There are multiple ways − beyond the more traditional concepts of sheer acquiring of academic credit respectively proving academic qualification related to higher education − in that MOOCs could improve education!
A first, rather direct, impact MOOCs could have on education
is knowledge and experience that is produced through the adoption and analysis
of online platforms on large(-r) scales. Whereas electronic learning and management
tools (e.g. moodle) deployed on the institutional
level of a classic university or another campus-based institution of higher
education allow a high degree of customization to institutional educational
realms they tend to be poorly adapted to the needs of (open) online education
frameworks. Hence they fail to be good sources of feedback for the introduction
and improvement of more flexible models of education and knowledge production
that rely less on regular physical on-campus presence and strict curricular
timelines then on individual paces and discipline of and in learning −
respectively (re-)producing knowledge.
It is more than questionable that campus based
institutions should be taken up as models of higher education − especially the
ways in which academic credit is attributed to students and scholars through
these − when developing tools for (open) online education and learning, as we
have to expect that pedagogics are largely different in online multimodal
educational settings when compared to traditional on-campus teacher student
settings.
This directly leads me to the second type of settings where
I see huge potentialities of MOOCs, which are forms of collaborative learning
that are not aiming at guaranteeing academic qualification to its co-learners
through accumulative gathering of credit points, but are foremost interested in
building up spaces of interactive teaching and learning. I am in the strong
belief that cloud based learning platforms and programs are much more apt at
enabling inter- and transdisciplinary learning environments, that instead of
reiterating the meritocracy (and maybe mediocracy) of traditional universities and
educational systems are aiming at furthering knowledge production and its
structuring environments without taking formal qualification and graduation
schema as an entry point and prohibitive gate.
Although I am working and still trying to be educated at
a traditional university, which proudly presents its inherited history of 650
years of investigating and teaching, I prefer learning and teaching
environments that are able to overcome disciplinary boundaries and academic
hierarchies of the traditional university. Thus I would really welcome and
enjoy getting involved in a problem/question oriented MOOC that focuses on
collaborative knowledge production and enhancement of individual perspectives
towards specific (types) of questions. Nevertheless I had a look into some edX courses, in order to get a better
understanding of what ought to be so special about education at the US universities
of high(-est) prestige, which led me to kind of the same conclusion than Daniel (2012):
Access to and prestige related to programs and degrees is much more distinctive
than it is the case for the quality of teaching materials, graduation
requirements or (online) pedagogics!
stiif is currently working @ University of Vienna's Bibliometric Department and is part of the u:cris team. Extra-occupational he is taking part in the Master Program Science-Technology-Society @ University of Vienna. He is formemost interested in the praxeology of knowledge production in institutions of higher education.
You pose some interesting suggestions of how MOOCs could be transformed into new forms of online learning.
ReplyDeleteI would like to add to this discussion some thoughts about how I think MOOCs could be transformed into something I would like to participate in myself:
This MOOC would be one that is not shaped as a course with a fixed number of topics that are discussed one after the other in fixed sessions. This MOOC would allow the participant to chose topics and themes out of a list. In this way participants would be able to concentrate on issues they are particularly interested in and to avoid others that are not of their interest.
This would open up the learning process, but would still provide some structure in form of an overview of relevant issues of one topic.
Maybe this new format could also be inspired by concepts of Montessori education, which works in a similar way.
Bernhard, I completely agree! Freedom of choice in education would of course help in creating learning and training spaces that are more open.
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