Higher education: Who is the customer?

by Martin LaGrow

In Hap Aziz’s recent blog article, Society or Student: What Should Education Serve, Mr. Aziz posed a number of important questions: what is the role of higher education in contributing to and preserving the entrepreneurial spirit? What is the contribution of higher education to developing students who demonstrate creativity and independent thought?  The answer, it would appear, would be one and the same—serving the student, by providing an education that encourages independent thought, serves society. The influx of US government dollars into education, however, means that the American citizen is rightfully interested in the ROI—what is the quantitative, as well as qualitative return on the investment of an estimated $54 billion dollars per year (http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/09/17/its-well-past-time-to-slash-higher-education-subsidies/) in federal grants, aid, and tax breaks—aside from money spent at the state level? This amounts to $250 per taxpayer. Granted, these are very rough estimates, and could arguably be swayed either way depending on what you want the numbers to portray, but my point is this: As Mr. Aziz stated, “He who pays the piper calls the tune, after all.” While this is true in most business transactions, is it true in higher education? At the end of the day, who is the customer? Because this determines who higher education is going to be motivated to serve.

One school of thought is that the customer is the government that is putting the dollars on the table. Eighty-five percent of first-time, full-time undergraduates receive financial aid at four-year colleges. Meanwhile, this number soars to 92% (now 96%, according to the Harkin report referenced below) at for-profit colleges (http://chronicle.com/article/Share-of-Students-Receiving/132016/). Whether this is a good use of funds or not is a subject for another day. The question here is, if the government is indeed the consumer (paying the piper), is the government calling the tune, or dictating how and where those the dollars are spent? Current data would suggest not—the government is writing blank checks that any institution meeting very basic requirements can qualify for. Pell grants and loans are available to any college that can win accreditation, and every college can get the same amount. Though it is the US Department of Education that officially recognizes college accreditation, it is outside agencies that review institutions and actually grant accreditation (http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5128294_do-colleges-accredited.html). This means that while government funds higher education through grants and loans, it does not directly evaluate any institutions or programs to where those funds are directed. Is the government calling the tune? Hardly. Any direct governmental oversight of funds spent has been done after the fact. The senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions) committee chairman, Tom Harkin, initiated a two-year investigation to determine exactly what the government is getting for its money from for-profit colleges that receive the highest portion of government funding (http://www.harkin.senate.gov/help/forprofitcolleges.cfm). The conclusions do not paint the outcome of this investment in glowing terms. But nothing was dictated in advance as to what those funds could and could not be used for. If the government is left holding the bag, it is only because it left the door open for opportunists rather than providing a clear picture of the intended expenditures and outcomes.

Another school of thought is that the customer of higher education is the student. After all, although it is the government that writes the check, it is the student that hands it over to the finance department of their chosen institution.  As the student makes the spending decision, it is the student to whom institutions are marketing. One finding of the Harkin report was that 22.7 percent of all for-profit college revenue was spent on marketing, advertising, recruiting, and admissions staff. Traditional colleges and some non-profits are striving to keep pace, spending over 20 percent of their annual revenues on advertising and marketing (http://www.evolllution.com/opinions/ways-higher-education-marketing-change-10-years/).  Colleges and universities are thrust into unfamiliar territory—determining the hot buttons that cause a potential student to chose them over and above increasingly fierce competition, and catering to obtain (and retain) those students. As the student walks through the doors with a government check, it is truly the student who calls the tune. And like the government, the student is typically not doing a great deal of investigation into exactly what those dollars are paying for. After all, it is usually not $20,000 a year they have earned and socked away into their own savings to pay for this education. It’s effectively someone else’s money, money that they will have to pay back at a later date—once they have obtained the high-paying job that their new degree practically guarantees.

And what is it that this customer wants? Though students are incredibly varied, and their expectations for higher education are equally varied, the end result is ultimately, and almost unanimously, the same thing. From the eighteen-year-old student entering a four year MBA program on a traditional campus, to the twenty-eight year old student taking night classes in veterinary technology at a vocational institution, the purpose of pursuing higher education is to get a job. It may be to pursue the American dream of independent wealth, or to just make enough to pay the bills and raise the children, but the outcome is the same. The institution that can convince students it offers the greatest opportunity for success will win the day.

So we have a precarious arrangement. A government provides nearly unlimited and unmonitored funds to institutions to market and provide an education to students, and allows students to determine the allocation of those funds based on the ability of the institution to convince them of its worth. It’s up to the institution to determine, therefore, what is more important…in this arrangement, will it be to use those dollars to provide the best value and quality of education to the student, contribute meaningful research to society, and lead the charge in developing the independent and entrepreneurial spirit, paying to recruit and retain the highest quality instructors? Or will it be more inclined to enhance its image, create dynamic marketing campaigns, and falsely inflate retention and graduation rates to produce enticing statistics for its potential students?

Or to put it anecdotally, if my parents gave me a $100,000, unconditional loan to buy a new car when I turned 18, would the salesman make a sales pitch to them, or to me? And at the end of the day, do you suppose I would end up making the most informed purchase with those funds? Until the unrealistic alignment of funding in higher education is reformed, neither student nor society will be best served by the outcome.

And for the record, I did some searching and found a used 1991 Lamborghini Diablo for $93,500. But don’t worry. I’ll pay it back.

Society or Student: What Should Education Serve?

by Hap Aziz

As educators, politicians, employers, technology futurists, and others debate the challenges facing education in the United States, the very basic question of what an education should provide is not often a key component of that debate. When the discussion turns to “common core” or “competency-based learning,” the terminology exposes the bias that there are subject areas or skill sets that are important for our students to master… and that, of course, implies that there are facets of human endeavor that are less important, at least from a public policy and funding standpoint.

At the Learning Impact 2013 conference in San Diego, this was one of the themes woven throughout Dr. Yong Zhao’s keynote address. His comments were provocative but very compelling along this line of reasoning: The greater specificity in education content (exercised through design control from some central, external entity accountable to societal demands), the less likely that students will be able to navigate a creative, entrepreneurial path in life. It is this premise that Dr. Zhao used to buttress his premise that the United States, despite having students that often score near the bottom in world-wide academic performance, produces inventors and innovators and entrepreneurs in much greater proportion than do countries with top test-performing students such as China, for example. While many people in the U.S. have high regard for the Chinese education system, it is instructive to know how non-Americans assess China:

“China must have entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs.”
- Wen Jiabao, Former State Premier

and

“The next Apple or Google will appear, but not in China unless it abolishes its education.”
- Kai-fu Lee, Founding President of Google China

Part of this is a cultural mindset, and in October of 2010, a Gallup poll found the entrepreneurial mindset to be much more prevalent in the U.S. than in China (or even the European Union).

The question on entrepreneurship and culture, Zhao argues, is very much related to the success-or failure-of an education system to squash creativity and independent thought. The reason our workforce is more entrepreneurial is due, at least in part, to the fact that the American education system does such a poor job of educating students in those categories that our society most values.

This is what Steve Wozniak comments about the top-ranked Singapore education system:

“Apple couldn’t emerge in societies like Singapore where ‘bad behavior is not tolerated’ and people are not taught to think for themselves.”

Author and CNN Travel contributor Alexis Ong remarks:

“Wozniak’s comments are really a scathing indictment of the Singapore education system, its strictly regimented curriculum and by-rote study techniques that sustain the city’s “formal culture.”

Consider that Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell, and Larry Ellison all dropped out of college. If we accept the metric that college completion equals education success, then these tech giants are failures by the established education standard. Certainly I’m not arguing that students cast off the repressive chains of education to have a successful and fulfilling life. However, it is extremely important that we as a society understand what we want our education system to accomplish, and if we consider the system to be broken that we understand the actual problem in order to fix the system rather than further remove the ability of creative thought from our students.

I’m not confident that we are paying adequate attention to actual challenge in our seemingly singular pursuit to improve learning outcomes at all levels of the education process. In an article titled “Laptop U” published in The New Yorker, Nathan Heller writes extensively on the topic of MOOCs (massive open online courses), and how many educators as well as legislators see MOOCs as a solution to several types of education challenges. While he acknowledges there is controversy surrounding the use of MOOCs, Heller provides the reasoning of supporters that MOOCs “are designed to insure that students are keeping up, by peppering them with comprehension and discussion tasks,” and they will have high production values (apparently to better engage students).

Yet there is discouraging data. A study cited by Inside Higher Ed concludes that the “average completion rate for massive open online courses is less than seven percent” (strongly suggesting that students are not, in fact keeping up). Early data from Coursera indicates an overall completion rate of seven to nine percent (although Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller argues that this is misleading, as most students enrolled in MOOCs have no intent to complete). Regardless of statistics, it appears that the MOOC strategy is to funnel more students through massively standardized model (whether through implementing common core curriculum or creating large-scale technology-mediated courses). Voices for customizing the education experience to fit individual students and cultivate unique talents and characteristics is a very faint part of the discussion.

The current “crisis” in American education shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Zhao points out that students in the U.S. have scored below the students of other countries over decades. This is not a new phenomenon. However, government spending on education has increased dramatically year over year since the 1960s (some data charts here), and people are demanding accountability for these expenditures. He who pays the piper calls the tune, after all. It is likely that as long as funding dollars continue to be poured into education with little evident or immediate improvement, those in charge of administering the funds will determine what the funds will buy in terms of technology, policy, and curriculum design.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Online Learning Haiku
by Hap Aziz

Communication
Allows knowledge to blossom
Online as in life

The Joy Stick Is Mightier Than The Pen: A Case For Gaming As An Academic Tool

by Jason Hudnut
Chief Coordinating Consultant: www.theturnpiketeacher.com

(Note: The following article text is the full version of an incomplete copy inadvertently published originally on April 30, 2013 under the title “The Educator as Parent.”)

I have spent my life immersed in the field of education.  I was raised by educators and it seems as if I may even be raising future educators.  But this is not my defining characteristic.  My time spent as a parent is in my opinion, the true nature of what I have become in my adult years.  Parenting in these modern times has allowed me to introduce the lessons learned during my time in the academic profession into the framework of philosophies that I utilize while raising my family.  Tonight, this blending of my personal and professional life was on exhibit in my household.  My oldest child had to leave school early today due to an illness.  He desperately wanted to make up his missed classwork and find out what his assigned homework for the night was. This shed a tiny yet telling light on the modern and technology based world we live in as parents and educators.

I informed my son to call his classmates to find out this information that he required.  It did not take long before I realized we don’t do it this way anymore. As my child sent texts and contacted friends on social media sites, then asked me to go on the teacher web page and find out if the assignments were posted, I realized we have evolved.  My boy has developed an entirely different way of thinking.  He solved his problem in a modern way and soon he was working on ratios and fractions and writing an essay that his teacher emailed to me in mere seconds after I contacted her.  This led me to thinking of some articles that I had read regarding how today’s young students may be influenced to solve problems and develop a unique set of social skills and strategies that may be influenced by the tools they implore while interacting with peers and playing video games.

Hap Aziz, in his article: “Bringing Computer Games into the Teacher and Learning Environment”, posted on January 04, 2013 in this blog, states,

“Computer games have potential educational value. Computer games have been identified as useful instruments that facilitate the acquisition of knowledge through the adoption of specific learning strategies (a cultural characteristic of the information society), and that computer games present immersive experiences in which learners—the players—develop abilities to solve complex problems in a variety of situations.”

I must give credit to the gaming world as my child’s first major experience in which he needed to utilize a technology based skill set. Not only did he begin to build abilities to solve complex problems within actual gaming situations, he developed knowledge of social media and on-line interaction when he was finally allowed by us, as parents, to enter the multi-player gaming experience via the internet. This was a big step to take and allow as a parent.  But as an educator, I knew that I would guide him with the proper and appropriate etiquette needed to gain knowledge and have fun while also maintaining measures of safety and good conduct.  Not to mention the curiosity that has been sparked and the fact based education he has received while role playing in some of today’s most modern historical based games.  I have since found him often times researching American and world history and even building worlds and reenacting with his Legos and other toys.

My newly rediscovered interest in how gaming could benefit education led me on a web surfing journey.  On this journey, I discovered some insight provided by Agnieszka Wetton on www.Scoop.it, who provided a wonderful statement within her Gaming in Education blog introduction on September 29, 2012.  Wetton stated,

“Over the past decade, the use of digital gaming in education has prompted considerable attention in exploring how and why games might be powerful tools in the classroom. As a result of this interest, there is a considerable body of resources available on Game-based Learning (GBL) and its potential benefits for education and learning.”

I certainly was thrilled to find this information and followed the leads presented on the Scoop.it! web pages.  I have obviously been aware of gaming tools in the classroom and have certainly applied several in my 20 years of teacher and education administration. But this new web surf opened up my eyes to the most modern conversations that will hopefully lead to a modern approach and application of these tools in the classrooms that we teach in and that our children learn in.  Two articles in particular jumped out at me. Both were “scooped” by Wetton. The first one is from: http://trove.nla.gov.au, and is dated September 29, 2012. This scoop referred to a wonderful book titled, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee.

Gee takes an in depth look at how video games benefit individuals.  He investigates the effects on cognitive activity and improvement.  Gee looks deeper into the development of identity building and perception of self in society.  He even presents information regarding the increased ability to follow directives and grasp specific concepts and meanings within the community as a result of gaming and how this improves and enhances the learning process.

As I researched the concepts presented by Gee, I felt as if I had won some sort of court case.  Not only as an educator but as a parent, I have been making a case for the positive benefits that gaming, technology, and on-line interaction have had on the students and children of today.  I found at last, some validity to fuel my stands on the debates over such matters.  But I wanted a bit more proof to make my case.  And I found it as I continued to follow the leads that Wetton scooped on her blog.  My next stop, also found on  http://trove.nla.gov.au, from September 29, 2012 opened my world to the concepts of Marc Prensky.

In his book, Don’t Bother Me, Mom, I’m Learning! : How Computer and Video Games are Preparing Your Kids for Twenty-First Century Success and How You Can Help, Prensky also builds that case that gaming on computers and game systems can be beneficial to modern children.  He does maintain that a limit needs to be established regarding certain appropriateness and time constraints, but Prensky does believe that in order to be prepared for the 21^st century; children stand to make significant gains from the concepts learned in the gaming realm.  He contributes increases in the abilities to collaborate, take and assess risks and build and follow through with strategic planning.  Prensky even goes so far as to show how parents can build on individual ethics and value based growth is attributed to the time spent learning the guidelines, structures, and relationships necessary  while navigating in the gaming world.

So, the next time your kid, or one of your students states how much they would rather be gaming instead of doing homework or studying, you can rest assured that there just may be some benefits to the specific choices that can be made in your response.  We have learned that gaming can be used in the classroom as a powerful academic tool.  Much more work is needed in this field, but the advancements of the home gaming system consoles and personal computer game structures is blazing a trail towards this work.  We can, as parents and educators, make specific choices to perhaps slip a bit of beneficial growth into the pleasure that the modern youth gets out of gaming.

It is necessary to limit the time spent playing as well as being very proactive when it comes to censoring the content that is allowed to be viewed and presented.  But we can all feel comfortable, that…YES…there are unique, and very specific as well as appropriate benefits to the worlds that are introduced to our young ones as they sit in front of that screen and dive into their favorite dream world.  Think about it, most of us only had video games with an X competing against an O in some form of sports of space combat.  We have come a long way as I sit here watching my son role play a character and making tactical decisions during the ride of Paul Revere or The Cuban Missile Crisis, in full three dimensional life-like movie quality graphics.  Hey, can daddy have a turn buddy?

Sources:

Aziz, H. (2013). Bringing Computer Games into the Teacher and Learning Environment. Retrieved from                 https://hapaziz.wordpress.com/2013/01/04

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games have to Teach US About Learning and Literacy. Basingstoke:                           Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Retrieved from http://trove.nla.gov.au

Prenksy, M. (2006). Don’t Bother Me, Mom, I’m Learning! : How Computer and Video Games are           Preparing Your Kids for Twenty-First Century Success and How You Can Help. St. Paul, MN:                Paragon House, 2006. Retrieved from http://trove.nla.gov.au

Wetton, A. (2012). Gaming in Education. Retrieved from www.Scoop.it!

The MOOC that fits – Will be the MOOC that Survives.

by Jason T. Hudnut
Chief Coordinating Consultant:  www.theturnpiketeacher.com

The world of the Massive Open Online Course, better known by the catchy and humorous acronym: MOOC, both fascinates and intrigues me.  With 20 plus years as an educator under my belt, I have seen many versions of teaching as it translates from pre-school to higher education and then again  from public, charter, private, and even to parochial settings.  So the future of how we as educators reach our students has been a thought that wanders in and out of my curious mind on many occasions. I am struck by a comment suggested by Hap Aziz in his article: “Rethinking the Class Paradigm:  The Rise and Potential Fall of MOOCs”, posted on February 28, 2012 on this blog.  Mr. Aziz states, “Very few educators would argue that there is no difference between teaching cohorts of 20 students or cohorts of 200, 2,000, or even 20,000 students.” I obviously agree with this, but I wonder if we could, as educators, adapt…or better yet…evolve into an instructor capable of reaching and teaching any number of students under our guidance.

Mr. Aziz references Joshua Kim, Director of Learning and Technology for the Master of Health Care Delivery Science program at Dartmouth College, in his article : ”Open Online Courses Are No Substitutes for Classroom Learning” for The U.S. New & World Report.  Mr. Kim states, “Authentic learning requires a two-way dialogue between student and instructor. College teaching at its best is much more than the delivery of content: It’s about the co-construction of knowledge with students and faculty…” Kim continues, “Education is one of those things in life (like friendship) that is based on the relationships between individuals, and therefore is limited in how far it can scale.”  These concepts absolutely nail it for me.  The dialogue between student and instructor and the relationships between the individuals involved in the academic setting has been supporting keystone as I continue to stack the building blocks of my philosophy of education.  It is my desire to reach the student, not only through the curriculum, but within and beyond the strength of the relationship we have developed in the realm of a mutual respect and trust.

The respect that should flow between teacher and student allows us to accept that a learned knowledge from the instructor is being properly evaluated, translated and presented to a willing pupil.  The trust that must be built in this bond lays on a foundation that should already determine the fact that each participant firmly believes in the ability of the other.  The student trusts and respects the knowledge and ability of the instructor.  The instructor, in return, should trust and respect the willingness and ability of the student to learn.  Now…can we, as instructors, translate this relationship with one student to a larger group?  We certainly do this for a class of 20 students, and maybe for a case load of 200 individuals.  We do it over a period of time for 2,000 pupils.  I believe, that we can build up our academic muscles and reach 20,000 students with the same principals of trust and respect, or by whatever means may work for the individuality of each instructor.

Mr. Aziz is absolutely correct though.  To do this, the paradigm needs to shift.  I really was sold on his assertion that suggests, “MOOCs are not courses as much as they are communities.” But I fell in love with his concept of,

“…entering into the scale of a small city.  And when it comes to a city, we understand that no single person (or even small group of people) is responsible for running the whole city. It’s not just the mayor or the city council members. There are hundreds, and even thousands of other official and semi-official roles to be played in the smooth running of a city: police, firefighters, garbage collectors, teachers, and more with whom I interact as a citizen (student) of my city (MOOC) depending on what kind of assistance I need or interaction I seek.”

YES!!!  That is the ticket; a MOOC should be run like a city.  All of the individuals involved have roles to play.  Aziz paints a world where he speaks of meaningful services meet the needs of the community.  He proclaims, “This is where the education community needs to rethink how MOOCs are built and administered, and ultimately what the role of the instructor is to be.”  I believe, this proclamation, as illustrated by similar conversations within the academic community, prove that this shift has already been ushered in.  We, as the educators of today, and even as the former students of yesterday, have given birth to the needs of the future and the evolving of academia.

Doug Holton, of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL., makes a poignant claim in his article: “What’s the “Problem” with MOOCs?” published for EdTechDev: developing educational technology on May 4, 2012. Holten asserts,

“Especially disturbing is that none of the major MOOC providers have hired anyone trained in Instructional design, the learning sciences, educational technology, course design, or other educational specialties to help with the design of their courses.  They are hiring a lot of programmers and recruiting a lot of faculty, who may have various motivations for participating in these open education experiments.”

If the shift we are seeing is to make any noise at all, here are the first rumblings to echo throughout the halls of our universities, colleges, school yards and all the way down to the dark corners of the software developer’s office cubicles. Now is the time to look at a blending of our talents.  The masses can be reached.  We must bring the talents of those in the classrooms, who are designing, implementing and delivering curriculum, together with the genius of those in the Information Technology field who are able to design, implement and deliver the software that will build the “Massively Open Online Communities” that Hap Aziz has envisioned.

Martin LaGrow gives us a wonderful reflection of Mr. Aziz’s thoughts in his response article: “Rethinking the Class Paradigm: MOOCs as a Community,” also for this blog, on March 13, 2013.  Mr. LaGrow’s words, “In a sense, the MOOC is a product of evolution.” Jump right up and off of the page and fall straight into my wheelhouse.  Yes sir, the MOOC is an evolution.  And the MOOC is not finished developing and adapting to the environment that we have built to house it.  LaGrow continues to ask, “…how can higher education leverage the strengths of the MOOC without also applying the limitations of the classroom?” I also wonder how this will play out.  I already pontificated on my philosophies of respect and trust.  Perhaps we should not limit our inquiries to the world of higher education.  The proving grounds of today’s collegians fall to the high schools and lower schools that first planted the seeds for the desire to acquire knowledge.  These institutions are changing more and more with the explosion of alternative education and the race between public, private, charter, and parochial schools to outdo each other and keep their enrollments up and funding flowing.

In any case, we all must agree, it is a changing world.  The way we teach and the way we learn is evolving.  MOOCs were only a distant concept just decades ago.  They were simply a dream of the Silicon Valley prophets of yesteryear.  Today, MOOCs are a reality.  Tomorrow, they will be a necessary ingredient in the delivery of a significant variety of knowledge on this planet.  It is a testament to Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest”.  The MOOC that fits- will be the MOOC that survives.  Whether it is as a course or a community, that is the question.

Sources:

Aziz, H. (2013).  Rethinking the Class Paradigm:  The Rise and Potential Fall of MOOCs. Retrieved from https://hapaziz.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/rethinking-the-class-paradigm-the-rise-and-potential-fall-of-moocs/

Holton, D. (2012). What’s the Problem with MOOCs?. Retrieved from http://edtechdev.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/whats-the-problem-with-moocs/

Kim, J. (2012). Open Online Courses Are No Substitutes for Classroom Learning. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/06/29/open-online-courses-are-not-subsitutes-for-classroom-learning

LaGrow, M. (2013).  Rethinking the Class Paradigm: MOOC’s as a Community. Retrieved from https://hapaziz.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/rethinking-the-class-paradigm-moocs-as-a-community/

Rethinking the Class Paradigm: MOOCs as a Community

by Martin LaGrow

In his February 28th post called ‘Rethinking the Class Paradigm: The Rise and Potential Fall of MOOCs,’ Hap Aziz posed the question, “Is there truly a way for a single instructor to teach a class with 30,000 students,” and went on to suggest that the answer is no—a MOOC should not be perceived as a course so much as it should be a community. If this perception does not change, he predicted that “the whole MOOC movement will come crashing down by not being able to meet some very important learner needs.”  So what are the limitations of the MOOC as we have come to know it, why do those limitations exist, and what do we do to overcome them?

In a sense, the MOOC is a product of evolution. However, it is not a haphazard mutation. It is evolution influenced by the application of technology to education. The problem with this kind of evolution is that our preconceived notions are carried over from its predecessors—along with their limitations.

The first e-books are a great example of dragging physical limitations into the technical sphere. To increase consumer acceptance of the new technology, the e-book experience was designed to be as much like the book experience as possible. The end product was a book—a book that was functionally no more exceptional than a standard book, even to the point of turning pages. The technology was limited in its scope and provided little improvement over the actual book experience (or none, as some opine). It even brought its own limitations—expense, the need for power, and the dangers of reading in the bathtub! The e-book has since all but disappeared, absorbed into the tablet trend, as any tablet in existence can provide a far richer e-book experience while performing other functions as well.

When higher education ventured into online learning, much the same approach was taken. Educators took their paradigms about the classroom and shifted them into the online modality. When this was done, often the limitations of the classroom carried over, the limitations of technology were added to the mix, but the benefits of technology were not adopted, creating a shallow academic experience. After all, what was an in-person classroom? A synchronous group of 15-25 students, perhaps, an instructor, some lecture component, assigned readings, the submission of papers and perhaps quizzes and tests. Not surprisingly, this was the shape that most online courses took (any many still do today). The classroom paradigm has been transferred online with mixed success. When designed and facilitated well, the limitations are mitigated by a sense of community. As noted by the Illinois Online Network (ION),

“Online learning has its most promising potential in the high synergy represented by active dialog among the participants, one of the most important sources of learning in a Virtual Classroom. However, in larger classes…the synergy level starts to shift on the learning continuum until it eventually becomes independent study to accommodate the large class. At this point, dialog is limited as well as interaction among participants and the facilitator. The medium is not being used to its greatest potential (source).”

Enter the MOOC.

The MOOC is the next evolution of online learning. The limitations of the classroom, once passed down to online courses, are now also in the DNA of the MOOC. Often, the MOOC is little more than a standard online course opened up to a much greater number of participants, inheriting the issues of its predecessor without embracing the new opportunities that the structure provides. If ION is correct, then the MOOC that fits this description is the worst of both worlds.

If, however, MOOCs are removed from their historical roots, and considered to be Massively Open Online Communities, as Hap suggests, the limitations of the class may be released along with the paradigm. This view is also espoused by Doug Holton of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Center in Daytona Beach.

“The question is, are MOOCs an example of imposing an existing worldview (traditional instruction, courses, and instructors) on a new medium for learning?  Is it necessary for all the ‘students’ in a MOOC to be learning the same topic at the same time (synchronous learning)?  That appears to be a common defining characteristic of all MOOCs.  Does there have to be a single, unchanging instructor?  Does it have to be a ‘course’ at all, with a finite beginning and end?  Most students forget much of what they learn once a course ends…Many topics are constantly changing and evolving (like science and engineering and technology), and one’s learning may be out of date sometimes within months, if not years, after a course ends.  Much of what we learn comes from outside the classroom anyway – what we call lifelong learning and informal learning (source).”

Holton gets to the heart of the issue. What if the finite classroom model, which is the basis for online classrooms and thus the grandfather of MOOCs, is flawed? After all, what is a course? It is usually a set of predetermined objectives that are stated, accomplished, and measured upon completion. It does not necessarily represent authentic learning. It does not model the professional realm, or the communities for which students are being prepared, in which they will be expected to continuously learn, contribute, and foster relationships. These are the things that a MOOC does well. The question is now, how can higher education leverage the strengths of the MOOC without also applying the limitations of the classroom?

Rethinking the Class Paradigm: The Rise and Potential Fall of MOOCs

by Hap Aziz

There has been quite a bit of attention paid to MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) in the past year; most of it positive, though the criticisms have been getting more exposure recently (check out “When MOOCs melt down” in The Chronicle of Higher Education). The momentum for MOOCs appears to be positive still, with the Horizon Report > 2013 listing MOOCs as one of the game-changing technologies in higher education just around the corner. The chorus of doubts is growing, though, and without some fundamental rethinking of how MOOCs should operate, I might consider myself in that camp of uncertainty. Some of my concerns are regarding the practicality of running MOOCs in the way most likely to yield worthwhile results for the enrolled students–as well as for the organizations or individuals responsible for running them. This entry I posted in December of last year touches on that theme.

The concerns I have, though, aren’t all about practicality; they are also about sustainability and viability of the model. This article from U.S. News published a little over half a year ago leads the reader into the premise that there are differences between traditional online courses and MOOCs (primarily scalability), and it is in these differences that the weaknesses of MOOCs are revealed. The truth is a bit more difficult discern in this case.

Scalability is certainly an issue, even in the traditional classroom teaching and learning environment. Very few educators would argue that there is no difference between teaching  cohorts of 20 students or cohorts of 200, 2000, or even 20,000 students. The author of the article (Joshua Kim, Director of Learning and Technology for the Master of Health Care Delivery Science program at Dartmouth College) asserts:

Authentic learning requires a two-way dialogue between student and instructor. College teaching at its best is much more than the delivery of content: It’s about the co-construction of knowledge with students and faculty…

Education is one of those things in life (like friendship) that is based on the relationships between individuals, and therefore is limited in how far it can scale.

The line of reasoning here is that changing the scale of online courses exponentially does not require some fundamental change(s) to the underlying structure of the courses and the relationships within the courses. This isn’t isolated thinking, however. When I attended the ELI Conference in Denver earlier this year, I was quite interested in seeing what other educators were doing in the field of MOOCs so I attended several sessions. Invariably, the sentiment among the presenters was that MOOCs were like super-sized online courses. One phrase that stuck out in my mind was the statement, “when teaching a class of 30,000 students….”

Is there truly a way for a single instructor to teach a class with 30,000 students? Especially if education is based on relationships between individuals?

No, the paradigm needs to shift. MOOCs are not courses so much as they are communities. In fact, if we think of 30,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 students all interacting in a single online community, we realize we are entering into the scale of a small city. And when it comes to a city, we understand that no single person (or even small group of people) is responsible for running the whole city. It’s not just the mayor or the city council members. There are hundreds, and even thousands of other official and semi-official roles to be played in the smooth running of a city: police, firefighters, garbage collectors, teachers, and more with whom I interact as a citizen (student) of my city (MOOC) depending on what kind of assistance I need or interaction I seek.

Running a MOOC should be much more like running a city than running a course. And the citizens of the MOOC all have roles to play in keeping the MOOC running smoothly while providing meaningful and timely services to the other citizens. This is where the education community needs to rethink how MOOCs are built and administered, and ultimately what the role of the instructor is to be. If we develop MOOCs the same way in which we develop smaller online courses with merely a few dozen students, we’ll find that the whole MOOC movement will come crashing down by not being able to meet some very important learner needs.