Category Archives: pedagogy

What are the differences between cMOOCs and xMOOCs?

Are there significant differences between cMOOCs and xMOOCs?

The MOOC (more accurately should be xMOOCs) is the i-Tune of Academe captures the positivist views with xMOOCs, with promising future.  I still see MOOCs as freebies (with x MOOCs offering more features than cMOOCs including certificates and brokering services). To what extent are these “sustainable”, at least for the coming few years?  

I have shared my views on the differences between c and x MOOCs here, “more is less and less is more with MOOCs” part 1, and part 2 and part 3.

In essence:

1. xMOOCs are branded based on institutions and professors, cMOOCs are branded based on the co-evolvement and peer teaching and learning of both professors and learners.

2. xMOOCs are instructivist based, whilst cMOOCs are learner and learning based.

3. xMOOCs are based on an alternative business model, whilst cMOOCs are based on learner-centered connectivist model.

4. xMOOCs are based on semi-opened teaching resources, whilst cMOOCs are based on Open Educational resources (OER).

5. xMOOCs are based on a marketing approach, whilst cMOOCs are based on learner “word” of mouth and experiential and experimental “moment of truth” approach.

What else have you found?

What is the mission of Higher Education Institution and MOOCs?

“Can we assume that our education system (including most MOOCs) is primarily built on a behavioral/instructivist model of education? Teachers are expected to motivate students, keep them interested in class & in school, and ensure that they perform to the standards required, through TEACHING.”

Thanks to Doug Holton for the reference:  FROM TEACHING TO LEARNING – A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education (Barr and Tagg, 1995) where Barr and Tagg say:

To say that the purpose of colleges is to provide instruction is like saying that General Motors’ business is to operate assembly lines or that the purpose of medical care is to fill hospital beds. We now see that our mission is not instruction but rather that of producing learning with every student by whatever means work best.

Hasn’t there been any changes from Teaching to Learning? What pedagogy and education paradigm are being adopted by institutions and MOOC? Most of us as educators know “how to teach” through teacher training. How about the production of learning that our institutions should aim for as a mission? Without learners taking responsibility, learning in action (likely through motivation), what teachers could best do is to “transmit knowledge and information” from their heads to the students’ head. How to ensure such knowledge is always kept up to date, if such knowledge is transmitted in our education system?

How do these relate to the mission of MOOCs?

The mission of edX via MOOCs:

“While MOOCs have typically focused on offering a variety of online courses inexpensively or for free, edX’s vision is much larger. EdX is building an open source educational platform and a network of the world’s top universities to improve education both online and on campus while conducting research on how students learn.”

This seems similar to my posting here in opportunistic education:

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.

Alternative platforms of MOOCs in forms of opportunities of learning are emerging, and competition is keen, among MOOCs’ providers as more and more institutions joined the bandwagon of MOOCs. As I shared in my post, MOOCs need to be viewed differently in an institutional framework, if a business model is to be adopted.  Developing and adopting a vision and mission that embrace disruptive innovation and take calculated risks is never easy.  It is however the best time to transform education through integrating pockets of changes, where a ground breaking attempt would eventually help the institution in morphing into a totally new world of education, probably with MOOCs.