MOOCs, "Massive online open courses" and other forms of online courses are being pushed by for profit companies and startups as ways to bring higher education to the masses. Apparently though, the average MOOC manages to have a drop out rate of 90%.
Venture capitalists have invested in companies to deliver MOOCs, such as Coursera. The first MOOCs were delivered in Canada to smaller than 5000 students at a time and their founders used more than just video, quizzes and multiple choice methods. They used the entire internet's resources. What we see now as MOOCs are basically classroom recordings put online, with students doing rather bland multiple choice questions, short summaries of literature reading assignments and students marking each other "blind".
There are lots of opinions from professors and consultants regarding online learning. Not that useful. As a scientist, and an educator, I am more concerned with: what actually works? When it comes to teaching how to do biochemistry in a research laboratory for example, I have already figured out that I can mentor and teach someone to be a real scientist by making them do science research on my team. In my lab. Since every student has a different starting set of knowledge and experience when they hit my lab for their independent research projects, they all get a "different course" from me as their preceptor. That is not the kind of a course that you can just pre-record and put online. It could be done in distance learning with LIVE online video, because the student and I could "talk".
The most important talks I have with my students are just verbal or using a secret chalk board on the back of my lab's main door. Swinging it closed a bit, they know what's coming. A 15 minute session of sip your water or coffee and get a lecture from Dr M. But, it works. They know things now about DNA, genes, photoreceptors, PCR, lab management, what differentiates a fluke result from a reproducible result, and how long it takes to complete real lab-based biomedical research. No matter what the form of teaching and delivery though, there is one MASTER secret about making the teaching work well. Its obvious to me what it is, and all the research and discussion of "pedagogy" (definition:
the method and practice of teaching) is mostly hand waving around the real secret of student/teaching interaction that works. It easy to figure out if "learning" is happening, far easier than what most learning consultants would have you believe. What is my secret?
