The Spectrum of Opinion About MOOCs

It’s been interesting to see the incredibly wide variety of opinions about the hot topic of MOOCs the past two years.  As part of a presentation last week at a faculty development conference, I compiled some articles on MOOCs and arranged them from the most extremely “pro” MOOC articles, to the most negative and critical.  I think it’s helpful to be aware of some of the different perspectives people have about MOOCs, and perhaps this might encourage folks to move a bit (just a bit) toward the center from some of the extremes at both ends (who coincidentally both believe that the end of higher education is nigh).

I was prompted to post this also because of an article this week that suggests that Sebastian Thrun and Udacity are also aware of some of the problems with MOOCs, and pivoting accordingly.  As you’ll see from the quotes by Sebastian Thrun below, his thinking on MOOCs has evolved quite a bit in the past two years, while the leaders of Coursera and edX are still staunchly pro-MOOC and discount troubling issues like the extremely low retention rates in their courses, even publishing journal articles that argue that the MOOC “retention problem” is not an issue.

Extremely Pro, Positive, “Disruptive” Articles About MOOCs

• Lifting All Boats: How MOOCs Can Bring Higher Ed Together – from Campus Technology magazine

• Revolution Hits the Universities – Thomas Freidman

• The Campus Tsunami – David Brooks

• MOOCs Data Offers the Promise of Perfect Teaching – BBC article: “Artificial intelligence underpinning online courses can log every click and keyboard stroke a student makes… Equipped with this information, course designers can adapt their materials, and deliver the ultimate in targeted teaching. Could this lead to the perfect, personalised lesson?”

• quote: “The thing I’m insanely proud of right now is I think we’ve found the magic formula”  – Sebastian Thrun, Udacity CEO, Aug. 2013 [turns out he wasn’t talking about MOOCs per se I believe, but vocational and corporate training courses that students pay for to get certification from employers]

• quote: “From what I hear, really good actors can actually teach really well”  “So just imagine, maybe we get Matt Damon to teach Thévenin’s theorem,” – Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, Nov. 2013

• The MOOC “Retention Problem” – EDUCAUSE article by Coursera

• 5 Myths About MOOCs – article in EDUCAUSE

• quote: “MOOC education is survival of the fittest. Every student is just one insignificant datapoint while the course is running. Do well, do poorly, struggle, drop out – no one notices. But when the MOOC algorithm calculates the final ranking, the relatively few who score near the top become very, very visible. Globally, talent recruiting is a $130BN industry. It’s “Google search for people” in action.” –Keith Devlin, Stanford math professor and author  [My jaw is still hanging wide open after reading this article on the “Darwinization of Higher Education” from last year.  I wish it was in the humorous category below.]

Pro but Dire Articles about MOOCs, the “MOOCalypse”

• The End of the University as We Know It

• 4 reasons why universities will go extinct

• Can the Current Model of Higher Education Survive MOOCs and Online Learning?

• quote: “In 50 years, he says, there will be only 10 institutions in the world delivering higher education and Udacity has a shot at being one of them.” – Sebastian Thrun, Udacity CEO, March 2012

MOOCs Have Indirect Positives

• Will MOOCs Promote Superstar Teaching Over Superstar Research At Princeton And Other Ivy Universities?

• MOOCs Lead Duke To Reinvent On-Campus Courses

• 5 Possible Advances for Online Learning Courtesy of MOOCs

• MOOC spotlight creating academic celebrities

MOOCs are exposing problems in higher education, which will (hopefully) lead to us addressing them

• Schadenfreude for the MOOC Is Not Joy for the Higher Ed Status Quo – Cathy Davidson

• How a MOOC Could Be A Faculty’s Best Friend

• Much Ado About MOOCs

Houston, We Have a Problem [With MOOCs]

• quote: “We were on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, and at the same time, I was realizing, we don’t educate people as others wished, or as I wished. We have a lousy product,” Thrun tells me. “It was a painful moment.” Turns out he doesn’t even like the term MOOC. –Sebastian Thrun, Nov 2013

MOOCs are a Step Backward and Ignore Previous Research and Experience with Online Learning and Pedagogy

• What’s right and what’s wrong about Coursera-style MOOCs – Tony Bates

• MOOCs, MIT and Magic – Tony Bates

• Research and development on MOOCs – Tony Bates (scroll down)

• MOOCs are a fundamental misperception of how teaching works – Mark Guzdial

• MOOCs: Not There Yet – Mark Guzdial

• MOOCs today are about less data for the teacher – Mark Guzdial

• What’s the “problem” with MOOCs? – my earlier blog post

• In Connectivism, No One Can Hear You Scream: a Guide to Understanding the MOOC Novice – Keith Brennan article in Hybrid Pedagogy

• The messy realities of learning and participation in open courses and MOOCs – presentation by George Veletsianos

• What MIT Should Have Done – eLearn magazine

• Counter-opinion: The pedagogical foundations of MOOCs – According to this journal article, MOOCs are pedagogically superior to most other forms of instruction. I really was surprised that this article made it past peer review – it appears (as some MOOC journalists do) to conflate MOOCs with other forms of online learning and blended learning.

Sardonic, Humorous Perspectives on MOOCs

• A Future With Only 10 Universities – by Audrey Watters [including the Universities of Pearson, Google, and Walmart]

• College Songs for MOOC Era

• Let Them Eat MOOCs – I guess just the title is humorous to me – the article isn’t meant to be humorous I believe.

• Forget MOOCs–Let’s Use MOOA – massive open online administrations

Negative, Critical, MOOCs are Bad

• What’s the Matter With MOOCs?

• Are MOOCs Good for Students? – SJSU Professor

  • “MOOCs are just a symptom of our society’s degraded approach to knowledge itself”

• All Hail MOOCs! Just Don’t Ask if They Actually Work

• MOOC Skeptic’s Toolkit: Letter to a Parent – AAUP member

• More or Less Bunk – Jonathan Rees’ blog has several posts critical of MOOCs, including:

  • Peer grading (still) can’t work
  • “I’m not a real professor. I just play one on the Internet.”
  • Teaching vs. broadcasting
  • The MOOC hype cycle is older than you think
  • Anti-MOOC really is the new black
  • The gateway drug for MOOCs
  • This is how MOOCs end…
  • A theory of the (academic) leisure class

• MOOCs: Corporate welfare for credit

• MOOCs are Toast or at Least Should Be

• Are MOOCs Missing the Mark?

• When MOOCs profit, who pays?

• A MOOC Delusion: Why Visions to Educate the World Are Absurd

• Are Online Courses Failing America?

• Are We MOOC’d Out?

About Doug Holton

Faculty developer. Interests: developing educational technology; faculty & student development; learning sciences & psychology.

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