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Agree. There is little to indicate that "presence" in the modern form of the word when applied to undergraduate education at most schools could be equated with

by Nrsolis 14y ago

Agree. There is little to indicate that "presence" in the modern form of the word when applied to undergraduate education at most schools could be equated with anything approaching a one-on-one experience. There are courses in this country with between 300-2500 students in attendance. What you're sitting for is essentially a performance. The one area where I think we need to really fix online education (and in-person education as well) is to strengthen the connection between teaching fellows (or teaching assistants) and students. Graduate students are uniquely qualified for this role and if you supplanted an online education model with a combined cohort/mentor structure that pairs learners with course leaders, we could really have something that solves everyone's problems. There is a glut of PhDs in this country in many disciplines. Making them a part of the online education model would make a difference in so many ways.

VLM 14y ago
"combined cohort/mentor structure" I like your idea because it resonates with my theory about peer pressure and my theory about lack of motivation both being undiscussed issues. Perhaps your interpretation is more correct than mine. There have been a large number of popular press studies about the apparent failure of MOOCs from an interaction interpretation. I'd like to see at least one from a leadership perspective (the lecturer is the obvious leader in a physical class.. who's the leader online? Is there one? Can more than 5% of the population lead themselves?), maybe one from a peer pressure perspective, maybe one looking at ancient apprenticeships vs presentations we have now in brick -n- mortar vs watching videos online of the presentations. I don't need another interpretation of social interaction as a fail. One interesting anecdote is way back when MOOC marketing was gaining traction, in the very first original AI class, a coworker and I both took the class and then dropped it. We socially interacted quite a bit, at least as much as I did back in physical school, but we both dropped it. I ended up reading the entire book, very good intro to AI book and worth my time so I can't blame either social interaction or the quality of materials in this anecdote. Dropout rates vs physical interaction with fellow students would be an interesting study. (edited to add my hypothesis would be minimal correlation between physical real world study groups and dropout rate)

by Nrsolis 14y ago

VLM 14y ago

"combined cohort/mentor structure" I like your idea because it resonates with my theory about peer pressure and my theory about lack of motivation both being undiscussed issues. Perhaps your interpretation is more correct than mine. There have been a large number of popular press studies about the apparent failure of MOOCs from an interaction interpretation. I'd like to see at least one from a leadership perspective (the lecturer is the obvious leader in a physical class.. who's the leader online? Is there one? Can more than 5% of the population lead themselves?), maybe one from a peer pressure perspective, maybe one looking at ancient apprenticeships vs presentations we have now in brick -n- mortar vs watching videos online of the presentations. I don't need another interpretation of social interaction as a fail. One interesting anecdote is way back when MOOC marketing was gaining traction, in the very first original AI class, a coworker and I both took the class and then dropped it. We socially interacted quite a bit, at least as much as I did back in physical school, but we both dropped it. I ended up reading the entire book, very good intro to AI book and worth my time so I can't blame either social interaction or the quality of materials in this anecdote. Dropout rates vs physical interaction with fellow students would be an interesting study. (edited to add my hypothesis would be minimal correlation between physical real world study groups and dropout rate)