The Maturing of the MOOC

The Maturing of the MOOC
The course teaches Python computer programming. At each of the two pilot Community
Colleges it is run at different paces. The Bunker Hill class moves slowly, taking two weeks
on each week of MIT material. MassBay, whose students have more computer
background, matches the MIT pace.
Initial results in the MassBay class report that 18 out of 19 students in the class passed the
midterm exam, of which 16 were graded an A. (In the online version of the class, only 22
percent of the students got that far.) The community college students report that they like
having the videos, with embedded quizzes that let them see if they are mastering the
material.
A Bunker Hill student comment reported by New York Times: “The format fits me because
I can watch when I have time. I can pause and rewind and play back. If you miss it in a
lecture, it’s just gone.” It was also reported that for many students, knowing that the class
was developed by MIT was a point of pride.
Professorial enthusiasm is also reported. “It’s not just teaching Python, it’s teaching
computational thinking. I can still do things my own way, but it’s like getting a very good
textbook.”
Literature on the value of online learning for FE in the US generally tends to suggest that it
is of limited value to this learner cohort, even though it is being widely adopted as a means
of cost-saving.
An evaluation of the challenge of distance learning in FE settings is The Effectiveness of
Distance Education Across Virginia's Community Colleges: Evidence From Introductory
College-Level Math and English Courses by Di Xu & Shanna Smith Jaggars (Community
College Research Centre, 2011). Xu and Jaggars present evidence that online courses
negatively impact the outcomes in maths and English courses 80 . The same authors
returned to the issue in 2013 in Washington State community colleges and concluded in a
further study that specifically analysed the influence of online learning on course grade
and student persistence. Again, negative impact was clear 81 . The data used in this report
quantified the deficits from online learning for Community College students as follows:
“For a given student, taking a particular course in an online rather than face-to-face
format would increase his or her likelihood of course withdrawal by 6 percentage
points, and if the student persisted to the end of the course, it would lower his or her
final grade by more than 0.3 points (e.g., from an A to an A−, or from a B+ to a B).”
Xu and Jaggars nevertheless conclude that since Community Colleges are adopting online
learning in any case, as a response to cost pressures, improved design of online materials
will be necessary to preserve educational outcome quality for Community College
students.
80 http://epa.sagepub.com/content/33/3/360.abstract and full report available for purchase
81 http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/examining-effectiveness-of-online-learning.pdf
88