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MIT Master's Program To Use MOOCs As 'Admissions Test' (chronicle.com)
jyosim writes: In what could usher a new way of doing college admissions at elite colleges, MIT is experimenting with weighing MOOC performance as proof that students should be accepted to on-campus programs. The idea is to fix the "inexact science" of sorting through candidates from all over the world. And it gives students a better sense of what they're getting into: "When you buy a car, you take a test drive. Wouldn't it be a great value for prospective students to take a test course before they apply?" said one academic blogger.
What about the other test can you get a loan or pay for it with out one?
Most people, on the other hand, still can't afford to go to MIT even if they have the talent to be there.
I love Master of Orion (MOO) back in the Bad Ole DOS days. Not sure if it would make for a great admission tool.
For those like me who don't automatically know what some random acronym means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Also, shame on submitter / editor for not including acronym expansion.
This will just incentivize a black market of MOOC students for hire.
Given the rampant cheating that goes on in MOOCs all they're going to get is students who are good cheating and hiding their lack of knowledge. Those people shouldn't be going to MIT. They're future politicians and MBA holders, not engineers.
How are they going to manage the cheating issue?
Somebody had to do it.
Anything we can do that stops people from wasting money on college will help to solve the massive problem that exists in this country right now. There are millions of kids that go to college that really have no business being there. Colleges have learned and adapted to the free market system we now suffer under and have realized that the more they can sell college as an automatic ticket to "the good life", and the more parents they can make feel inadequate if they don't fork over the dough to send their precious children there, the more $$$ they will be rolling in. There should be strict admissions testing for college just like we had to have strict requirements to receive a mortgage after the 2009 subprime lending crisis that nearly destroyed the economy. What we have going right now is a massive scam where millions of young people are sold a bill of goods and spend the rest of their lives paying back loans that they cannot get rid of, working in jobs that are nothing like what they were told they would have when they were first courted by the universities that dot our landscape. Protip: The college campuses are not as nice as they are because they have lots of wealthy alums contributing back millions to the college. They're as nice as they are because of all the people like you who are mortgaging the rest of your life to make them wealthy.
"Why weren't you in class today?"
"I was. I logged on and no one was there."
"No, I mean why weren't you in CLASS?"
"I went to the website."
"Did you go to the CLASSROOM?"
"What's a classroom? You mean the chatroom?"
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Isn't that called your undergrad degree?
"Elite" is BS, IMHO. MIT-Homeworld could take on ten times the students and not see a drop in performance. That is to say, they're running way under capacity. So are many other "elite" universities. I think a healthy number for a STEM U should be at least 100k -- a veritable city of STEM maniacs. So that's not physically possible, realistic? Go MOOC, MIT. And to weed out the accomplished cheaters, have the student come to MIT-Homeworld for a semester or a year and work on "projects" that would require having mastered the material supposedly done online. (No final exam/oral defense pressure, anxiety necessary.) Once a proven ace, then the MIT sheepskin.
Seems like a good idea at first... until you realize that people can just put together a whole team of people to help them do the online course, and guarantee that they ace it. This scheme is going to reward cheaters, not geniuses.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I found my MOOC (Cousera) to be harsher.
First it's all self study - at least in my area.
Secondly, when asking questions in the forums, I was told on occasion that "You don't belong here for asking such a stupid question".
When I flagged the comment, nothing was done. I can only assume that the course admins and Coursera were in agreement that I didn't belong there.
I would never have heard that in school. Snide comment from a TA or even the PhD instructor - yes (it happened) - but outright insulting, NO.
As a side note, when I was in my undergrad Physics program, I used to asked questions - lots of them - like what IS light. Many profs would roll their eyes andd give me canned answers. There was one, Peter LaMere (I think spelling is right) of CCSU who flat out said, "we don't know".
He taught. HE wanted me to learn and NOT prove how stupid I am.
I wish we had more Caribbean and African immigrants to teach physics - and not White and Asian people who want to make it some exclusive club. Like the business school professors who gave me shit. Yes, I am equating science teachers with business school teachers.
Test for that, then worry about the rest.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The upside would be that the most skilled students would be admitted. The downside is that others will be disadvantaged not due to inability but to inexperience.
Two of my universities had a foreign language requirement. I attended and audited language classes on several occasions and in each case the classroom was full of native speakers of that language. My honors calculus class stunned me on the first day when the instructor discovered 3 advanced students and thereafter directed all his attention to them.
If these had been selection criteria, I would have failed; not because I was dumb or lazy but because others had a head start in some skill set. That is NOT a predictor of who will do well in school or in life.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Undergrads who need work and study for financial aid will not have time to work, study for their current coursework, and take another course through MOOC. Even more so for those that are also trying to do undergraduate research.
The university is test driving students. This is akin to an auto dealership using your performance during the test drive to determine your qualifications as a buyer. (That's actually not a bad idea.) It's a terrible idea for universities. They're competitive, yes, but ultimately, the university is providing a fee based service, and it's incumbent upon them to treat students as paying customers.
If it's a test of English, you should probably hold on to your money.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm not sure this will attract the best candidates. For a Master's program, candidates from from three pools:
(1) Students who just finished undergrad and want additional specialization before entering the workforce
(2) Working professionals who want to return to school to gain additional skills or enter a new field
(3) Those who never found a job and are trying to wait out the market in school
Of these, only (1) and (3) likely have the time to commit to a MOOC. (2) could (and many people do this), but will always have their normal responsibilities taking priority.
The problem is that a MOOC is a huge time commitment. If it's the only way to get into a Master's program, you're taking a huge risk if you're already working and have responsibilities. The GRE/GMAT + an application + interview is reasonable to ask for something that's not guaranteed and likely has an acceptance rate of 10-20%. A three month time commitment isn't. This will simply exclude the most desireable and qualified group of students and limit the pool of applicants to those who had the free time to commit to it.
It's kinda like companies that require programming assignments prior to interviews. That tactic, while trendy and popular, tends to exclude the top 10% coders simply because they have better ways to spend their weekends and evenings and know it.
-Chris
Maybe they can cheat before, then not pass courses. GRAD courses are often seminars and everyone knows your capabilities.
This doesn't suprise me. MOOCs as currently implemented scare the beejus out of elearning content creators (I used to work at one) with their "race to the bottom" approach to commodifying elearning.
What it always seemed to be about was the data - how do students behave, how can we tune the system to monetise elearning more effectively.
Well, I got curious waiting, so I hope you'll forgive me answering my own question. As of today's date, Slashdot search shows 44 prior stories that include the word "MOOC" in the article. The first one showed up in Oct 2012; it's been 37 months since that time, so on average more than one article per month for the last 3 years.
The busiest period was Jun 2013 to Jan 2014, which had 18 MOOC articles on Slashdot in an 8-month period; that is, a MOOC article about every other week. I'll take this with a great sense of relief that the MOOC hype has indeed died down since then.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
MOOCs have a 10% completion rate. The root cause has not yet been studied extensively, but it's thought to be a combination of crap structure, crap material, lack of learner motivation and lack of instructor support. While grad students arguably should be able to deal with these conditions, I can't imagine the best way to screen candidates is to put them through the torturous experience of a MOOC.