The scarcity of people who can truly learn from what they’re given is why the massive open online courses of the early 2010s didn’t work out, with 95% of enrolled students failing to complete even a single course, and year-on-year student retention rates below 10%.
I am not sure this supports your article’s point. The problem with MOOCs is that most students ignore them. Like, 50% didn’t even start them, and most of the remaining ones just started doing them too close to the deadline, so they obviously didn’t have enough time to complete them. In other words, the problem of studying “at your own pace” is that most people will procrastinate until it’s too late. The traditional university fights procrastination by having you attend the lessons in person at predefined times.
The analogy would be if the main problem with teaching metalworking would be that no one actually opens the metalworking textbook. While your point, if I understand it correctly, is that things such as metalworking are difficult to learn even for those people who actually open the textbook and give it enough time and effort.
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.
I am not sure this supports your article’s point. The problem with MOOCs is that most students ignore them. Like, 50% didn’t even start them, and most of the remaining ones just started doing them too close to the deadline, so they obviously didn’t have enough time to complete them. In other words, the problem of studying “at your own pace” is that most people will procrastinate until it’s too late. The traditional university fights procrastination by having you attend the lessons in person at predefined times.
The analogy would be if the main problem with teaching metalworking would be that no one actually opens the metalworking textbook. While your point, if I understand it correctly, is that things such as metalworking are difficult to learn even for those people who actually open the textbook and give it enough time and effort.
“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.