Warning - most of this is just my opinion as a student and as a teacher in adult education. The article talks about a lot of this which makes me happy. Lecture

Warning - most of this is just my opinion as a student and as a teacher in adult education. The article talks about a lot of this which makes me happy. Lecture is my biggest problem with MOOCs. Lecture is the easiest and laziest way to teach a topic. I know because on my lazy days I tend to find myself falling back on it with my students. When I first started teaching I leaned on it heavily, and have learned it doesn't really work. Nobody retains anything of value. Adults learn new things by doing and discussing. And adults zone out frequently. Really, the most the average adult can listen is about 15 minutes anyway, and after 10 you've probably lost interest. See http://www.mrmediatraining.com/2012/08/23/how-many-minutes-is-the-audiences-attention-span/ http://www.mrmediatraining.com/2012/08/23/how-many-minutes-i... for some interesting info on that. If you watch a cooking show, you learn some techniques. But unless you get in the kitchen and try to make that cake, and have someone give you feedback on your technique, then you won't learn how to do it. But that doesn't scale online. Feedback and assessment simply don't work at that kind of level. And we know it doesn't. That's why in big lecture situations in traditional schools, there are lots of TAs, tutors, or supplemental instruction sessions to help people learn. But lectures scale really well for MOOCs so that's what they end up being - a series of video lectures. It's easy. Just record yourself talking and throw it online. And it's easy for students, too. They don't have to do things, they don't have to talk to anyone. They can just listen. And maybe zone out for a bit. A huge benefit is that, as mentioned here, If you missed something in a lecture on video, you can rewind. But if you had a question or something to add, then the opportunity to do that in context is lost. And that's where I think a lot of the dropoff happens too. We don't learn that way as adults. We learn by doing things and engaging with people. And if you can just take a course by watching someone talk to you, you've not really learned. You've just been told some stuff. And this is why adults make comments like "I love online classes because I can slow the lecture down or rewind," Adules have been conditioned that lecture is how you're supposed to learn. Rewinding and slowing down is a bandage over the real problem; too much lecture and not enough application means you don't really learn - you don't retain things. One last thing - lecture is highly effective for entry-level content if chunked. 15 minutes of lecture followed by direct application of the content or practice, followed by a review or reflection. Dr. Christine Harringon has some great insights on this. See http://drchristineharrington.org/publications http://drchristineharrington.org/publications for some. I think the future of online learning is going to involve finding a way to scale the practice and assessment parts of learning. And I see interesting movement out there on that.