My MOOC: Seal ‘er up, send ‘er to rest

It’s time to fess up: the MOOC interest I have is gone.  I’ve been hesitating on this for some time, but I think it’s time to put it to rest.  The class officially ends December 10, but I’m not going to move forward any further.

I continued in the class for the first month and a half-or-so… and the format is pretty simple.  As mentioned, it’s a basic task of watching video lectures, reading the assigned text, and writing a short essay every other week.  Not a lot of work to be done that took much time away from my schedule.

Here’s where I falter.  

First, I have no idea why I’m devoting the energy to learn.  For me, there was never a goal to take part in the class other than to write a few blog entries about the experience.  By that measure, I’ve done what I wanted to do, but I’m finding it difficult to maintain interest in the process itself and the coursework.

Second, I had no out-of-classroom experiences to reflect on either process or the material.  The latter point, of being able to talk (out loud!) about course material, is crucial for my learning style.  I like class discussion.  I like hearing what others have to say, and certainly, I like sharing my thoughts as well.  The Meetup.com group I joined never took off, so the learning process was all on me.

Third, and similarly to the second point, I had no peers nor mentors to guide me.  Keeping this process to myself, I had no ability to seek direction – and being one of 70,000 students doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to get a lot of attention if I e-mailed the course staff directly.

Fourth, I feel a definite lack of buy-in.  Though I paid for the book (12 bucks, including shipping), I can’t claim to have any sense of responsibility.  This course was not an expenditure (aside from the text and my time) to any degree that made me feel obligated to continue, nor was it part of a curriculum that I was excited for the next step.

Busting out a textbook from the graduate school days, Learning in Adulthood by Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner (2007), one theory of adult learning labeled andragogy struck me as a useful analytical lens.  Andragogy was proposed by Malcolm Knowles in the late 1960s as a set of assumptions critical to providing a foundation for adult learning.  The six assumptions are (paraphrased from Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner, 2007):

1.  As a person matures, his/her self-concept shifts from being dependent to self-directing.
2. Adults use their experiences as a resource for learning.
3. The readiness of an adult to learn is closely related to the developmental tasks of his/her social role.
4. Adults are more problem-centered than subject-centered in learning.
5. Motivation is most potent when it’s internal, rather than external.
6. Adults need to know why they need to learn something.

Not to claim that I’m a fully matured, experience driven, internally motivated adult, (in fact, I know that not all of these things are true), but perhaps this gives some thought as to my own faltering in completing the course.  In the end, the value of the course is low, my motivation is low, and the format of the course is not help.

So, is Coursera viable?

“Viable for what?” is the question.  Undoubtedly, Coursera is a very accessible tool which could be used for a wide variety of applications, including MOOCs, for-credit courses, exams, remedial education, and probably much more.  Frankly, it was easy to get the ball rolling – which to me, indicates that the challenge is not the platform.  It’s how educators will use the platform to deliver the content, learning, and connections that they normally would try to convey through other methods.  My thought is that it would incredibly useful in smaller groups that were required to meet at least once or twice per semester/quarter, and at least once with an instructor or instructor’s designee.  I also think that it will be useful to all age groups around the world – meaning that it has a lot of potential to support global learning initiatives.

So with that, I’m going to hang my head in the shame of not finishing this course (it’s only the second one, after failing a math class in 8th grade), and then quickly move on to other things.  More maps, anyone?

-tw

Venturing into a MOOC: Intro, Lesson 1 and 2

At last, I’ve finally been able to take some time this week and dive into the first two lessons of my MOOC.  If you haven’t, read the prior post that talks about what a MOOC is and why I’m dong this.   To recap, I’m taking A History of the World Since 1300 through Coursera.  The instructor is Dr. Jeremy Adelman of Princeton University.  Princeton is offering the course for free through Coursera alongside, I imagine, a class which is occurring locally in New Jersey.

As an aside, these posts, where applicable, are my own intellectual property.  I am taking screenshots of the Coursera interface, which might not be covered under my effective property, but would be under Coursera’s.  Last, I ask that you do not copy my posts but rather link to this website so the integrity of the content can be maintained.

Orientation and Navigation

As I’ve navigated through Coursera and the course syllabus, I’ve noted a few things in regards to the site and how it “orients” me to prepare for this course.  First, while Coursera itself is a relatively easy to navigate website, there is no orientation about how this course fits into any other facet of education for me, aside from the ones I assign to it myself.  In other words, there is no distinct curriculum for which this course fits easily into and the reason I am taking it is my own – not because it leads to a a credential, a learning outcome, etc.  However, there is a “Terms of Use” type document that indicates that the intellectual property is of their respective owner, that I need to do my own work (Coursera Honor Code).

Introduction Lecture (picture of Dr. Adelman)

Second, the course website is easy to find and navigate.  The main pane of the website is a blog where Dr. Adelman has noted any announcements, where to begin, etc.  The left pane of the website (navigation pane) has the following, understandable links:

• Home
• Course Schedule
• Video Lectures
• Discussion Forums
• Guide to Writing & Evaluation Assignments
• Global Dialogues
• About the Course
• Help with Subtitles
• Join a Meetup

During the introduction lecture to the course itself, Dr. Adelman has coordinated with Meetup.com to support local student meetings to discuss the course (hence the link, “Join a Meetup”).  The remainder of the links that might be less understandable are covered in the introduction lecture.

Format & Assessment

As indicated, this course is online.  The primary methods of content delivery are video lecture, assigned readings, and forum discussions.  Secondary methods of content delivery are local meetups and “Global Dialogues,” where students pose questions to be responded to by Dr. Adelman and a guest speaker.  Assessment comes through two forms: quizzes at the end of each video lecture and essays, which are assigned every two weeks and must be turned in prior to the next assignment.  No grades are given.  Importantly, Dr. Adelman is extremely open with the fact that this course is an experiment in education (and feedback is crucial).

The assigned text for this course is Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World from the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present (Second Edition) (Vol. 2: The Mongol Empire to the Present), authored by Tignor, Adelman, Aron, Kotkin, Marchand, Prakash, and Tsin.  Unfortunately, the text is expensive new ($120 USD) for a physical copy and 50$ for an e-book version.  Interestingly, it’s only $15 for the e-book version if you are not a North American.  I ended up buying a used edition through Amazon.com.  Let’s hope it arrives before the first assignment is handed out!

As mentioned, primary content delivery is partially through video lectures.  These lectures are neat in that they can be paused, played at slower and faster rates, subtitled, etc.  They total to two hours of lecture per week, but are broken up into smaller segments.

Video Lectures

Diving in: Lecture Time (but only a snippet)!

While I won’t cover everything that is in this course, I thought it’d be useful to know how I feel about the lecture and what content is actually being delivered.  If you have questions – once again, ask! – that’s what comments are for!  Last, these are organized from my notes and are not transcriptions – so read with that context in mind.  The good news is that if you want to learn about the course itself, you can always enroll (for free)!

A Video Lecture in Coursera

Immediately, Adelman asks us to think historically.  How did people live differently from how we live now, and why? What is our societal precedence?  In models of globalization – what are the explaining factors?  How did different societies respond to global pressures?  Governments, societies, and economies all have alternative tracts.  What were the ‘units’ of the world before the nation-state?  How did the world interact with each other?  What were the categories of social life?

Adelman notes that he is going to have to gloss over much of history in order to cover such a vast period of the world’s development for 700 years and then continues to frame the lecture.  Societal paradigms were different in many different ways. One is that everyone thought that the world was created by a god or gods, and two is that villages were common denominators – not cities or megacities.  Furthermore, while many great things happened from “the beginning” until the present, the relative standard of life was simple.  People were shorter and lives were shorter – and any exceptions were for the few social elite .

A Lecture Quiz (got it wrong the first time!)

Wealth is defined as the ability for society to produce above and beyond what it needs to survive.  Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in noted for its observation of societies’ exchange of surplus as an important mechanism for change and growth.  The primal exchange was between the city and the countryside.  Importantly, many of the world’s villages did not grow at the same rate, and linearity does not coexist necessarily alongside world history.

Alongside the development of wealth, Adelman notes the development of luxury goods as an important facet in trade and exchange.  Wealth, furthermore, is concentrated and is translated to become a force of power.  Wealth drew upon agrarian sources and therefore geography becomes an important force in development – particularly through trade and contact.  Last, this creates a relationship of interdependence – and this is what we might define most closely as globalization in its earliest forms.

Conclusion

While I haven’t completed all of lectures 1 and 2 (yet), and that I don’t even have the book yet, it seems overall to be accessible.  Importantly, I think accessibility is the key to success in the future of any MOOC due to the requirement for people everywhere to be able to navigate the system!  Furthermore, the course content is more than understandable and I think I’ll have fun learning and re-learning about some concepts of history in this Princeton course.

I did note that there were some key themes that I’d like to discuss as an outcome for this venture – but of course I left them at work!  I’ll update the blog later this week with some reflections on those thoughts as well as lectures 3 and 4.

Venturing into a ‘MOOC’

Source: The Online Pecking Order – Inside Higher Ed

Most of my readers might not be familiar with a new phenomena in higher education: the MOOC (Massively Open Online Course).  MOOCs are the current fad of higher education, mostly because they offer the ability to deliver content and learning to potentially large (thousands) groups of students at a time.  Importantly, they might be able to do so incredibly cheap, as well.

A quick briefing on MOOCs:

More upsides to delivering these classes to thousands of people include their accessibility; the majority of the classes are online and have large groups of international students who support one another.  By providing such a mechanism, it is natural to think that those who actually complete the coursework and participate in the class can take advantage of free or cheap learning and boost themselves up in the world.  No doubt, the same principles could apply to large groups of students in any setting, poor or not.

The downsides of MOOCs, however, do exist.  First, the upside of accessibility is wrought with the downside of requiring internet access and a competent understanding of how to navigate in a web browser.  Furthermore, being one of many (as I said, thousands of people) likely means that students are going to miss out on the personal interaction of classmates and professor.  There is the interaction between students and faculty through electronic fora, but the viability of this is questionable (at least to me).

So, as an interested party I’ve decided to venture into a MOOC and document my ‘journey.’  I hope to post my thoughts, feelings, and probably most importantly, what I’m learning about the content of the course, on this blog.  Please follow along.

The class I’ve enrolled in is A History of the World Since 1300 through Coursera. The professor is Dr. Jeremy Adelman of Princeton University and I am one of 70,000 students enrolled.  Way cool?  Yes – and let’s find out how it goes!