Presentation Scales In Massive Online Courses; Does Interaction?

lpress writes "Coursera has demonstrated that they can scale presentations in massive, open, online courses — they have reached over 1.3 million students in 195 countries since they were funded in April. But can they scale student interaction? As of this morning, 7,839 Coursera students had formed 1,119 communities on Meetup.com in 1,014 cities — many outside the U.S." On the whole, isn't that a positive outcome?

Comments

What's special about study groups?

[AK Marc]

Is it real interaction? Class interaction is talking to the professor for authoritative answers to questions, or in the case of the massively large science classes I took (CHEM 101 and PHYS 201-ish), they had a paid TA in the lab. Unless there is a paid TA in each of the 1000+ groups, they are nothing more than study groups, and aren't class interaction. There is no "official" answer to a question. There is no "interaction" with a class authority. That's not class interaction any more than friending a classmate on Facebook makes that classroom interaction (even if they meet in person, the difference is the lack of official representation in the group).

Re:What's special about study groups?

[xQx]

You can learn more about how Coursera works here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html - It is far more than just "study groups".

Now, I'm not sure what it was like at your university, but doing a science course at Monash, I realized there is a huge difference in people who can teach vs. people who can research. And universities love getting researchers who publish stuff so the university looks good. The end result - every one of our maths or CS teachers spent their time talking in a thick Indian accent while scribbling nonsense on the board which you frantically copied down without learning a DAMN THING.

As for the TA's - well, they aren't exactly experts or authorities in themselves, usually your first year TA was a second year student; your second year TA is a third year student; your third year TA is a fourth year student ...

Lecturer interaction at most universities doesn't live up to the promise.

So how do people learn? Well the studies say it isn't by sitting in a room listening. Nor, is it about talking to an expert about the material and asking interesting questions. And importantly - nor is it by memorizing stuff by wrote, then regurgitating it for an exam.
You learn best by USING what you've been taught (in fact studies* say one of the best ways of learning something is to try to teach it to others).

What does that mean?

Most of what you learn at university actually comes from you doing assignments (or using what you have read or have been told in a practical way).

How does Coursera stack up?

Well, they did research that showed that peer-marked assignments hold an extremely strong correlation to teacher marked assignments - so as a student of Coursera, once you've finished an assignment, you then get assignments from other students to mark. They send the same assignment to a second student who also marks it (cross marking) - so you do assignments (when you learn), they get marked, and you get a grade.

Also, There is an "official answer" to questions - when they do exams, they don't just tell you what answers you got wrong, because they have hundreds of thousands of people doing the same exam, they offer reasons why you got that wrong answer. Thus giving personalized learning via machine.

Define "interaction"...

[bgat]

On the whole, "interacting" via message boards is about as productive for education as typing with mittens on is for coding. Online courseware can provide students with reference materials and enlightening prose, the enhancement that comes with direct, rapid-fire human interaction is missing.

This is why medical, law, and engineering schools heavily promote study groups where you appear IN PERSON to interact with your classmates. The nuance of the spoken word, and the nonlinearity of conversation, adds a powerful dimension to the student's internalization of the material in ways you just cannot duplicate with words on a screen or paper.

Re:Define "interaction"...

[ShanghaiBill]

On the whole, "interacting" via message boards is about as productive for education as typing with mittens on is for coding.

It depends on the message board. I have learned way more from Stack Overflow than I ever learned from a book. The content is well categorized, and both the questions and answers are rated in a way similar to Slashdot moderation. It seems to work very well.

Re:having someone tell you the 'right answer'

[TaoPhoenix]

Sorry, I profoundly disagree.

Let's separate topics into "objective" and "subjective".

The "Objective" ones are "easy" - math-engineering-parts of science. There is supposed to be "1.0001" right answers. (The "Right One" and the one in a million shot that the official answer is in fact incorrect.) So no amount of students thrashing around with no closure will help if at the end of the day the instructor-team doesn't produce the right answer. Then there's more thrashing about why 70% didn't get it right, and there is where you learn.

On the subjective stuff, yeah, it heads more into what the Prof wants to hear, but a good Prof might actually have a clue. Look at the Legal Disputes we have going on here. We desperately need an IAAL whose paid specialty (from the EFF?) is to lead the discussions because however much we joke about the topic, law is hard, and 85% of our comments are flawed. The IAAL might make an error, but it's gonna be a much narrower error than most of our 200 comments.