Effective MOOCs

Access

Educate 1 billion people

Research

Understand learning

Quality

Improve learning

Quality

Can we improve on the in-person experience?

Yes, we can!

● Most MIT students preferred pure online to residential (sample bias)

● 98.6% of on-line alumni found it as good as or better than residential (sample bias)

● SJSU: Randomized experiment– Completion rate: 59% → 91%

– Midterm scores: up 5.6 points, 9.6 points

How can we improve on the in-person experience?

● Centralization– Data and crowdsourcing

● Deeply adapt pedagogy to technology● Aim for better-than-residential● Research-based practices

● Centralization– Data and crowdsourcing

● Deeply adapt pedagogy to technology● Aim for better-than-residential● Research-based practices

Mastery learning

Students do not move on until they've mastered a concept

Process

● Surveyed all of the problems in 6.002 (regular)● Virtually all of the problems could be covered

with numeric, symbolic equation, and circuit inputs

● Added one additional type (custom) to take advantage of the platform

● No multiple choice, true/false, etc.

Self-paced learningSelf-paced learning

ICAP

Passive Active Constructive

● Generating information

● Socratic-style learning sequences

● Write an article

● Manipulating information

● Videos with interspersed problems

● Highlight a passage

● Receiving information

● Attending lecture

● Reading text

Chi's ICAP framework

Learning objectives

Introduce problem

5

Students discover paradox

Students work through math

Set up next equation

Explain paradox. Guide students to resolution

“If you did this correctly, you ought have gotten...”

...

$500,000

5000

1.6 million

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem ProblemProblem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Problem

Mining data on real student points of confusion

Research, on-line, and residential as complementary

Using master/novice interactions

Free and open, not "open"

Past

● More resources per course● Deep integration of technology and pedagogy● Research-based practices

Present

● Big data

Future

● Distributed classroom: crowds, open content