I am always amazed when people make comments like this:
“The results of the University of Texas at Austin’s first full-semester foray into massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are in.”
“Professor Michael Webber’s “Energy 101,” which had an enrollment that peaked at around 44,000 students, had 5,000 receive a certificate of completion — about 13 percent of the roughly 38,000 students who ultimately participated.”
So let’s unpack this a bit. Professor Webber created a class called “Energy 101” and processed 5,000 students through it to completion. Your typical 100 level undergraduate class might have anywhere from 50 to 200 students in it.
UT Austin this year had 8690 freshman total.
So assuming the largest possible class of 200, this professor in one semester taught the equivalent of 25 semesters of 200 student classes, in one semester.
Why should we care that 32,000 people signed up and then said “Woah, really don’t have the time to commit to this right now?”
This suggests that the interests of university are not well aligned with the goal of spreading education.
Most obviously, there is no incentive to give education to people outside your university. Teaching 200 of your students is strictly better than teaching 190 of your students and 10 000 strangers.
The 32,000 people who signed and gave up are not a problem per se, but if 10 of them are your students, then perhaps you are going to have a problem.
It’s like a university version of the “No Child Left Behind” problem. Preventing one child from being “left behind” is rewarded more than helping hundred children get much further ahead.
Possible solution: A separation of education from the school system.
“ChuckMcM 3 days ago [-]
I am always amazed when people make comments like this: “The results of the University of Texas at Austin’s first full-semester foray into massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are in.”
“Professor Michael Webber’s “Energy 101,” which had an enrollment that peaked at around 44,000 students, had 5,000 receive a certificate of completion — about 13 percent of the roughly 38,000 students who ultimately participated.”
So let’s unpack this a bit. Professor Webber created a class called “Energy 101” and processed 5,000 students through it to completion. Your typical 100 level undergraduate class might have anywhere from 50 to 200 students in it.
UT Austin this year had 8690 freshman total.
So assuming the largest possible class of 200, this professor in one semester taught the equivalent of 25 semesters of 200 student classes, in one semester.
Why should we care that 32,000 people signed up and then said “Woah, really don’t have the time to commit to this right now?”
This suggests that the interests of university are not well aligned with the goal of spreading education.
Most obviously, there is no incentive to give education to people outside your university. Teaching 200 of your students is strictly better than teaching 190 of your students and 10 000 strangers.
The 32,000 people who signed and gave up are not a problem per se, but if 10 of them are your students, then perhaps you are going to have a problem.
It’s like a university version of the “No Child Left Behind” problem. Preventing one child from being “left behind” is rewarded more than helping hundred children get much further ahead.
Possible solution: A separation of education from the school system.