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I worked at one of the bigger MOOCs for a while and we knew that over 50% of our paying customers never watched any of the video lectures they subscribed to. T

I worked at one of the bigger MOOCs for a while and we knew that over 50% of our paying customers never watched any of the video lectures they subscribed to. That's the huge flaw in MOOCs as they are now. You can put all the content in the world online for free or not and most people won't watch or learn from it. That's the critical flaw in the e-learning investments right now.

VLM 12y ago
That's the problem, transplanting physical world directly into somewhere that analogies don't work. Here's a title, and maybe a paragraph about a class. Oh you signed up, nice. Then student found out the details of a 100+ hour investment and said "nope".
watwut 12y ago
Plenty of students skip physical lectures.
pyoung 12y ago
Is that really a flaw? If I can learn better by reading books and then working through problem sets, why bother with the lectures, especially if I am strapped for time as many MOOC participants probably are. I am a huge fan of MOOC's, I've probably attempted about a dozen and have completed about half. So far the biggest reason for failing to complete a class has been time constraints. If I am already familiar with the material (i.e taking the class as a refresher) or don't find the lectures particularly engaging, I will still 'watch' the lectures, but play them in the background while I work on problem sets or do other stuff. In my experience, most MOOCs have a healthy portion of participants who are very familiar with the material, so it's quite possible a good percentage of them are just using the problem sets as a way to refresh their understanding. Unless of course, you are insinuating that a majority of these people are cheating (i.e. copying and pasting answers on HW's) I don't really see what the big deal is.
neves 12y ago
Hey, in some of the classes in my university more than 50% of the students didn't watch the lectures. It is impressive that 50% watched the videos. He glass is half full!

VLM 12y ago

That's the problem, transplanting physical world directly into somewhere that analogies don't work. Here's a title, and maybe a paragraph about a class. Oh you signed up, nice. Then student found out the details of a 100+ hour investment and said "nope".

watwut 12y ago

Plenty of students skip physical lectures.

pyoung 12y ago

Is that really a flaw? If I can learn better by reading books and then working through problem sets, why bother with the lectures, especially if I am strapped for time as many MOOC participants probably are. I am a huge fan of MOOC's, I've probably attempted about a dozen and have completed about half. So far the biggest reason for failing to complete a class has been time constraints. If I am already familiar with the material (i.e taking the class as a refresher) or don't find the lectures particularly engaging, I will still 'watch' the lectures, but play them in the background while I work on problem sets or do other stuff. In my experience, most MOOCs have a healthy portion of participants who are very familiar with the material, so it's quite possible a good percentage of them are just using the problem sets as a way to refresh their understanding. Unless of course, you are insinuating that a majority of these people are cheating (i.e. copying and pasting answers on HW's) I don't really see what the big deal is.

neves 12y ago

Hey, in some of the classes in my university more than 50% of the students didn't watch the lectures. It is impressive that 50% watched the videos. He glass is half full!