MOOCs to complement rather than replace face-to-face learning

Carolyne Lee: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) won’t close down universities, but they will have a significant effect, especially on the quality of the student experience. 

The traditional tutorial provides a rich space in which to generate and share ideas, to collaborate in knowledge-building through engagement with course material. These real tutorials heighten inclusive learning and knowledge production, particularly in the humanities and creative disciplines where the quality of tutorial debate defines the quality of the learning, and therefore the whole degree. 

Robert White: In our post-graduate tutorials learning is achieved chiefly through collaborative methods: one student shares an idea, another extends it, the tutor responds, and so on: a kind of ‘organic’ learning process.

Carolyne Lee: ‘Inclusivity’ and ‘active engagement’ are more than buzzwords: they heighten students’ imaginations and emotional investment in learning – factors known to facilitate intellectual development – and imbue a sense of purpose. Students feel a bond with course material if their voices are heard, and ideas explored. MOOCs, however, deliver course material in a programmed, linear manner. Online forums are complex, with interfaces often too confusing for active engagement; further, online courses preclude student participation in negotiating and exploring essential concepts. 

MOOCs providers promise improved interaction through social media. Currently, though, assessment is by multiple-choice questionnaires; complex questions create a perceived but frustrated need for personal explanation, and exclude the presentation of a nuanced idea or argument as enabled in tutorial presentations or essays marked by a tutor. 

Robert White: The best tutors are facilitators, overseeing and deftly directing tutorial discussions, and giving detailed feedback on written work. They can also ascertain whether a student is struggling, and provide targeted assistance in the form of extra consultation or specific resources.

Because of the lack of engagement with Coursera, I must admit to quickly losing motivation to do ‘homework’ and ‘attend’ classes, as it were. Indeed, like 90 per cent of online students, I dropped out. While the high drop-out rate may be attributed to negative experiences, it is also due to the contradiction between online study and students’ understanding of university life.

Carolyne Lee: The two major components of this understanding are the cost of participation, and the question of sociality. Because MOOCs are free, there is less motivation and pressure to complete a course; choosing not to ‘attend’ class doesn’t mean money is wasted, while not attending class at a traditional university is literally throwing money away. 

There is also the social element. In a real sense, being a student is an occupation for a given period. Involvement in on-campus experiences – seeing others studying, using the libraries, participating in students’ organisations – enables one to identify and understand oneself as a student. This in itself encourages students to continue with a course which may be challenging but will eventually bring the reward of an accredited, recognised degree and associated skills.

In future, higher education will undoubtedly entwine the online and offline, creating blended learning platforms. Universities can improve and complement their campus-based courses by going online: for example, by reducing the time and expense of delivering lectures to largely passive groups of students, a format long recognised as least effective for student learning. 

When lectures are online, students can access them at home, taking notes or breaks as required, freeing up more resources for small group-based, on-campus learning in which personal relationships and soft skills are built, the bedrock of deep learning. 

Soft skills such as teamwork, flexibility, leadership and critical thinking are prized attributes of students and of all rational individuals; these skills may eventually be in short supply if vital elements of real learning are not preserved.

Rigorous piloting and testing of blended learning platforms should be paramount. To achieve best practice in student participation, engagement and outcomes, universities and other educational institutions need to focus on the student experience.

www.cultire-communication.unimelb.edu.au
www.coursera.org