliefs and cultures on education where the gatekeepers would take hold of the keys, and doors would only be opened with those keys. cMOOCs are however based on the philosophy that people would connect and share the secret keys in opening the doors, by sharing their cultures and beliefs, rather than asking for the known keys that are kept only by the gatekeepers.

I have used keys as metaphor of MOOCs though we could easily relate that to the Lord of the Ring, where the Ring is the MOOCs.  May be the community would take the role of the ring, when time ripens.

I think one of the areas of opportunities that cMOOCs could tap into is the cultural awareness and intelligence. That seems to be neglected in a world of MOOCs where people are meeting each others who are coming from different cultures, languages, and educational and social backgrounds. Another possibility is to use “Total Intelligence TQ” or “Integrated Intelligence” (like an integration and synthesis of Multiple Intelligence + CQ +Social and Emotional Intelligence) to reflect on the multiple talents and intelligence each of us have, potentially and inherently.

This is a huge topic, and there is where diversity of opinions would lead to a Collective Wisdom of the Crowds, though some would argue that these would dilute the role of experts. In a Chinese saying: “The ideas of three guys could be better than the best strategist (a person named Chu Got Hung Ming in Ancient China who was one of the wisest military strategists).

If we could better understand each other’s culture, then that would promote cultural identity, multi-cultural understanding and appreciation, and thus leading to a more harmonious global community. Would this lead a resolution of many education, cultural and social conflicts which seem apparent in MOOCs, institutions, webs, communities and internet? Education shouldn’t be staying with knowledge only, it should embrace human values and cultural identities, in order for human to prosper.

In summary, MOOC relates to community and community of practice, and more than ever, people have already realized the importance of sourcing education and learning from different institutions, networks (social networks), and  communities.  MOOCs have become a community based sort of online education and learning, and this has evolved into a cluster of institutions providing Higher Education courses, with MOOC providers as brokering agents.

When people are too accustomed to spoon feeding, with reactive learning rather than proactive learning, and knowledge as consumption mode of education, xMOOCs would likely be viewed as the favorite of the month and year, and cMOOCs would be viewed as education of the past, rather than the future.  People are “buying” in with the xMOOCs for reasons as simple as: branding and easier to learn (as all information are already curated for them), and that a strong belief still with the instructivist approach reigns best, at least, that is what institutions want to see – a complete control under an institutional framework of education. Is that xMOOC sustainable? From a historical perspective, this fate would be like cMOOCs being “decimated” and “replaced” by xMOOCs (to some extent) (Mak, 2013).

If we could better understand each other’s culture, then that would promote cultural identity, multi-cultural understanding and appreciation, and thus leading to a more harmonious global community.

Should education be seen as a free good? How about MOOCs?

I have been pondering on this important question since the inception of OERs in the early 2000s.

In this post, Andre Dua says:

it’s equally important that education not be seen as a free good, because it will always take big investments to attract and retain the talent needed to develop world-class courses and materials. Unless new online platforms are associated with meaningful revenue streams—from textbooks, tutoring, proctored exams, per-degree fees, or creative alternatives not yet imagined—the model will prove self-defeating.

MOOCs have been viewed as freebies to a certain extent.  Here I am posting part of it for sharing:

I am in favor of open, free education.  The reality is: education has become a business.  For a business to survive and thrive, it must be profitable.

Does education need to be “profitable” if it is run on a business model?

We need to have a sustainable education. Where will the finance needed to run education be coming from?  Would it be from the government, venture capitalists, businesses, charitable organization, or philanthropists?

The Story

Here is a fictitious story that I learnt through a very old movie, back in the 60s.

There once lived a group of kind-hearted and loving people in a Chinese village.   These “good” people were so kind to each others that they ran their “small business” and offered their service to other people in the village at a very low price and low profit margin.  These good people provided all sorts of services including the provision of hair cuts and selling of buns often with little to low charges for those old people, young kids, and those who were poor.

Soon, news were spread about such great acts of love and serving others, with a spirit of altruism to the neighbours.    This also  attracted a lot of jealousy from other people in the village who had lost their profits because of these good people’s wonderful business and acts.

Some people in the village decided to compete with these good people by offering their services of hair- cutting and selling of buns at a cut-throat price.

Here, the competition began.

The good people decided that they would offer their hair cut and their buns for near to a zero cost.  And they attracted hundreds of customers from their village.

The other group responded by offering their hair cuts and buns for free.   And the customers immediately flocked to their free service.

Here, the good people decided to offer “free buns” for every hair cuts offered to their customers.  That seemed to be the perfect way of running business and serving the society.

In a modern world, isn’t that the perfect model of socialism where everyone enjoys the freedom of choice and wonderful free services and social equity?  May be free service and products for everyone is the best way to serve a society, based on the concept and principles of “free, open education”.

Is that what a Utopian society should look like?

So do you want to know what happens next?  Both groups of people were competing so fiercely that they ended up not getting any profits from the customers, their fellow villagers.

That wasn’t the end of story.  That was only the beginning of the story, where learning started.   Those good people realized that they had to re-think and reflect on what it means to offer free services for all in the community.

That is the story.

The modern Story of MOOCs

Those were the days of the MOOCers in the 60s.  Is it significantly different from that of the MOOCers of the 2012s?  May be not.

How would our story of MOOCs end?  We might have to re-think about how we could offer our services to the world for free.  Internet has opened up the opportunities of free, open education for everyone.  Providers of MOOCs are trying to leverage the “power” and value of internet and webs  to achieve their visions.

But would anyone be able to beat the disruptive technology and its associated free open education offered through internet and social networks?

Here is a nice update on MOOCs.  MOOCs are now charged for institutions to use, though most users could still register for free for some of those MOOCs.

Openness- Is it an ideology or reality?

Is commercialization in conflict with the 4Rs(reuse, revise, redistribute, and remix)?  Most commercialized courses (MOOCs inclusive) require certain restrictions to access (may be for a free taster course that would be followed by the “main course” offered with a fee for service).

So, what may be defined as open and free is limited under those programs, and that could contradict with the 4Rs, especially with the free to re-use, redistribute or to remix, as these are forbidden.

Openness is at the heart of MOOCs, only that it may be semi-open, as a participant could enter the open door (register for free) with a MOOC, and use it personally, without any alteration of the course content.  In those MOOCs, there is no remix, re-sending out of part or all of the resources allowed.

David Wiley in his post says:

MOOCs are not openly licensed, and consequently will struggle with issues of quality and will never become part of the educational infrastructure that enables truly breakthrough advances. MOOCs get us one step closer to the goal, but we need to continue advocating for true openness in order to create the space in which those advances can happen.

I was puzzled when someone who re-posted the whole course of MITx as mentioned here by Audrey.  Was it “legal” for the learner(s) to “copy” and create the MOOCs based on the MOOCs created by the Higher Education Institutions?  Wasn’t it covered in the terms and conditions of re-use of that course offered by MITx?

Copying MOOCs content in whole or in part could be a grave concern for the MOOCs providers and the Higher Education Institutions offering the MOOCs, especially when other education providers or competitors exploit the opportunity to have them commercialized or privatized for their own purposes.

From an entrepreneur and venture capitalists point of view, that is against their original intention or purpose, as “profit” could be lost if such content or OERs are being distributed in other sites for free.  This could be analogous to the piracy allegations when commercial copyrighted DVD and videos are being copied by others, for re-selling or re-distribution for free.  Currently, there are lots of videos which may be copyrighted but they are “freely” posted on the Youtube or other sites.

Openness is also a state of mind (Mackness, 2012), for both professors who are practising open scholarship, and those participants in openly sharing their thoughts and learning in open spaces.  Would that be challenging if professors and learners are confining their discourse within closed learning platforms?  Learners are not supposed to openly post any of those learning resources or artifacts outside the platforms of MOOCs, due to the “copy-right” restrictions in uploading and downloading those artifacts, and that remix or redistribution of artifacts are also restricted, due to the terms and conditions of the openness criteria.

Would openness in Higher Education (through MOOCs) be at odds with the ideology of truly open especially when commercialization, monetization and commoditization of Higher Education is increasingly omnipresent?

I would explore more on this challenge on openness as the MOOCs evolve.

Is reasoning the basis of knowledge and learning?

Good to have a video explaining the reasons behind seasons.

I have reflected on reasoning in “Is mass education the solution to future education?”:

However, it seems that graduates would answer the questions based on the pre-conceived concepts they probably might have learnt through textbooks, or taught by their teachers sometime in schools, and so would answer with great confidence, on what they believe to be right.  This probably is the result of learning where the learners would not have spent time in further checking of the source of evidence and information.  This way of learning has probably led to the wrong beliefs, and concepts formed by the students.

In my previous post on critical thinking:

Critical thinking refers to a higher level of thinking which is guided by knowledge and evidence.  Reason and evidence is fundamental in such thinking process.  Reasoning needs to be based on sound logic.  Such critical thinking would also need to be guided by reasoning and  evidence collected, analysed and evaluated.

Purpose and Quality of MOOCs

Thanks to Grainne Conole for the post on MOOCs and a New Classification of MOOCs, where she has critiqued thoroughly on quality assurance of MOOCs from a course and instructional design perspective, suggesting an alternative pedagogical framework on both c and xMOOCs.

In this post, I would explore the purpose and quality of MOOCs, relating to some of the quality aspects as discussed by Grainne.

What is the purpose of creating MOOCs?

In this corner: MOOC enthusiasts, envisioning how these large, online courses will increase access to higher education, reduce costs, and reinvigorate teaching and learning.  In the other corner: MOOC critics, anticipating how MOOCs will eliminate meaningful interaction between faculty and students, reduce the quality of learning, and decimate the professorship. 
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/stratedgy/both-sides#ixzz2UAdhXKe2

If the purpose of introducing MOOCs is to increase access to higher education, reduce costs and reinvigorate teaching and learning, how would such purpose relate to the mission and vision of Higher Education Institutions?

The mission and vision of institution could be viewed as I shared:

The 3 Ms of MOOCs are Mission, MOOCs and Money.

The fundamental questions boards should be asking include:

• Why are we online? Is the movement to or expansion of online education consistent with the institutional mission? Does and will it serve and advance the institutional mission? Or is the key issue in the discussion about online education—including any conversations about MOOCs—money?
• How do we assess quality—that of our own online offerings and those of others, including the MOOCs?
• What will it take to achieve our objectives in terms of online learning—including human and financial capital, content expertise, the political will to change, and many other concerns?

How is quality defined in MOOCs?

Quality in online education, in particular MOOCs might be defined differently from those quality in classroom education, with a face-to-face teaching environment. What is quality of MOOC from the perspective of educators, learners, and employers?

Quality is defined as conformance to requirements (Philip B. Crosby) (slide on Cost of Quality as Driver of Quality Improvement).  Have the cost of conformance and non-conformance been examined and analysed in MOOCs?  What are the “true cost” of MOOCs in the quality equation?

The questions relating to quality in a MOOC are:

1. Whose requirements are most important to be met?  If MOOCs are for the learners, then the conformance to requirements would likely be decided by the learners.  This is quite challenging, in case of institutions, where quality is defined in terms of the institutional requirements.  From a historical perspective, there are always differing requirements from institutions, employers, educators and learners, and so what is best in quality is seldom agreed upon, especially under an open education and learning environment.

2. How is quality determined in MOOCs? What may be viewed as quality may need to be re-examined in light of changing circumstances, as those requirements, purpose (if quality is defined also as fitness of purpose) are changing rapidly in a complex educational landscape.

As mentioned above, the definition of quality is conformance to requirements, under P. Crosby. The concept of Quality Assurance (QA) is to assure quality through quality prevention, with the goal of zero defects in the system (P. Crosby’s quality concepts).  Quality assurance (QA) has been a subject based heavily on quality policy, quality system and procedures, and instructions in formal education institution. The cost of quality relates to the cost of non-conformance (and conformance) in a quality system.  Whilst all these principles of quality are based on an industrial and business model, they had been transferred to education when institutions started to adopt a strategic management approach towards business education, where quality and values become the business driver and hallmark towards excellence in Higher Education.

The quality audit is part of the QA procedure designed to provide an opportunity to enhance the quality of the system through self, second and third party audits and reviews.  However, such quality audits are normally applicable to formal institution education system, and are seldom used for informal learning or non-formal networks, due to the complexity of open social media and the associated technology used.

QA as applied to MOOCs would then relate to the quality design, delivery and audit based on an institutional model education.  Is QA good enough to ensure and assure quality in education and learning?

Starting in late 1980s, there had been a movement from Quality Assurance towards Total Quality Management in education and Higher Education institutions.

The adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) has been widely used in industry in the late 70s to 90s in industry, and was considered by Higher Education Institutions back in the 1980s to 2000s.  TQM has since been considered and adopted in some of the Higher Education Institutions as both a philosophy and strategic framework to support the overall vision and mission of the institutions, in the deployment of education policies and procedures, and the involvement of everyone (including administrators, professors, instructional designers, support staff, and even customers (students)) in creating and building quality in the system, thus adding value to the customers and stakeholders.

The challenge with TQM in Higher Education however is apparent (especially with MOOCs) when quality is always defined differently by different customers (both internal and external customers), and the standards or requirements that are stipulated by the education provider and authority.  Such quality becomes nuanced and complicated, when customers’ needs and expectations are changing in a complex education and learning environment such as MOOCs.  Indeed, the original quality definition of: Fitness for purpose could be challenging to both the education providers, stakeholders (Venture Capitalists), education authority, educators (professors, course designers), and learners, as the purpose of designing or delivery of the course could be defined and perceived differently for each of the MOOCs (including c and xMOOCs).

Quality is defined quite differently when it is viewed under the network model, with openness, autonomy, diversity and interactivity being the hallmarks of sustainable networked learning based MOOCs.  Recent researches have highlighted the tensions that are inherent when social networks are fused into a formal education system, as the concept of quality would be dependent on the degree of openness and autonomy one would perceive.

In business settings, quality could be achieved through quality planning, control and improvement.  In the MOOCs, quality is achieved through the design planning, course delivery and continuous improvement.

Summary

If we are to apply such business model in Higher Education, the purpose behind the introduction of MOOCs would then be to add value to the education, in particular the learning for the students, community, in order to maximize the social capital, while driving down the total costs of education.  This is a bold, ambitious, risky and ground breaking “innovation” and transformation that no education authority in the history of mankind had tried in breaking through.

We are still yet to agree on what quality is, when it comes to MOOCs (x and c MOOCs), as quality could be defined differently under a formal institutional framework (xMOOC) as compared to an open networked education framework (cMOOC), and that different stakeholders (education authority, administrators, professors, educators, learners, and parents etc.) could also perceive quality based on their learning and experience.

Recommendation for future research

Further research is required to explore how quality, quality assurance and total quality management is achieved when social networks and the technology mediation is fused into formal education system with MOOCs and the sort of pedagogy that would foster the learning in a wide spectrum of MOOCs (i.e. ranging from c and x MOOCs).

Postscript: See this book chapter by Grainne Conole.

The key to success is…

Grit.

in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait, based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or end state coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective. (wikipedia)

Those who succeed most likely have a strong motivation to persevere the goal and achieve, with a strong resilience in face of adversity.

Grit involves maintaining goal focused effort for extended periods of time, often while facing adversity but does not require a critical incident. Importantly, Grit is conceptualized as a trait while resilience is a dynamic process. (wikipedia)

What does mastery learning mean?

Hi Jesse, Thanks for a wonderful post. Shouldn’t an ideal system expect mastery? Shouldn’t we be able to say what a graduate has demonstrated the ability to do something? I would say a resounding yes. I think there are different understanding and interpretation of mastery, though. For instance, at an expert level, our concept of mastery may be the fulfillment of all performance criteria as stipulated in the standards, or learning outcomes. Under our existing education system, how is mastery learning measured? Even the researches done by Benjamin Bloom was based on quizzes and Multiple Choices. Though one could argue that in MOOCs, mastery learning is pedagogy that best suits its purpose, by drilling, quizzes, MC, T/F to check and test the understanding of concepts or “knowledge”. But then this doesn’t really mean that the students have mastered the learning a deeper sense, by applying those concepts in various contexts, or projects etc.

May I share here? So, in the case of mastery of essay writings and blog posting, our definition of mastery learning, what we are looking for would be mastery learning based on deep learning, with the acquisition of more advanced skills of synthesis and evaluation, and the creation and curation of posts etc. That may also require students to work in cooperation and collaboration with others through joint blog posting, wiki/Google writing projects and research.

What does a “C” grade say to the student, and what does that component say to a future employer? To me, that is a very good question. I would say C grade means what a C grade represents, based on the performance standard in education, no more or less.

John

More universities joining MOOCs

I am not surprised at all with more universities joining MOOCs (xMOOCs).

See this.  What are the implications? As shared in my posts here and here.

There are further opportunities in building education models where quality of education and learning experience are co-constructed and co-created by multiple networks of institutions and communities and networks, with a consortium of MOOCs like edX, Udacity, Coursera or the UK Open Learn initiative.

In summary, MOOC could be an opportunistic education model and platform where the four opportunities are identified – through the shifting into new and emergent education and business model, pedagogy, innovation in media and technology, and the re-bundling of value propositions.

I would speculate the coming 5 years to be the most heated competition (both collaboration and consortium) among the Education Supply and Demand Chains (MOOCs super chains) ever in the history of Education in Centuries.

I would have to re-write my BIG BANG theory of online education with MOOCs as they evolve, when new blend of theory of education and learning emerges.

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?

Google image

Education on Happiness and Resilience

Good to watch.

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 post and discussion to share further. Here are some videos relating the Chinese Examination and Education System.

Education in preparation for entrance examination to Univesity in China

Here is a 4 part series on Education – in Preparation for University entrance examination in China.

Hope you would find these videos of interest to you.

Comments?

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

How to explain the current xMOOCs in terms of education model and pedagogy?

Daniel in his post of  a criticism of computer science models or modeles says:

The problem is made worse by the fact that researchers working on modèles more easily get the upper hand. They are never wrong. They can endlessly refine their modèles and re-evaluate them. As long as there is no actual problem to be solved, the modèles will tend to displace the models. Cargo cult science wins.

Of course, the reverse phenomenon may exist within industry. People working with modèles are at a disadvantage. They can’t make useful predictions. They can only explain, in retrospect, what is observed. All their sophistication fails to help them when real-world results are what matters.

I agreed with Daniel’s views.  How would this scientific model be applicable to Higher Education?  Or can we really explain the MOOCs phenomena using the scientific modelling?

May I share some ideas below, which I think is relevant to the building of models in education?

What I noted in recent years is that ideas and concepts seem to be more convincing than the empirical data and experimental proof, especially in “social science”. Why?

As Clayton Christensen mentions here, most academics are looking for data for analysis before they would make recommendations for further action in the introduction of innovation.  The first cMOOCs were run based exactly on Theory (Connectivism as a new and emerging learning theory, as proposed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes).  The xMOOCs were again run based on the Theory of Instructivism where Mastery Learning and Video based learning (coupled with flipped classroom) would work.

The current MOOCs proved that is the case, based on the assumptions that Mastery Learning and Instructivism are what drive learning to be achieved, though “peer learning” was added when researchers later found it had happened.  The video lectures were again “augmented” with the flipped classroom model, in order to explain why xMOOCs are so successful as a special pedagogy, where the whole phenomena was explained with a post-mortem basis.

There have been some researches done in explaining the cMOOCs movement from the basis of Complexity Theory and Chaos Theory, Self-organizing Theory and Theory of Emergence.  Not many people seem to have applied that in the case of xMOOCs.

Indeed, when we examine the xMOOCs pattern of education and learning, the whole notion of learning could be explained when individual learners interacted with the content and made use of the LMS as a platform for some of the information sources.  The participation and completion did fall under a similar pattern to the cMOOCs though xMOOCs are normally far “richer” in terms of the information provision and “instruction” via the video lectures.  Indeed the quizzes and examination are merely “transferred” from the typical face-to-face courses, only that they are all based on auto-grading, and thus address some of the challenges that once weren’t fully covered in cMOOCs.

So, my conclusion is that people often tried to explain a phenomena by pre-conceived and well-designed instructions and wonderful pedagogy in order to fulfill the self-fulfilling prophecy, which may unfortunately not always be representing the actual pattern of education and learning that has taken place.  The current xMOOCs can likely be explained much better through the interaction learning theory, with Complexity Theory of Education and Theory of Emergence, and Connectivism as a model of education.  There are obvious conflicts to the mission of education under an institution framework, as the low completion rate of MOOCs don’t align with original goals set off in Higher Education.   There are many major conflicts with institution mission as mentioned by Clayton Christensen in the discussion of MOOCs.

Here is how a cMOOC work, and that could explain partially why xMOOC work too.

Who controls the world?

Here are some take-away from James B. Glattfelder’s talk on Who Controls the World.

1. Complexity is the result of simple interactions. The system as a whole is starting to behave in ways which cannot be understood or predicted by looking at the component of the system.  Examples of emergence include termite and mold.  The concept of emergence relates to the property that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

2. Every complex system is understood as a network of interactions.

James quoted the example of The Network of Global Network Control.

Ownership networks:

Nodes: firms, people, governments

Links: percentage of ownership

Value of firms

3. Who are the key players?  Who controls the world?

4. Are ideas and concepts more important than empirical data?

5. With 36% TNCs, but 95% value, does it follow Power Law?  Controls accumulate at the nodes.

6.  It seems self-organization are operating in these networks, rather than top-down approach in the control of these networks.

How would such learning be applied to education?

The present trend of the rapid expansions of MOOCs (see also this Class Central list) and open online education courses (such as Open Universities) do exhibit most of the properties of Complex System and Complex Adaptive System, especially when education is now open to public, and to the world.  I have shared the ideas and concepts on Knowledge Ecology and how the different agents have interacted and co-evolved under a changing education system.

The current MOOCs are demonstrating various behaviors which cannot be understood or predicted by looking at the component of the system.  At the start of the MOOCs movement, all elite institutions refused to accept MOOCs for credits to their degree programs, and thus deny the recognition of any completion of MOOCs as equivalent to the academic studies in their institutions.  Now Georgia Tech is partnering with Udacity to offer online Master Degree Program.  Would this change the dynamic of degree offering for Higher Education Institutions?

I have shared in my post: “Mission and money are now blended together when considering MOOCs under an institutional framework.  This seems to be a time where a critical mass of institutions and learners have justified the promotion and adoption of MOOCs in a global arena of Higher Education.”

It seems the three major players in xMOOCs – Coursera, Udacity and edX are now constituting approximately 90+% of the MOOCs provision and the associated investments (approximation based on the Ivy League table, though this needs to be updated).  There are however new MOOCs players such as Future Learn in UK, Open to Study in Australia, First MOOC for Denmark, coming on board in 2013-2014 and this would soon change the network dynamics of MOOCs.

Would the ideology of MOOCs be democratizing education?

Would the ideology of MOOCs be monetization, commoditization and privatization of Higher Education?

How would those ideologies impact on global Higher Education?

What could we learn from Complexity Science, when applied in Education?

I will be creating a few posts on Complexity Education soon.

Here are some relevant sources of information.

Inflation of grades and evaluation of professors

In this article on why students should fear grade inflation, Justin argues:

A second stage of this movement is for all higher education administration to drop the practice of using student evaluations for consideration in the reappointment and promotion process. For starters, students simply are not qualified to judge what they have learned from a PhD in any given area. Secondly, they are generally not emotionally mature enough to understand the impact of their evaluations or to objectively consider the real results of what they have experienced. Finally, the use of student evaluations for review of faculty creates a situation in which the professors who are the least rigorous (easiest) may receive artificially inflated evaluations, while those who are most challenging for students, may receive artificially low evaluation numbers.

Are student evaluations considered in the reappointment and promotion process in higher education?   I think only institutions could answer this critical question.

Are students (starters) qualified to judge what they have learned from a PhD in any given area?  Why are student starters not able to judge any PhDs?  In a world where we often “judge”, “criticise” and comment in open spaces, isn’t it true that we should acquire a literacy and competency in face of judgment?   Judgment could be harsh on us, but isn’t it true that even Socrates, Jesus Christ were judged?  So, instead of viewing judgment as a negative “sentence” on us, we may look at judgment as just part of our life, where we could exploit opportunity of learning.

Are students rating their professors based on the grades they receive?  Is it like – You “A” me, I “A” you, You “C” me, I “C” you?  May be there are some truths.  There are however, lots of assumptions about evaluations on professors teaching, based on such “subjective” grading.

In this post professor deeply hurt by students evaluation:

“Students and the enormous revenue they bring in to our institution are a more valued commodity to us than faculty,” Dean James Hewitt said. “Although Rothberg is a distinguished, tenured professor with countless academic credentials and knowledge of 21 modern and ancient languages, there is absolutely no excuse for his boring Chad with his lectures. Chad must be entertained at all costs.”

Has education turned into an “entertaining education business”?  Is the goal of education entertaining students?  May be, if such education is about entertainment.

Are students being treated as customers in the case of Higher Education Institutions?  At a time where Customers always come first in the business world, is it solely about making students happy, or turning students into happy customers?   This could be one of the biggest myths in 21st century.

There are lots of challenges when it comes to evaluation and assessment of both professors and students in Higher Education.

I wonder if any one could escape the judgment by others any more, especially in Higher Education.

Should a professor always be tough in pushing students to learn?  Is academic rigor as proclaimed by professors always leading to more learning by learners?  What sort of education and learning are measured as “good” or “great” learning by learners?  Could one apply these concepts to MOOCs, xMOOCs in particular?

I think there are many reasons for increase in grades at colleges and universities.  The abundance and ease of access of information available from the web and network may account for students’ improvement in their learning, and the achievement of higher grades.  Besides, in an era where grades are still used as measure of professors and students’ performance, would it be natural to “inflate” the grade, by means of less demanding assignment or tests or raising the marks artificially for the benefits of both parties?

What could we learn from the pressure to award a high grade or to inflate the grade in Higher Education?

What I think we should aim for in Higher Education is not merely pushing students to work hard, but to work smart.    Though it is important to maintain “academic standards” from an education perspective, it is far more important to prepare students to become an autonomous learner and a critical thinker, so they are able to explore and reflect deeper into the problems they are facing in community and society. This would in turn help both professors and learners in developing solutions with a holistic perspective.    This would further encourage both professors and students to learn together in the community, not just to “please each others” for the sake of survival (for the professors) or getting a higher grade (for the students).

Is it time to reflect on what it means by grade inflation where any one could manipulate the grade, in order to please the customers (students)?  Is grade inflation an issue in Higher Education?  How would you tackle this “wicked problem”?  What is the real value of higher education to students?

What happen to the university?

In The End of University as we know it, Nathan writes:

The future looks like this: Access to college-level education will be free for everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor’s degree will become increasingly irrelevant; and ten years from now Harvard will enroll ten million students.

Will that be overly pessimistic?

If tens of thousands of professors are losing their jobs, would that be the serious consequence?  Are the bachelor’s degree still relevant?  What sort of courses and curriculum should be offered by the institutions instead?

Good to have a conversation about this trend.

What happen to the university of the future?  Let’s explore with more conversation.

MOOCs aiming for non-profit

I posted on FB: In the business education history, few could survive for profits in a century. But for non-profits, such education survived for centuries. Lesson: Aim for non-profit.

Gillian Palmer The question is: where do the funds come from to keep the staff and the profs from starving, the buildings or internet from collapsing? No problem with non- or not-for profits provided the source of funds is as clear as for-profits. Academic freedom in all versions requires clarity.

Isn’t it true that OERs, open access softwares, Open Access Journals and articles and social media wouldn’t be able to survive for long if they are for profits only?  Take a look at the current social media or blogging systems, such as Twitter, Google, Google +, Blog, TED, Youtube etc., aren’t they offered for “free” for the moment?  We also noted many services which are not profitable or aiming for profits only may easily be replaced by the free-services at this digital era, due mainly to the disruption of innovative technology like internet, and mobiles.

If we are to learn from such introduction and marketing of technology innovation, then we need to consider strategies in launching MOOCs with the same principles.  The best marketing strategies to position MOOCs would be to aim for non-profit.  Profits would follow if these MOOCs matured into a critical mass, though this would attract hundreds of Venture Capitalists to invest into them.

How is MOOC positioned?  Stars – Cash Cows?  What is critical from an educational point of view is not the profits, but to treat it as a star.  The current intake is high, though it could become a cash cow once the MOOCs captured the main markets.

Picture: Google Image

We have already seen MOOCs from a short historical perspective, where the first few cMOOCs were all free and open (CCKs, PLENK, CritLit, MobileMOOCs, and Change11), followed by the xMOOCs – Artificial Intelligence (AI), Udacity, Coursera, and edX.

So, there may be a need to re-write the economic theory of demand and supply with MOOCs, mainly because MOOCs would be very difficult to sustain under a complex ecology, when new entrants and agents start to disrupt the MOOC ecology from time to time.

What are the strategies that could be used to aim for non-profit MOOCs?

These include:

(1) The use of social media as a platform to ensure such MOOCs are sustainable in the long run, though a strategic employment of those social media is necessary.

(2) Investment by government or education authorities, by setting MOOCs institutions similar to the current MOOCs but with a more adaptive and flexible education system to create MOOCs, in partnership with Higher Education Institutions.  This requires a bold, ground breaking approach as it could have a side effect of impacting on academic freedom and autonomy of Higher Education Institutions.

(3) Development of MOOCs research and learning consortium based on non-profits criteria, where professors, researchers, teachers, instructional designers and education developers would develop self-sustainable MOOCs.  These MOOCs would be project or problem based, with the support from relevant interested parties – from Higher Education Institutions, business enterprises, government bodies, and learning networks.

I have a dream on education – MOOC for free, forever

Are MOOCs freebies?   MOOCs are free, open at least still by now.  Is this model of education sustainable?  Is it a sustainable or disruptive innovation/technology?

I have had once a dream on education since I was a boy, to have quality education for free, truly open, totally free of fees payment, with no “conditions apply” in this world.  Why?  As often mentioned, Higher Education should be a human right.  If that is true, then any one has the right to be educated, and to educate, in a democratic and civilized society.

The merits of having MOOCs developed through MOOCs providers (i.e. edX, Coursera, Udacity) rather than being offered by university directly is to avoid the huge costs that are associated with the development of MOOCs alone, where the university has to bear the full costs for the course.  Besides, MOOCs are supposed to be used as an experimental platform (though also a disruptive innovation) to test out the various ways of improving both the face-to-face delivery, online delivery and blended learning options.  The use of peer assessment (massive-mooc-grading-problem-stanford-hci-group-tackles-peer-assessment) could be one way to provide a solution to assessment with massive number of students.  It’s still early stages to conclude if this method of peer assessment would overcome the bias associated with peer assessment.

As I have shared in my previous posts here and here, once the MOOCs are getting more and more popular, the more potential these MOOCs would have in overtaking the mainstream courses offered in the institutions.  These MOOCs are covering a wide spectrum of courses, extending to k-12 education. This would further impact on the mainstream courses and the professors teaching in a traditional teaching mode, even by those offered in the elite Higher Education institutions and universities.

Isn’t it a dilemma when a “lower” quality MOOCs would outperform the “highly enriched, engaging” courses that are taught by the professors and offered by the elite or traditional universities, in terms of course efficiency and cost effectiveness, by educating the “world” of learners with MOOCs?

Would MOOCs be here to stay without tears?  I am afraid they would still be facing a lot of challenges, like the pedagogy to be adopted, sound business models that are to be established, cultural and quality issues that are yet to be overcome.

Completion rates on MOOCs: Source from Google images

I have a dream – with a MOOCs for free, forever.  That would surely transform the world of education!

How would MOOCs be designed and structured differently?

Thanks to Doug Holton for opinion The case for learning designers.

What should be the role of instructors in learning design in MOOCs?  How should MOOCs be designed and delivered?

My early learning experience with CCK08 and subsequent learning experiences with CCKs and Change11 was that over-design of a course would not be able to cater for the needs of massive number of participants.  Successful MOOCs (cMOOCs) need to factor emergence (emergent knowledge and learning) in the design and delivery of the “course” and “event”.  It is based on a continuous feedback loop with distributed learning networks, just in time learning- with participants’ active contribution of content, and co-design of the conversation and engagement of instructors, facilitators and clusters of self-organised participants.

Image on Comment Ecosystem: From CCKs course postings.

Most xMOOCs are not built with that in mind, and so those courses are highly structured, often planned in a linear fashion, and thus only afford the prescriptive knowledge to be consumed by the participants, governed by the video lectures, some quizzes, and posted readings.

I reckon learning designers have often pre-conceived with a one size “suits” all sort of tool box online learning with learning object, that may be highly suitable for closed LMS with specific learning outcomes sort of courses.  Would such a design meet the needs of huge cohorts of learners?  I reckon a certain level of customization is needed as participants are coming from a diverse background.

Despite the large number of successful completion (though a relatively 5 – 15% completion rate) in the xMOOCs, I still think the original course design and pedagogy would impact on the course delivery and completion.

Would this explain why more than 80% participants are not completing the course, as they don’t see much need for their contribution or engagement in the course?  Even if they want to do so, there is simply no means for them to be involved except by joining the study group or posting on the discussion boards, where their voices would seldom be heard as these postings would only attract attention if they are voted up (for attention to be given).  Besides, as revealed in the various studies about xMOOCs, many of the participants (could be as much as 40-50%) are degree holders.  This may imply that many of the participants would be following their own set learning goals, learning pathway, and methodologies in their learning, rather than the “linear” progressive Mastery Learning.

Indeed, I have tried watching some of the videos of the xMOOCs and have often skipped the various portions of the videos where I don’t find relevance to my needs or learning.  I would also be browsing through, pausing, or rewinding certain parts of the video when I am just interested in certain part of the section for my learning.  This is similar to the learning via Youtube educational videos, or the TED talks.   Wouldn’t it be true that many participants of xMOOCs would likely do the same, in order to optimize and customize their own education and learning in a MOOC?

Would some of these participants be designing their own learning pathway (i.e. within MOOC) sub-consciously throughout their MOOC engagement?

It is interesting to note that the DS106 and the EDUMOOCs (an xMOOC) are structured as Connectivist and Cognitivist/Connectivist courses (as perceived by this participant), and analysed here.  As I have shared in the past posts, it appears more xMOOCs would be designed with some of the social constructivist and connectivist principles, even though they are conceptually designed with a linear learning pathway with structured content.

Why?  Massive participants have a diverse experience, skills level and background, and thus they would seldom participate with the same entry or exit points, except for the assessment or examination.

Isn’t it time for the MOOC providers to review the learning design so as to ensure the course is built on a flexible emergent design, rather than a rigid, one size suits all online course principle?   Otherwise, there would be a “constant” drop-out or low completion rate, as participants don’t feel their involvement or engagement in the learning community and course design, especially in the xMOOCs.  There are also power and autonomy factors, which would continue to influence the way participants would engage or not engage in the course, especially when participants don’t find any power or autonomy over their learning over the course.

MOOCs as double edged swords

Are MOOCs losing their original worthy goals?

Kevin concludes:

Hijacked MOOCs are flagship (institution)-led, starting to cost (increasingly), often hybrid, faculty headshot to camera, tech sophistication layered on, little-to-zero impact on faculty member revisiting / learning? pedagogy (in any format) and not very massive. They’re mostly taken by education technologists, already-qualified individuals and Tom Friedman.

It’s the strategic analysis and “nuanced discussion” that I want us all back to. Proper MOOCs may work for some, others may just choose to use open online materials and some may even have a mission to support affordable education for underserved communities (my favorite).

Read more: 
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/05/06/essay-suggests-moocs-are-losing-their-original-worthy-goals#ixzz2SsEN63af

Inside Higher Ed

I think the current xMOOCs are doubled edged swords. Either way would cut into the flesh of Higher Education.

If xMOOCs are accepted by the mainstream and most institutions and flourish, what would happen?

Enrollment & revenue for those elite institutions would likely increase significantly, though enrollment & revenue for many “traditional” and prestigious universities would decrease dramatically, when more students flocked to xMOOCs, for free.  This upward pressure to enroll more students would force the elite institutions to provide more xMOOCs, but then it is doubtful if students would continue their studies and pay the fees with those institutions, as those courses offered in the main campus are still relatively expensive.

Though viewed as less in quality, and less in interactivity with the professors as compared with the normal degree courses run by colleges and universities, xMOOCs would allow more people to take a free ride, and to consume the content and “knowledge” as disseminated by the professors.

Would this lead to more educators and professors a need to change their way of teaching, as they would likely find it harder to teach and compete with the Super Rockstar professors any more?  Many teachers and professors might be expected to embrace the flipped classroom, and are expected to “produce” quality videos for the courses which could take tens or hundreds of hours in production.  There may also be a huge investment of time and resources just to “push” such education to learners on a massive scale, in order to lure more educators and learners to take on the xMOOC bandwagon.

This may further lead to competition not only among professors, but also among education institutions, and education chains, as they are looking for “survival” in this world looking for learners to join the education game.  Surely, this would lead to winners and losers, and so a battle is waiting on its way.

As George sighs here:

In the long run, we’ll all hate MOOCs because they will reflect the failed hope of equitable and affordable access to education as well as the salivating greed of those wishing to commercialize and globalize education.

Let’s have a multiple choice:

What does the acceptance and success of MOOCs mean to us?

(A) A disappointment in democratising education as education is taken over by private providers.

(B) A great celebration as more people are receiving such education for free.

(C) A great building of universities and education institutions by re-gaining its status in gate keeping, knowledge recognition and qualification granting in Higher Education.

(D) A complete overhaul of Higher Education where only highly qualified professors and prestigious and elite Higher Education Institutions would survive and thrive in the coming future.

(E) None of the above.

If  xMOOCs are not accepted by the mainstream and most elite institutions, what would happen?

The professors who have done the xMOOCs would be most worrying, as well as the xMOOC providers, as this would impact on their institutions, and the reputation in the provision of quality education.   This would lead to a loss of confidence in Higher Education, especially when such education businesses don’t appeal to students who are well accustomed to the elite education, or those associated with the prestige of getting a Higher Degree in Higher Education.

Where is the value point from the Higher Education Institution, if it is not for the “degree”?  Indeed, there are differences in perception in many learners in the West, that are different from those learners in the East.  For instance, many younger learners in the West are looking for a quality education and learning experience, that may be expected from a degree course in Higher Education Institutions and Universities.  They may be looking for a course that would help them in finding a job or building up skills for a career through such study (in MOOCs or degree).

Many young learners in the East are however more pragmatic, in that they might be looking for a degree first, and would therefore more likely take every opportunity that is available to study, including MOOCs, in case if they couldn’t get into a degree program or couldn’t afford to pay for such a program.  Many learners coming from an Eastern culture are also brought up with a teacher-centred based education (see my previous post on cultural differences), and so the current xMOOCs may match perfectly to  some of their needs.  They would likely prefer to consume the knowledge delivered by the professors, and take as much as they could get from those MOOCs.  But would these sort of learners afford to pay for the education in Higher Education Institutions?  May be some could, but most may not have the luxury to do so.

So, what would these leave the world with?

Those who could afford to attend the elite institutions would likely enjoy more with the enriching, interactive and community-based (classroom face to face) experience with the professors, whilst the other millions students would likely take the xMOOCs which are “free” for them to take, though they would unlikely be accepted for credits unless they sit for the proctored examinations or be re-assessed by the Higher Education Institutions.

These Higher Education Institutions would then have to find ways in re-building their reputation and credibility in the provision of quality online education and learning.

Another Multiple Choice:

What does a rejection and failure of MOOC mean to us?

(A) A re-building of Higher Education, where Higher Education Institutions have to re-think about the strategic positioning and value proposition of their courses, for a premium, or for free.

(B) A push for more MOOCs in order to re-gain the status of MOOCs in education.

(C) A re-configuration of the MOOCs which would be based on fees for service and sound business model FIRST, based on value proposition and target marketing (i.e. targeting the right learners, at the right time, right place, with the right fees).

(D) A complete overhaul of Higher Education where only highly qualified professors and prestigious and elite Higher Education Institutions would survive and thrive in the coming future.

(E) None of the above.

Let’s see your answers, and let me know if you would like to share:

Q1. A (  %), B (  %) , C (  %), D (  %), E (  %)

Q2. A (  %), B (  %) , C (  %), D (  %), E (  %)

Hope I could consolidate some of the responses within 2 weeks time.  Just for fun.

Pedagogy of MOOC

Thanks to Stephen Downes on the referred paper.  The authors conclude:

This review has demonstrated that MOOCs have a sound pedagogical basis for their formats. What we have not addressed however are the larger questions around whether taking a collection of MOOCs could replace obtaining an education on campus at a university in all of its facets of personal development and education.

I tend to agree with Stephen’s comments in that there wasn’t any reference to the cMOOCs.

I shared Peter’s views and concerns:

I have some quarrels with this conclusion. By generalizing over all sorts of contexts, the authors effectively suggest that context only introduces error, never systematic bias. However, context does matter both qualitatively and quantitatively.

That means that the conclusion that MOOCs have built on a solid foundation is premature. All we can conclude is that there is no evidence yet that they have not been built on a solid foundation.

I appreciate the authors consolidating the merits of using different “pedagogical approaches” towards online learning in the review and conducting the research, which is urgently needed.  The evidences presented relating to previous researches were however mostly based on structured “closed” courses offered to limited number of students, without much consideration of the various context or situation under xMOOCs.

How would those previous research findings be matched to the current MOOC?  Are we assuming that what worked in the past formal courses could be repeated in the current xMOOCs?  What are the assumptions behind such “sound pedagogical basis”?

To what extent are those evidences mapped to the xMOOCs?  It seems such a pedagogical framework of xMOOCs  is pre-determined by the MOOC providers rather than being grounded on research.

In summary, the authors have assumed that when all the other previous pedagogy were sound in those courses, then this “demonstrated that MOOCs have a sound pedagogical basis for their formats”.   I think more research findings and evidences are needed to substantiate the claim in the case of an open education and learning platform – on xMOOCs.

There is also an urgent need to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between the cMOOCs and xMOOCs in terms of their pedagogical approaches, and how the learners experienced learning in the respective MOOCs.

I do hope to conduct such research in the near future.

Are MOOCs disruptive innovations to education?

This is a controversial question, as author argues that MOOCs are not disruptive innovations to education, but internet is.

In this who’s afraid of the big bad mooc?

The availability of high-quality online lectures is an opportunity to rethink how we spend our time in the classroom. If an online lecture presents the material, or walks students through an argument, we are freed to spend more time discussing the aspects of the material that are most difficult—or most interesting. We can do other kinds of activities that we might not have time for if we felt obliged to present the material in the traditional way. Yes, hybrid courses usually involve less face-to-face time, but that time can be better and more effectively spent.

Is MOOC a threat to quality education, especially at public universities? When MOOCs reach a critical mass, where students would accept and prefer to learn through the free open course, rather than going to pay for a course, then it is/could be.

How is quality defined? It is defined by users, students, not just by the education providers, MOOCs providers, employers alone. So, if you are to define quality education, we need to consider the different dimensions as “defined” and perceived by the “consumer”. That also makes MOOCs sound like disruptive innovation, as it could “easily” replace any courses by the super-rock-star professors who could afford to spend hundred hours in delivering their videos, and that they have established their reputation in the HE for decades. Would this be a competition between education chains, professors, etc.? It really depends on what each of the stakeholders are looking for. For learners, what are they looking for? Of course, if the elite HE institution is going to recognise their study and learning for free, why not?

Each of the professors could be “right” from their perspectives. If a professor is to use another professor’s work, why not? But then, there are implications and perceptions, also from the students’ perspective. If what the students are studying with are some other professors and some other MOOCs, then why should they be learning with the same institution and or professor? And why should they pay whereas somebody study for free? We all look into all these from “ones” perspective. When we could empathise and look deeper into the “issue” relating to these online learning, and internet-based learning, then we would realise that the internet is the main driver in disrupting everything else. These MOOCs are just catalyst as a disrupting agent, platform, where everyone wants to get the best out of it.

The taxonomy of dragons

This is a fabulous talk by Bruce Sterling.  I would remark it as brilliant, deep-down-earth and a must watch for all educators and education institutions.

The Fantasy prototypes and real disruption that I hope you won’t miss.

I have enjoyed it.

What are schools for? Part 2

MOOCs are platforms that derived from schools.  This post is my reflection of what it means to study and learn with such virtual and digital school -MOOCs.

Indeed, there is a role for both x and c MOOCs as I have argued here.

As I shared in my posts, the learners’ needs may be segmented in accordance to a few categories – (a) those who are in high school, but would like to advance their knowledge or have some remedial knowledge through KA or preliminary courses in university, (b) those who are looking for university or degree education, (c) those who are graduates, and would like to use MOOC to further their professional development, and (d) those who are interested in life-long and continuing education, and (e) those who are retired or just have an interest in the course (MOOC).  Such diverse needs would also require different pedagogies – instructivist approach for those novice of (a), (b), a mix of social constructivist and or connectivist approaches for (c), (d) and (e).  Openness could be difficult to define, though would likely be based on individual’s preference.

So far if these MOOCs are truly providing the opportunities for the learners to network, learn, and that would benefit the community, not just for the sake of profits or monetization or privatization of education. Also, I must share that I am also part of this game in the entrepreneurship, and not holding a “socialist” point of view. I just think all these in terms of how could all improve education and learning for the learners and society, a win-win solution.

There is a saying: The purpose of education is learning, not teaching. To some extent, that is true, as I reflect on my own learning. I received education throughout my formal years of education, and I benefited a lot out of that.

I learn much also by myself – through reading, reflection and connection with others (outside institutions), and that make me think: my best learning starts when I have finished my formal education, where I have more time in those things that I am passionate about, and helping and supporting others, rather than the mere study or publication of research papers.

Good to reflect on Peter’s response to my post, yes, agreed. 
http://www.scoop.it/t/networked-learning-learning-networks/p/3995646692/what-are-missing-in-mooc-research-sui-fai-john-mak

John’s classification is a good starting point, but perhaps the categories of learners and pedagogies need to be refined. And that of course would bring in the whole discussion on learning styles and on media use (a good starter is Tony Bates’ recent blog post: 
http://tiny.cc/mn4nrw
). Somewhere in that discussion (the various kinds of) xMOOCs and cMOOCs would no doubt fit.

But even with this attempt to take a more fine-grained look and bring in existing research, shouldn’t these high school kids somehow need to figure out how to learn socially anyway. If we do not already start their initiation at high school, when will we? I would argue that in this day and age, there is a wider perspective to efficiency of learning that needs to be taken into account, a lifelong learning one, that is. (@pbsloep)

To this end, I could anticipate a very different pattern in the findings of cMOOCs and xMOOCs when the pedagogy is “pre-determined” for the learners, though there are certain emergent “pedagogy” that would be interesting to explore – such as a mix of connectivist and instructivist (mastery learning) and flipped learning as could be evident in the xMOOCs learning pattern.

In conclusion, MOOCs seem to be an extension of the school (especially in Higher Education), though this is more apparent with the xMOOCs as the presence of instructors, content, video lectures, LMS and forum discussions, assessment, and various supports are available to the students.  What makes it different from the face-to-face school setting may be the “lack of interaction” and discourse with the instructors directly “face-to-face” and the lack of participation in those social activities in the physical schools.  But could these be supplemented by other social media activities as in FB, Google Hangout, Skype, Twitter?

How about your learning through the xMOOCs or cMOOCs?  Do you see any particular learning pattern for particular subjects or cohorts of participants?

What are schools for? Part 1

Education.

What are the views of schooling from different cultures?

Here are some snapshots on Chinese schools:

Chinese education system relies heavily on examinations as a way to streamline students towards Higher Education.  It is foregrounded on a traditional examination system, where students would need to go through, in order to pursue further studies in Universities.  In other words, schools are important for preparing students to take the college entrance examination.

Here are more videos highlighting what accounts for the success of those students in Shanghai in topping the rank in PISA test.

Teaching and learning (studying) is at the heart of the traditional Chinese school system.  Would this be different from the Western education system?  I would explore this in coming posts.

About Asian students

Are Asians smarter?  I don’t know if this video title is really what it stands?

What surprise me even further are the remarks posted alongside the video:

IQ New Zealand Intelligence Education Brain Size Academic Chinese Rushton Race Behaviour students Asian are smarter 60 minutes

This is from 60 minutes New Zealand and was titled “Breeding Brainiacs Tiger Mums in New Zealand”. This is a misleading title because it implies that Asians achieve better academically simply because they study more – the entire video is based on this misinformation. Research strongly indicates that intelligence, social stature, and success in life, is determined by genetics rather than by environment. Asian genes code for larger brains, which give them higher IQs. This higher IQ enables Asians to out compete whites or blacks. Asian brain size is consistently measured as being larger than that whites or blacks whether measured using MRI scans, head circumferences, skull packing with sand or any known method. It’s 2012 yet the concept of race is still very taboo. Admitting racial brain size differences isn’t racist because “facts are facts”. For more credible information on this topic please refer to the book titled “Race, Evolution, and Behaviour” by Prof. Phillipe J. Rushton. It’s free to download. This Asian dominance of the New Zealand academic system is something Rushton’s findings inadvertently predicted, and predicted decades beforehand. The reporter of this video ignores and misinterprets credible scientific data to present her case in a woeful example journalism.

Other prominent Professors in the field in Richard Lynn, and Arthur Jenson.

I am not sure if the comments posted are accurate, and would like to see more evidences about IQ comparison, and the extent of validity of “Research strongly indicates that intelligence, social stature, and success in life, is determined by genetics rather than by environment.”

Enjoy.

The truths about MOOCs

Audrey in her post says:

I wanted to give a talk that expressed my deep gratitude to Canadian educators and researchers — particularly those that created MOOCs — alongside my concerns about the rewriting of education technology history that diminishes, if not erases altogether, their contributions. It’s a larger problem too, I’d argue, with many tech entrepreneurs laying claim to education innovation with nary a reference or a nod to those who’ve shaped the field. It’s disingenous and dishonest and deeply, deeply troubling as how we frame the past helps us think about the direction of the future.

History is, of course, always partial, always situated, always contested. There is no “official story” about the Iran hostage crisis or about MOOCs or about education technology more generally.

And just as with politics, when it comes to education and technology, our notion of history is heavily influenced by the media.

Let’s face it.

Couldn’t agree more.  That’s why we need to explore and research through networks, with networked learning.  May I share my understanding and interpretation on how this could be achieved through “Connectivism”?  I have used the learning metaphor of understanding of an elephant to interpret the application of learning theories - 
http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/learning-metaphor-understanding-of-an-elephant-based-on-instructivism-constructivism-and-connectivism/

What we should avoid is believing in single source “expert views” or media without examining the assumptions and background “historical perspectives”.  It is right that professors and experts, and even textbooks may help us in understanding and applying prescriptive knowledge, based on scaffolding and the various learning theories – behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism.

The challenge is: we are living in a rapidly changing world that often, our knowledge are based on the “facts” and information provided by the media, various “information sources” that are often cited by the “experts”, or authorities, or the education providers, who might have disclosed those parts which are useful for promotion, marketing (the positive part of education and learning).  How about the reality?

The whole MOOC story unfolded reveals exactly how all “history” could be written, to certain parties’ merits.  As I have shared, I am more than convinced on the fuzzy and complexity nature of MOOCs, that many of the “articles” are mainly opinion papers, where some of the sources of the information need to be re-examined and inquired.

I have been working on such researches on MOOCs since 2008, with 2 intensive research surveys completed, together with other interview surveys.  I worked with other researchers in disclosing those findings, based on research, not just personal opinions.  I don’t claim I have got all of the relevant evidences in support of a new learning theory.

However, I do see such learning has been emerging from the participants of MOOCs (both x and c MOOCs) in various ways, based on various social media/PLE/N tools. There are many others who might not have used the tools extensively.

So, truth be told, on the historical background of MOOCs, and that we should all continue to critically examine and inquire about what has occurred in the MOOCs movement, through our lens and research, and not on the “text book” approach, where people told us the opinions, instead of facts.

May be, we could re-examine some of the sources of MOOCs through social media or educational media and check our evidences collected against other resources such as this What leader should know about MOOCs and MOOC guide by Stephen Downes, and the research publications list on MOOC by Rita Kop .

John

What should be the relationship between teacher and students?

Very impressive talk here by Rita Pierson.

Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, “They don’t pay me to like the kids.” Her response: “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.’” A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

These sound good to me.  ”Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.”  This equally applies to adults.  Adults don’t learn from people they don’t like, especially when that is against the will of the adult.

So, isn’t it human nature in socialising, in valuing human relationship?  We all want to build a positive relationship with each other, not only for teacher and student (kids in particular), but throughout our walk of life.

Perhaps, it is difficult to repair a broken relationship, or to say sorry when we have done something wrong to others, whether they are our parents, kids, teachers, relatives, friends, or colleagues.

It’s important to keep a good relationship under all circumstances, as mentioned by Rita: “to understand others before being understood”, a quote from the Seven Habits of Stephen Covey.  But understanding between people is a two way process, and this goes deeper into empathy.

Unfortunately, there are subtle power relationship embedded in any relationship, and such power is never equally distributed between the two parties, especially when there are differences in values and motives in the parties concerned.  So the interests and motives of a teacher and a student is different, and this must be acknowledged.  Do students always try to please the teachers, in order to obtain a higher grade, or marks, or individual attention?

When people have different rights and opinions, conflicts do arise.  And if these conflicts are not resolved constructively, then the relationship goes sour.

Sometimes, one of the biggest hurdles we have is our desire to change others, or influence others, without consideration of the actual needs and feelings or emotional status of others.  We may then need to reflect on how we could make good use of our Emotional and Social Intelligence to manage ourselves and help and support others.

I am often concerned on the “manipulation” that comes out of relationship, in that sometimes, we might be unconsciously manipulating others, or being manipulated, either as a student or a teacher, a boss or a colleague, or a parent or a child.

In other words, teachers and students may fall into the trap of pleasing each others, just for the sake of getting praises and positive feedback in order to survive in the respective role.  The question is: What would I (we) like to get out of this relationship?  And why?

Is relationship building strong in a world where entrepreneurship and excellence comes and counts first?  I don’t know.

Here is my previous post relating to good to great teachers.

Do you make a difference as a teacher?  See this profound answer from an educator.

What is the most important lesson in MOOCs (cMOOCs)?

I think we are learning one of the most important lessons in the history of mankind: Openness in education, learning and research.

What do I mean by openness?

I would refer to:

• Openness in education.
• Open in free education.
• Open in sharing and learning on vision, mission, ideas, values, ideals etc. with each others, each other institutions, communities, nations.
• Openness in terms of re-aggregate, re-curate, re-use, re-mix, re-purpose, re-cycle, re-create, re-understand, re-educate, and re-learn everything that are once closed behind four walls, or closed doors.

To learn more about openness, see this paper (p40 – 52) on Open Research and Open Learning by Roy Williams and Jenny Mackness.  Thanks to Roy and Jenny for sharing their researches.  I think openness is one of the most important lessons that we could learn from MOOCs (both x and c MOOCs).

My share on openness in a previous post:

Openness in dialogue and conversation is the heart of “open education” where I conceived:

Finally, education and learning is not merely giving out the content, testing the students to see if they have got the right answers in assignments or examinations, though they may be important for course validation and institution accreditation.  It is about engaging people (both professors, educators, learners) to interact with each others, in the form of conversation, discourse, and to dialogue about the content, information, and learn about the implications and applications in study, at work, or in life.

Technology could be a powerful tool in the course of education and learning, in particular in MOOC, especially in the mediation of communication, or the facilitation of cooperation and collaboration, through wiki, Google Doc, or social media.

The current affordance of media and tools that are tailored to the learners need to be more effectively applied in the x MOOC, together with the “teaching, cognitive and social presence” for a transformation of education and learning.  Tools and media alone won’t change the world.  It’s the people, the leaders, the learners who work and learn, and converse together, that would change the world.

What is the most important lesson in MOOCs?

I think we are learning one of the most important lessons in the history of mankind: Openness in education, learning and research.

What do I mean by openness?

I would refer to:

• Openness in education.
• Open in free education.
• Open in sharing and learning on vision, mission, ideas, values, ideals etc. with each others, each other institutions, communities, nations.
• Openness in terms of re-aggregate, re-curate, re-use, re-mix, re-purpose, re-cycle, re-create, re-understand, re-educate, and re-learn everything that are once closed behind four walls, or closed doors.

To learn more about openness, see this paper (p40 – 52) on Open Research and Open Learning by Roy Williams and Jenny Mackness.  Thanks to Roy and Jenny for sharing their researches.  I think openness is one of the most important lessons that we could learn from MOOCs (both x and c MOOCs).

My share on openness in a previous post:

Openness in dialogue and conversation is the heart of “open education” where I conceived:

Finally, education and learning is not merely giving out the content, testing the students to see if they have got the right answers in assignments or examinations, though they may be important for course validation and institution accreditation.  It is about engaging people (both professors, educators, learners) to interact with each others, in the form of conversation, discourse, and to dialogue about the content, information, and learn about the implications and applications in study, at work, or in life.

Technology could be a powerful tool in the course of education and learning, in particular in MOOC, especially in the mediation of communication, or the facilitation of cooperation and collaboration, through wiki, Google Doc, or social media.

The current affordance of media and tools that are tailored to the learners need to be more effectively applied in the x MOOC, together with the “teaching, cognitive and social presence” for a transformation of education and learning.  Tools and media alone won’t change the world.  It’s the people, the leaders, the learners who work and learn, and converse together, that would change the world.

MOOC – A reflection of a summary video

Here is a good summary of MOOC.

It is about connecting brains as I have shared about Connectivism.

we could connect one’s brain to others’ “brains” that will lead to continuously improved and innovative solutions for each of us and the network in this digital age – networks including yourself with collective wisdom with emergent knowledge.

I would like to add that MOOCs are not just for education, but more importantly for learning.  Here I share:

I doubt if the traditional “xMOOCs” would really challenge the learners and graduates in terms of their talents and intelligence, though most, if not all students are so used to consuming huge amount of information direct from the professors.  Is that a dilemma that both professors and students are facing when delivering an online course solely by “teaching” the students what is to be taught, by covering all the content required to pass the test or examinations?

To learn with the best professors in the world might be one of the aspiration of many students who don’t have access to Higher Education, though there might be lots of students too who prefer to learn in solitude or with their own peers.  Is learning with best professors and teachers always providing the best outcome?  May be not, as this depends on whether the students are able to learn “what is being taught”.

This is why I think each of our students are different, in terms of their needs, and motivation in learning, and that we shouldn’t just assume what “we” want to educate is what they want in their learning.

Could MOOCs save Higher Education?

May be that is the future MOOCs.

Thanks to the professors and Higher Education Institutions for the offer of free education.  We do hope that more personalized education and learning are available through MOOCs though in the future.

Postscript:  Just found this MOOC.  Sounds interesting for k-12 teacher education.

Finally it is coming, and coming fast!

Yes, Coursera is now taking up the teacher education as it expands its MOOCs ”Coursera moves beyond universities and into K-12 with 12 new institutions and 28 free courses for teachers“

The massive open online course (MOOC) provider is expanding beyond university courses by offering 28 teaching courses for free, with more to come.

Coursera says it wants to create a hub of teacher professional development courses aimed at providing teachers, parents, and anyone else who teaches with “the tools and skills to help build stronger education systems.” In true MOOC spirit, all the courses are available online to anyone interested.

As anticipated, this is the strategy adopted by the MOOC providers to expand and diversify their reach to all areas of education, ranging from k-12 to tertiary and Higher Education.  I have shared my views here and so far I have some reservations as to whether “we are ready for it or not”.

The greatest impact of such MOOCs on the k-12 education could be all public education would soon be falling under the hub-spoke sort of education system, where teachers would likely fall into the teacher-assistants supporting the super-rockstar professors or video lectures (as posted by various educators and providers), with the “flip-classroom” considered as best practice.

To what extent would this allow for autonomy and creativity of individual teachers, professors and educators to develop and customize their teaching and learning for the learners?  May be the lesson plan would be based on the MOOCs, and then teachers would be expected to execute the curriculum as prescribed by the standardized MOOCs.

I have anticipated the whole new picture of MOOCs in this K-12 scenarios, where more charter and academies would be set up in conjunction with MOOCs to lower the cost of education.  Finally, it would be MOOCs for all education, and then, the post-MOOCs would emerge.

Sounds like disruptive innovation is the future of education.

As shared in this post, which relates to Clayton’s suggestion of the Innovator’s Dilemma:

The Innovator’s Dilemma as you might know outlines how companies with historically successful products and market share will be disrupted and beaten unless they are innovative again and again.

It is interesting to note that finally “revolution” in education comes from the investment from Venture Capitalists, together with the pioneers of xMOOCs.

Would these have been changed if cMOOCs have got the financial support from Venture Capitalists and institutions back in 2008?  That would be another fictitious story that may change the history.

In conclusion, MOOCs are now ubiquitous, morphing into the k-12 and teacher education.  It is deciding the future of education, at least at the moment, given the support from MOOC providers, elite Higher Education Institutions, and the Venture Capital investment providers and various private providers.

MOOC – challenges and opportunities to Higher Education – Part 2

This is my extension of previous post.

Is massively open online education a threat or a blessing?

This is an astonishing example of the way MOOCs — massively open online courses — may be able to transform education as we know it, changing it from the privilege of an elite into a shared commons that is open and free to everyone.

There are grounds for concern, though. Some of these came to the fore this week in an open letter from the San Jose State University philosophy department to Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor who offers a MOOC version of his famous class on justice. The letter, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, raises important issues about the use of MOOCs within traditional university settings. Part of the problem, they write, is the danger:

… that two classes of universities will be created: one, well-funded colleges and universities in which privileged students get their own real professor; the other, financially stressed private and public universities in which students watch a bunch of videotaped lectures and interact, if indeed any interaction is available on their home campuses, with a professor that this model of education has turned into a glorified teaching assistant.

This is not surprising as this “counter revolution” unfolds.

In this What does it mean to have more moocs? I wrote:

Justin sees MOOCs in an unique way in this post on Why do professors hate MOOCs let me count whys.  ”Faculty members must feel this, & thus supporting MOOCs like digging their own graves.

More MOOCs would lead to more cost-effectiveness in the delivering of courses for elite institutions, though this could also lead to a decrease in the demand of courses offered by “traditional Higher Education Institutions” as the students flocked to the MOOCs.  Would this lead to decrease in the demand of faculty professors?  Would this explain why MOOCs are welcome by some (super professors), but not all other professors, especially if their jobs are at risk as a consequence? “Why educators should hate MOOC” as concluded by Justin.

Indeed, the education chains are competing with the other education chains (similar to supply chain in Logistics) – (Universities chain (elites) versus universities chain (public/private for profit), MOOCs versus other MOOCs and non MOOCs, Venture capitalists versus entrepreneurs versus humanists/socialists/activists/DIY/Pundits etc.). More centrally-distributed (hub-spokes) form would emerge as the number of registrations increase in MOOCs.

What would be the trend of xMOOCs? My share here on what would post xMOOCs look like?

I think the critical point relates to “massive” and “open”. So far if massive number of students are enrolled, due mainly to the courses being “free” without payment, people would tend to believe that these would increase effectiveness and efficiency in terms of cost and QUALITY. As providers of education, who wouldn’t want to do that? Freebies have a price to pay, though as it doesn’t account for any of those issues as raised by the professors and those “learners” or “participants/potential students” of MOOC.

What do you see would be the implications of these “movements”?

Reference

MOOC – a threat or a blessing? ”Is massively open online education a threat or a blessing?”

Why Professors at San Jose State Won’t Use a Harvard Professor’s MOOC?

Postscript:

See this post on MOOCs - Colleges consider accepting massive open online course credits.

MOOC – challenges and opportunities to Higher Education

This post aggregates some of the posts relating to MOOCs – challenges and opportunities to Higher Education.

There are now thousands of posts on MOOCs, with praises, criticisms, challenges and opportunities.  Here is just one of them, summarizing some of the pros and cons of MOOCs.  Tony Bates has provided valuable insights on the issues and opportunities relating to MOOCs.

This one on the challenges of MOOCs is especially interesting, Don says:

In the industrial model of student mass production, the teacher is the broadcaster. A broadcast is by definition the transmission of information from transmitter to receiver in a one-way, linear fashion. The teacher is the transmitter and student is a receptor in the learning process. The formula goes like this: “I’m a professor and I have knowledge. You’re a student you’re an empty vassal and you don’t. Get ready, here it comes. Your goal is to take this data into your short-term memory and through practice and repetition build deeper cognitive structures so you can recall it to me when I test you.”

The definition of a lecture has become the process in which the notes of the teacher go to the notes of the student without going through the brains of either.

Is MOOC a threat or opportunity to universities?

If the MOOC model were really such a disruptive threat, why would universities take the trouble to disrupt themselves? Why would the board members of University of Virginia be so obsessed with it, even going so far by attempting to fire their president?

Below are a few key take-aways after this insightful conversation with Professor Meinel.

• Extend
• Capture Value  
• Continue  
• Customize
• Be There

I have raised similar questions in my previous post here.

If the mooc is better than the existing teaching and learning in the elite or most universities, wouldn’t that be the greatest disruption to their own “mainstream” teaching and pedagogy? If the mooc is far less valuable, attractive and useful than their mainstream teaching and pedagogy, who would be losing? Would that be the professors teaching in the MOOCs? So, no matter whether MOOCs are providing a better or worse pedagogy to the mainstream teaching, either way would not be beneficial to the HE institutions and the professors. But without the MOOCs as the starting point, what would happen? No change, no innovation needed? Would that be totally different if the pedagogy is aligned with cMOOCs? I don’t know the answer.

See this on some of the interesting points about MOOCs relating to its turn down by faculties, with more concerns follow here.

On a larger scale, MOOCs might create a “new and different kind of competition” that could jeopardize more-vulnerable colleges, if not Amherst itself; they could “enable the centralization of American higher education” and “create the conditions for the obsolescence of the B.A. degree.”

So, it seems MOOCs are indeed disruptive technology as viewed from many colleges point of views, and there is simply no return, but to accept that these would deepen the divide between those in favor and against the wider adoption of such technology.

This open letter could be one of the greatest concerns on MOOCs to Faculties of Higher Education Institutions.  See this response letter from Michael Sandel.

What would happen to the faculties, the professors and administrators of those institutions offering MOOCs?  Would some of the faculty staff become Teaching Assistants (TA) to the super-rockstar professors, as the demand of professors is lessened?  What about the opportunities of “teaching” in MOOCs with tens of thousand of students around the world?  What are the ethical and social issues and implications when MOOCs become the mainstream in colleges and Higher Education Institutions?

Is Connectivism a New Learning Theory – Part 2

Here is my response to George and others’ comments to my previous post of Is Connectivism a New Learning Theory?

Hi George, Agreed that the theory has to work at an individual level, and it would have to explain and predict how your learning could or do occur. My questions to you include: How do you learn? How has learning occurred to you?

Do you learn through building and or navigation of networks (aggregation, curation of information sources), personal level (neuronal-level connections, thinking and reflection of personal experience (what sort of changes in behavior?), and way of thinking with conceptual connections of various concepts based on those experiences (sense-making)?

In this way Connectivism is based on a thesis that learning is a networking phenomenon and that knowledge is where one could sense and recognise the pattern emerging out of the building and navigation of the networks. Learning is then a dynamic process, with certain adaptive properties associated with the networks, which could happen under a Complex Adaptive System and Knowledge Ecology (Chatti, 2012) (such as a MOOC). This means that when information changes, a person would need to examine the knowledge pattern resulting from those changes. The MOOC movement and the implications are good example illustrating such knowledge pattern. No one single expert (of MOOCs) so far has fully been able to definitely explain the knowledge and learning that are embedded in MOOCs for both the networks and individuals.

However, when individual professors and all associated learners are co-evolving and co-learning with the learners, each would sense the learning emerging out of the interactions or engagement, with some perceiving knowledge and learning with different degrees of meaning – based on sense-making.

Professors and learners (some, if not all) would each define their way-finding (goal setting, learning how to explore their own pathways) resulting from those exploration, connections, engagement or interaction. These sort of learning also result in various interpretations of what constitutes self-determined learning, self-organising learning (both individually and networks and groups) and emergent knowledge and learning, apart from prescriptive knowledge and learning.

There are people who may learn and interact differently from those as defined under the “formalised” and theorised learning approaches, based on legitimate peripheral learning (as peripheral learners) or other reasons (<a href=”http://www.col.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/MOOCsPromisePeril_Anderson.pdf&#8221; rel=”nofollow”>Anderson, 2013</a>).

Such patterns of both individual and social learning are appearing in various forms throughout the cMOOCs in repeated ways, and also re-emerging in xMOOCs despite the “assertion” that the pedagogy is based on Mastery Learning. Indeed, you could associate the learning associated with Connectivism to be an integration of the previous learning theories of behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism and situated learning (and COPs) all based on connections and interactivity (Connectivism).

May I relate to my previous post:”How would a connectivist approach work? Yes, you still require the deconstruction of the student’s existing thinking, but not just based on the teacher’s input. Rather, you would suggest the students to be immersed in networks, based on navigating activities and the using of appropriate tools or media (i.e. media and technology affordance), in exploring about the “right” and “wrong” concepts, and discerning those right from wrong through navigation tools and reflective thinking. This is similar to what I have suggested here:

The concepts that are crystallised through such networked learning may be based on the ability of the learner to recognise and interpret the pattern (i.e. principally on the navigation and exploration, with or without the teachers), rather than the demonstration of the teacher and explanation of the concepts via “Constructivism or Social Constructivism”. This means that the concept development under Connectivism is far more reaching than the typical “classroom” or social networks environment, but would also include technological and media enhancement for its nourishment.”

There are lots of factors which could impact or influence a person’s learning under such a knowledge ecology (MOOCs), including the authority and power exerted through formal authority, professors, peers etc. and the emotional and affective dimensions (likes/dislikes of certain aspects) emerging from the interaction with course, professors, experts, networks, peers, preference of learning based on individual learning styles, autonomy and self-determination or organisation of individuals, and most importantly personal educational and learning experience which would ultimately impact on one’s perception and appreciation or adoption of those properties of networks – openness, diversity, autonomy, and connectivity or interactivity.

Thanks again for your valuable comments and insights.

References:
Anderson, T. (2013). Promise and/or Peril: MOOCs and Open and Distance Education (accessed 3/5/2013)

Chatti, M. (2012). The LaaN Theory

Creativity

How about this session on Creativity?  Have you attended such kind of session?  I think I have attended a few, and I used some of the ideas in my class too.

Creativity could be one of the most enjoyable experience one has as I have shared it here.  Creativity could be experienced in various spaces, not only in the classroom, but in blogging, twittering, social networking on FB, Google +, and communities.

Creativity could be a personal experience though, especially when one is an introvert.

 Here are some ideas that you may find interesting, at around 11:00 onwards.

City never dies, but organizations would hardly exist after a few decades.  Why?

My reflection: As an organization grows bigger, bureaucracy creeps in, and that might easily “kill” off creativity, or sometimes with risk aversion, leading to a resistance in trying new ideas, innovation, that may lead to failures.

People are generally creative, only that most are bound by the rules and regulations that would limit the creative application of those ideas.  So, may I suggest?  Training on creativity, fine. Development on creativity, great.  However, without having a nurturing creative environment at work or within personal space for one to contribute and participate, creativity would not grow and develop.

On the positive side, creativity is what we could also embrace and practise even on a daily basis.  In this creative people at work: Creative people commit themselves to creative tasks.  They hope to make some change in the sum of human knowledge and experience. (p.8)   “Serious creative work does take a long time.”  So true.

How would you apply such creativity concept to the current MOOC movement?  Is creativity fostered in MOOCs?

 

Is Connectivism a New Learning Theory?

Here is my response to Connectivism: Theory or Phenomenon.

Interesting points and observation.  There are lots of empirical evidence in support of Connectivism, only that I still haven’t got the time to consolidate all of the research findings.

My involvement of number of researches did reveal certain areas where the previous learning theories fell short in its explanation, especially in the areas where emergent, self-oganised and self-determined learning (Heutagogy) did occur.  It could be argued that many (or majority) of the participants of MOOCs (in some cMOOCs, and most xMOOCs) are learning based on an instructivist approaches (behaviorism and cognitivism), and not on social constructivism and connectivism.  Why?  There are good reasons that I would be able to cover in this short response.

In summary:

1. People have been educated under instructivism and would more likely feel accustomed to the lecture method.

2. Transmission and consumption of information (treated as knowledge) is considered a simpler and easier way.

3. Learning is still confined in the Simple to Complicated learning scenarios under most institution education environment (in xMOOCs), where systems, procedures, policies and best practice is based upon.  The known prescriptive knowledge in most xMOOCs could be “trained” and assessed mainly because there are still known and correct answers related to prescriptive outcomes and performance criteria. It seldom addresses the complex and chaos learning scenarios under an informal or non-formal learning environment (i.e. both appearing in most c and x MOOCs where learners are outside the institutional learning framework, and learning occurs in various networks, including social networks, communities and individually).  This is where xMOOCs find it hard to break through, and one or a few professors are expected to “teach” tens of thousands of learners, but that there are simply no way to knowing what sort of learning has taken place, except responses from the tests, clicking of start, stop, pause of the videos or accessing the resources or tests (which is again based on behaviors of learners).

4. Most of the rhetoric (on both for and against Connectivism) are based on certain frame of reference (an educator, an administrator, a professor, an expert or consultant, a course organiser or designer, a student), and that most people are still relating such learning under a confined institutional education environment especially in xMOOCs, which is limiting the type of discourse on how learning has actually taken place in their real life, and how emergent learning has occurred with tacit and explicit knowledge yet to be “defined”.

5.  There are lots of challenges if the students are critiquing under such an education system, as the researches are limited to past findings with closed education system (the typical class settings) and learning theories which relate to social learning theory, but not an integration of the various learning theories under a digital age.

6. Trying to critique on a “New Learning Theory” such as Connectivism requires more evidences for both proving and dis-proving the theory, and if the disprove is based on another theory, then likely you would end up with “self-fulfilling” prophecy as surely there are gaps in between what you are looking for, and what the theory of Connectivism proposes.  This is why a shift of frame of reference (perspective, and basic principles of learning) be used to explore about the theory.  This should be grounded on evidences and practical applications and not rhetoric.

7. The various reports from xMOOCs – from professors, participants, and experts all indicated certain patterns of self-organised groupings, emergent learning and social networking, together with the properties of networks – openness, connectivity, diversity and autonomy (to some extent) are realized, but then seldom promoted, as they are not enlisted under Mastery Learning (the main pedagogy).  However, if you review what Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig have shared in their presentation, they did highlight some of the existing pitfalls with the video lectures only, and the lack of interaction with the professors and peers with the xMOOCs approach, except those in the LMS.

8. I am afraid that most students are writing papers grounded on a traditional linear definitive approach, in order to satisfy their education institution requirements, and that most, if not all would need to satisfy the well established framework of education as deemed certified as “canonical knowledge” and known system.  Connectivism goes far beyond such approach, and thus a student who would argue based on Connectivism may not easily be able to demonstrate competency that easily.

Finally, as I have argued throughout, there aren’t many people deemed as experts in Connectivism, except the pioneers – George Siemens and Stephen Downes, and so how could other professors and students be able to accept Connectivism if they haven’t been “educated” or haven’t learnt about the theory?  Besides, there are some principles under Connectivism which are mooted and debatable, and it is time to review them based on more evidences and applications.  Unfortunately, we are unlikely able to access the data and learning analytics of xMOOCs as they are owned by the xMOOC providers.

John

Cultural Awareness and Differences in MOOCs

This may be of interest for reference to the discourse on cultural awareness and differences in MOOCs
1. Cooperman said the latest round of MOOC enthusiasm has prompted concern because of the top-down nature of the material being offered on MOOCs by professors from elite Western universities.

2. But, in China, Gunawardena found students don’t necessarily openly argue with each other based on points of view. They build knowledge based on collaboration. What effect will this have on the uptake of Western-made courseware?

There are political and cultural reasons behind the use or non-use of MOOCs in developing countries – such as those in China and Africa. Students coming from another cultural background such as China would have different needs, and there could be significant language barriers since their mother tongue is Chinese (Mandarin). Besides, the pedagogy adopted in mainstream China tends to follow the Confucius system – with a strong didactic teaching approach.

Here is a video that shows some differences in views between American and Chinese students (reflective of the western and eastern cultures to some extent).

Relating to cultural awareness, there has been some research studies done, and even a cultural intelligence has been identified. I have attended a cultural awareness training course but found that most of the researches done might have been over-generalized and “stereo-typed”. As Debbie said the learning outcome may be about cultural awareness rather than learning of the subject matter, and some people coming from another culture may easily be misunderstood, misinterpreted or incorrectly judged due to the differences in their gestures, way of connection and communication, and their customs or cultures. Similarly, MOOCs coming from a western culture may have a strong “flavor” of western style of living and cultural values, especially in areas like literature, politics, arts and dancing, and this could be significantly different from those of the eastern cultures. Conflicts in values or cultures may not be obvious, but could hinder the education and learning process. The shadows of neo-liberalism, imposed or biased values of certain beliefs, imperialism and the associated dominance with powers and authority, might be perceived by participants coming from a different culture to the west.
Here is a paper on cultural intelligence (CI).
Some more research papers here, here and here.

It may be interesting for us to have a Multicultural Awareness and Intelligence MOOCs.

How about the design and development of a MOOC on Multicultural Awareness and Intelligence?  Who are the experts in this area?

Who would be interested in such a MOOC?

Thanks for visit too.

John

Mastery Learning in MOOCs

This post relates to my reflection of Mastery Learning in MOOCs

I enjoyed the presentation here by Daphne Koller where she elaborated the use of Mastery Learning as a pedagogy in MOOCs.

It’s interesting to see if Mastery Learning is a perfect model/pedagogy in MOOCs.

Mastery Learning:

Bloom believed that nearly all students, when provided with the more favorable learning conditions of mastery learning, could truly master academic content (Bloom, 1976; Guskey, 1997a). A large body of research has borne him out: When compared with students in traditionally taught classes, students in well-implemented mastery learning classes consistently reach higher levels of achievement and develop greater confidence in their ability to learn and in themselves as learners (Anderson, 1994; Guskey & Pigott, 1988; Kulik, Kulik, & Bangert-Drowns, 1990).

Sustaining and Extending Success

Researchers today generally recognize the value of the core elements of mastery learning. As a result, fewer studies are being conducted on the mastery learning process itself. Instead, researchers are looking for ways to attain even more impressive gains by improving students’ learning processes, curriculum and instructional materials, and the home learning environment and support and providing a focus on higher level thinking skills. Work on integrating mastery learning with other innovative strategies appears especially promising (Guskey, 1997b).

As we strive to improve achievement even further, we can continue to learn from the core elements of mastery learning. Attention to these elements will enable educators to make great strides in their efforts to close achievement gaps and help all students achieve excellence.

I was first introduced to Mastery Learning in 1985, and studied about Benjamin Bloom’s hypothesis and the related theories. After years of teaching, I could comment about its application based on my experience and observation. There are certain assumptions made in Mastery Learning (again, I have proposed Assumptions Theory as a basis upon which all Theories could be challenged, validated or tested, and that could be a critical lens for any one to view, from different perspectives, with different angles). I understand that there are always parameters which could not be easily controlled in even the most extensive studies in education, though I would suggest to be cautious in interpreting the studies.

Refer to this paper on 2 sigma problem:

First, Mastery Learning works, based principally on a behavioral model, whereas pre-requisite knowledge and skills are tested before the learning, and that mastery of skills could be achieved through a self-learning mode with continuous feedback in the learning process.

Second, Mastery Learning works best when the learners are learning skills which have definite learning and performance outcomes (skills, knowledge), and that these outcomes are measurable using the tools used.

Third, Mastery Learning relates to individual’s performance and so it is a good measure of individual’s performance based on an apprenticeship or traineeship model. Even under the Bloom’s Taxonomy, the emphasis is still on individual’s performance. That also explains why most of our students are assessed individually, without much consideration of assessing individuals under a group or network situation.

The one-on-one tutoring sounds like a perfect system, though there is also an implicit assumption that the trainer and trainee (or mentor and mentee) would help and support the trainees or mentees at their best. I don’t think that is that simple, as I have worked on a number of mentoring project (as well as traineeship model – with one-on-one) where a number of factors are critical for such learning to work. This includes assumptions such as: a good match of mentor and mentee, a healthy and trustful relationship is established and sustained in the mentoring or training process, and that there is a supportive learning environment for the trainer and trainee etc. There are also other critical factors which need to be considered: trust, power, learning context or situation, incentives and motivation of mentors and mentees or trainer and trainee etc. Are these possible in MOOCs? I wonder!

I think mastery learning is useful as it is a structured approach towards learning of the content. I have reservations in its use for advanced or deep learning, as some aspects of learning – such as creative thinking, critical thinking, complex analysis and emergent learning cannot be measured using those conventional tools (i.e. Multiple Choice, True or False, or objective testing). The mastery of those skills cannot be relied solely on testing, and so I would question the validity of these research findings when applying in the checking of learning of participants’ of MOOCs in a linear fashion. I doubt if anyone could repeat such studies nowadays with those experiments, as people are learning beyond the institutional framework, and that 2 or 3 sigma is not “good enough”.

 Here is my previous post on Bloom’s Taxonomy and Mastery Learning

Video about Asians

Here is a video that I found interesting.  Any comments?