The debate on MOOCS: This is a field I know something about:
- I did fundamental research on learning. Published multiple research
papers on the topic. One of my books is entitled "Learning and memory."
- I was president of an educational startup, delivering courses over the
internet.
- I am a fan of the UK's Open University.
- I am doing a MOOC course on design with Udacity.
On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 7:40 PM, Gopinaath Kannabiran <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> "... So-called MOOCs, or massive open online courses, typically get tens of
> thousands of sign-ups to watch video lectures delivered by tweedy
> academics, some more photogenic than others. But imagine how many students
> would tune in—or make it through the class without dropping out—if instead
> of bookish professors, Hollywood stars delivered the lessons."
>
Fortunately Gunnar brought some sense to the debate:
On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 7:10 AM, Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> It's interesting to note that this idea is held up to ridicule partly
> because of the assumption that experts on a subject are, by nature of their
> expertise, the best people to communicate their knowledge. That assumption
> seems as ridiculous to me as the assumption that students would learn more
> if addressed by Matt Damon instead of someone who is an expert in the
> subject matter.
>
> All of that seems to be predicated on the assumption that what is
> essentially a televised lecture is the best way to convey most subject
> matter. (After years of hearing that lectures are out of date and don't
> reach current students, it's fascinating to watch the big educational
> debate be how many people should be lectured to simultaneously.)
>
It is true that many professors (or many anybody) are often really crappy
lecturers. But the important point is that lectures are really good at some
things (which is why we all go to hear them at conferences and at seminars)
but really bad at most things -- such as developing the proper knowledge
and skills into the heads of the listeners. Learning requires doing,
whether it is writing a critique, solving a science, engineering, or
programming problem and testing to see if the solution really works, or
sketching and building (or for things such as services, doing mockups that
can be tested).
Lectures convey a lot of material rapidly (books are even better, if you
simply measure density of ideas). Lectures, moreover, can provide the
conceptual frameworks upon which the detailed, substantive knowledge is
then built. (A variant of the scaffolding model of learning.)
Lectures are about teaching. We need to be more concerned with learning.
Lectures are good at motivation, and also good to get a feeling for how
someone thinks. And although a professional actor could give the same,
word-for-word lecture as a professor -- and better, would we go to hear it?
A famous painter (Warhol comes to mind, but if not, it was someone from the
same era) once sent an actor to give the various expensive, paid lectures
he was invited to give. The first few were very well received, but then the
secret got out and he was vilified. The point is that people wanted him to
give the talk, not to learn his ideas but to experience him as a person.
The Udacity philosophy is to have NO lectures. In my course, the longest
"lecture" is two minutes of video, often me interacting with my course
partner (Kristian Simsarian, formerly of IDEO and now head of Interaction
Design at California College of the Arts, San Francisco -- CCA).
The psychology course that was mentioned in the article is, in my humble
opinion, really bad. (But I have a PhD in psychology and know more about
many of the topics than either the average student or, for that matter, the
people who developed the course.) But it is bad because of its format.
Dummied down. It is a fake news show where the professional interviews the
experts. Ugh
In the US, NOVA presents science shows. I usually hate them because they
are so dumbed-down and cute. Doesn't matter who narrates them. Woody
Flowers did one, until they pulled him off. (Footnote: Famous Prof. of M.E.
at MIT (and a friend) who developed truly excellent design courses for
students, including the famous project course that galvanized the entire
university.) The problem was the script.
Today they are using David Pogue, the NY Times technology columnist
(footnote: he just announced that he is leaving the Times -- even though he
was the most popular writer at the Times and treated really well -- to go
to Yahoo!) I find his NOVA shows to be the best I have seen, although extra
cutesy. He does pull it off. David also understands the subject matter
quite well.
The real virtue of these science shows is not the famous names: it is the
wonderful videos and animations that let the audience understand and
passively experience the phenomena they are being told about.
But this is what I meant about good lectures: they are excellent at
exposing one to material and are great at motivation. They can provide a
good framework upon which to start to understand. But if you really want to
understand, you need to work hard, to DO, to struggle with the concepts. It
is the struggle that creates the understanding.
My MOOC may very well fail. But it is an experiment. We will learn from it
how better to create better learning experiences in the future. Can design
be taught by lectures? (No, says me.) Can it be taught over the internet?
As a MOOC? We don't know. Note that Coursera has at least two design
courses, both taught by excellent design instructors and good friends --
one from U. Pennsylvania and one from Stanford (who just moved to my old
department at UC, San Diego). Their courses have lots of projects (as will
mine.) All of us are learning.
---
Dropout rate. Don't sneer at a 90% dropout rate.
1. Sebastian Thrun's AI course had a 90% dropout rate, but it had
100,000 people enrolled. It was a hard course - the same material being
taught at Stanford (by the same person -- Sebastian). So this meant that
10,000 people got through it. In all his years of teaching at Stanford,
Sebastian's total number of students didn't come close to 10,000. And in
the final exam -- same exam for the MOOC students and the Stanford students
taking it in a normally taught classroom course by the same instruction ---
the best scores came from MOOC students. (Footnote: The results convinced
Sebastian to dropout himself: he quit his Full Professorship at Stanford
(and his VP position at Google) and started Udacity.)
2. My course has 30,000 students enrolled (it won't start for another
month). If only 10% finish, that is still 3,000 students. I've never had
3,000 students in a course before (let alone 30,000).
3. Many students drop out because they have learned what they needed to
know. Or because they had other commitments that prevented them from
finishing. or because they hated the material or the course. Dropout rate
tells you nothing. (I have convinced Sebastian to teach shorter courses. If
a 10 week course is taught as 5 two-week courses, people can stop, without
being stigmatized as "dropping out."
4. Will people in my course end up as designers? I predict that a large
number will, but only because the course will encourage them to go on to
further study, to enroll in design schools. That's the goal of my course:
to refresh the understanding of existing designers, to help people learn
the principles of interaction design, and most importantly, to motivate
others to understand what design can be and to lead many of them to. I will
get them to the water -- many of them will then start to drink.
Hollywood actors? Sure, but only for the correct reason.
--
Don Norman
Nielsen Norman Group, IDEO Fellow
[log in to unmask] www.jnd.org http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/
Book: "Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded<http://amzn.to/ZOMyys>"
(DOET2).
Course: Udacity On-Line course based on
DOET2<https://www.udacity.com/course/design101> (free).
Real Soon Now.
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