The Best B-Schools For Military Veterans

What MOOCs Do Well … and Where They Falter

You could say that MOOCs are the “shiny new toy” of education. Everyone is playing with them, even if they don’t include directions (or batteries). Imaginations are running wild, as faculty dress them up or smack them into other toys. In the end, both administrators and participants are often left disappointed. “They just didn’t do what they promised,” they think.

And maybe that comes from the hype as much as the medium. With any innovation, users must temper their expectations, as they bounce around the learning curve. You see, the trial-and-error period is what makes or breaks any innovation. Will academics grow frustrated with MOOCs and toss them back into the toy box? Or, will they continuously experiment and tweak, learning what works and how to soften or circumvent limitations?

That’s where the University of Rochester is in the process. In a recent column appearing in Bloomberg Businessweek, Eric Frederickson, the school’s associate vice president for online learning, and Mark Zupan, the dean of the Simon Business School, shared their experiences in launching MOOCs through Coursera.

Like many, they’ve learned that MOOC courses generally “complement, not replace, the traditional campus experience.” So what did insights did they gain from this partnership? Here are some snippets of the benefits and best practices they uncovered:

Sharpened Teaching Skills: “Each week in our Microeconomics course we record eight to 12 segments, from 4 to 12 minutes in length. Having to condense material makes you think hard about the most concise way to present a concept. The ability to reshoot any given segment ensures staying current while providing the means to raise one’s game constantly as a teacher. Furthermore, 20,000-plus students viewing one’s videos online and raising questions through discussion forums serve as a potent force to promote the accuracy and quality of one’s material.”
Increased Retention:

“Among our international students for whom English is a second language, many find the opportunity to review video material multiple times to be quite valuable. Both domestic and international students report that the closed-captioning feature associated with the videos is especially beneficial.”
More Flexible Formats:

“To meet the demand of online learners who desire more face-to-face interaction, universities will need to develop hybrid models that combine online and in-person learning. We may also need more flexible schedules—say, three two-day, in-person sessions at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester, coupled with an online learning component along the way.”

In addition, Frederickson and Zupan also share a fascinating observation about drop-out rates for MOOCs, which can go as high as 95% in some courses. They argue that criticizing such high attrition rates is like “using 20th century metrics to measure a 21st century experience.” Considering that enrolling in a MOOC is as easy as pushing a button, the authors emphasize that students’ “intention and commitment” are key. From their experience, they learned that 30% of participants never intended to finish their course in the first place. What’s more, 84% of MOOC participants were older than 22, meaning there was an “increased chance that they have family obligations and/or job responsibilities that divert their time and attention from the courses.”

Bottom line: MOOCs cater to non-traditional students who are often more curious than committed. And that’s okay. Frederickson and Zupan noted that MOOCs gave their university greater visibility: “Of our 200,000-plus virtual enrollees, who hail from 150 different countries, 44 percent never heard of us.” While they are educating these students for free, the university has learned to monetize the experience:

“To date, we have had four students from our Microeconomics course apply for admission to our traditional graduate degree programs at our Simon Business School. We plan to invite the top 100 online students from our MOOC, the Power of Markets, to our campus in June for review sessions followed by a proctored final exam and the chance to earn additional certification. We hope to encourage the best overall students, through scholarship support, to apply to Simon. (The top performer on the exam will be offered a full-tuition scholarship to a Simon graduate business program.)”

In other words, MOOCs may not replace traditional education, but they can open the door for potential enrollees to sample and compare their options.

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek