A few years ago I had the privilege
of meeting a 14 year old from London who had already developed 4 iPhone apps
and made about $100 a day in download income.
Being a middle-school teacher at the time, I have to say I was intrigued
both by his apparent genius but also his uncharacteristic motivation for
someone his age. As I got to talking to
him however, it became clear that while those things were partially true, the
real truth is that he had learned how to develop iPhone apps from watching a
Stanford Professor on iTunesU explain it all to him…for free.
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| http://wpuploads.appadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2013-01-24_09-21-17-642x252.png |
And this was my introduction to Massively Online Open
Course’s.
I admit that I went home and
downloaded the exact same course as this young man had, but due to the lack of
time and the lack of an iPhone I didn’t really follow in his footsteps. As an instructional designer, and somewhat
of an international humanitarian however, the idea of MOOC’s has my mind
spinning. Even from the philosophical perspective
of education and access has been blown to bits by this recent technological
development by some of the most elite universities in the world.
For this blog I’ve chosen to take a
look at the MIT Open Courseware site and its related link to EdX, which is a
similar in its MOOCness but with the added bonus of looking and feeling like a
real asynchronous course with other learners in a fixed timeframe, but without
the cost.
MIT
Open Courseware
In general this site hosts hundreds
of stand-alone (considered to be completely asynchronous, and without
student-to-student, or student-to-instructor interaction) courses which can be
selected through a series of filters for subtopics, specialties, and certain
other course features such as videos, student exemplary work, assessments,
lecture notes, syllabus, interactive simulations, online textbooks, etc.
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| http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-033-nuclear-systems-design-project-fall-2011/index.htm |
I chose a course entitled Nuclear
Systems Design Project, which was chosen because it contained the largest
number of filter items under the topic of science. Although this may be misleading as to the
usual level of quality in instructional design, I wanted to have a look at a
stand-alone course with the most features for comparison to a truly
online-distance education course.
Context: “This capstone course is a group design
project involving integration of nuclear physics, particle transport, control,
heat transfer, safety, instrumentation, materials, environmental impact, and
economic optimization. It provides opportunities to synthesize knowledge
acquired in nuclear and non-nuclear subjects and apply this knowledge to
practical problems of current interest in nuclear applications design. Each
year, the class takes on a different design project; this year, the project is
a power plant design that ties together the creation of emission-free
electricity with carbon sequestration and fossil fuel displacement. Students
taking graduate version complete additional assignments.” (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-033-nuclear-systems-design-project-fall-2011/).
Theories of design:
Situated Learning (Bransford,
Sherwood, Hasselbring,
Kinzer, &
Williams, 1990; Lave & Wenger, 1990, cited by Belltrain).
Learning audience: This is an elective capstone undergraduate
course for students at MIT enrolled in an Energy Studies Minor. We can assume that these students have had
some engineering, design, and math courses but as evidenced by one of the goals
to “Think Like an Engineer” it would be reasonable to conclude that many will
be learning a good deal of metacognitive and process skills as well as the
content about nuclear reactors.
Does the course
appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning
environment? How so?
It is debatable whether one would
consider this site, “shovelware” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albrecht & Zvacek,
2012) a term used for courses that were once used only in the Face-to-face
educational setting and then repurposed into and online course. It does have potential as its own online
course, however separated from an instructor and other enrolled students it
seems fairly impossible to complete—even as a self-study program—due to it’s
nature as a collaborative design project.
On the other hand, I can tell it has been planned for the potential use in a distance-learning
environment because it contains a special section called “Teaching this Course”
in which hyperlinks take the user to pages which include text and video of the
actual instructors, and follow a conversation of how they teach this specific
course. Some of the topics in this
section include heading such as:
- Developing the Project Assignment,
- Guiding Students Through Each Phase of the Course,
- Tailoring the Course to Student's Needs,
- Teaching Students to Be Engineers,
- Teaching Communication,
- Making Content Tangible
This gives evidence that this course was created for
“reusability” which is a key feature of instruction design that has followed a
systematic process (Simonson, et. al., 2012, p. 153). Whether that “reusability” would be in the
F2F setting or the online setting would take about the same amount of work from
what I can tell. All that would be
needed for a distance-learning conversion is a course facilitator and a CMS and
the rest of the course could be uploaded for easy integration and
implementation with a live group of distance-learners. I could also see the course project reworked
and converted into a digital simulation project that would incorporate what
Dede (2005) calls an “Alice-in-Wonderland, Multi User Virtual Environment
(MUVE) interfaces in which participant’s avitars interact with computer based
agents and digital artifacts in virtual contexts” (p. 8).
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| http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-033-nuclear-systems-design-project-fall-2011/index.htm |
A good deal of programming has
been done outside of a CMS in order to make the course homepage look visually
welcoming and designed for the end-user experience—complete with course
descriptions, and links to additional resources within the site. As I sniffed around the “Featured Sites” tab
I noticed a link to MIT’s MOOC’s that are especially for high-school students. Although a little high-level this course may
be re-useable by community colleges or even 4-year universities.
The calendar gives topics and due dates for project
components, but interestingly these are not tied to actual dates, but instead
to days in the course cycle, thus making the course no-longer fixed in time,
but reusable from any start and end date.
All readings are hyperlinked to downloadable PDF’s.
Lecture videos and notes are included with hyperlinks
within the course calendar. In many
cases the notes are simply text announcements to students about preparation for
lectures, recitation, etc.
A few assignments are listed but no rubrics were
evident.
Student exemplars of the course project are included
as videos and PowerPoint slides
A few technology tools are listed with links to
downloadable software.
Does the course
follow the recommendations for online instruction as listed in your course
textbook?
Using Graham, Cagiltay, Lim, Craner, and Duffy’s (2001, in
Simonson et. al., 2012, p. 179)) seven lessons for online instruction as a
rubric (1 to 4, with 4 being the highest rating), here is how the MIT course
would stand up:
Rating
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Lesson
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1
|
“Instructors should
provide clear guidelines for interaction with students.”
The task rubrics were nonexistent and although there was a
section about “communicating” I did not find much in the way of guidelines
for interaction
|
3
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“Well-designed
discussion assignments facilitate meaningful cooperation among students.
Because this was not designed as a distance course to
begin with it is assumed that students will be cooperating with each other
face-to-face. As Dr. Piskurich indicates
(Laureate Education Inc., n.d.) face-to-face or on the job training is always
the best course design method.
Therefore, although not specifically designed for a distance learning
context, it can be assumed through the task descriptions, the context, and
evidenced by the final projects, that meaningful cooperation did occur.
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4
|
“Students should
present course projects.”
The very nature of the course is a collaborative design
project.
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3
|
“Instructors need
to provide two types of feedback: information feedback and acknowledgement
feedback.”
It is clear from the syllabus that students were to submit
monthly journal entries, and monthly group presentations of progress
(therefore chunking the project into smaller sizes). It can be concluded that through this
formative assessment process, feedback was given to students.
|
4
|
“Online courses
need deadlines”
As mentioned above, the calendar indicates a timeline with
due dates, although for the MOOC those deadlines are not dates, but instead
days in the learning cycle. Clear
deadlines and a timeline are included.
|
4
|
“Challenging tasks,
sample cases, and praise for quality work communicate high expectations.”
|
3
|
“Allowing students
to choose project topics incorporates diverse views into online courses.”
Because this is a design task, the problem is open ended
with a few constraints. Students got
to choose which phase of the reactor they would work on and then they were
able to make design decisions together to solve the problem
|
3.14
|
Overall average
viability as an online course…not bad!
|
The course does well to include detailed specifics about the
course through the syllabus, calendar, lecture videos and notes, etc. With a little retooling I could see it being
a well-designed course since so much of the pedagogy and activities have
already been designed for maximum engagement.
Evaluation rubrics and quizzes would need to be developed
and a structure for interactivity (such as wikis, discussion groups, etc.)
would need to be created and facilitated, but in general the content and course
activities have been designed with sound principles in mind.
Did the course
designer implement course activities that maximize active learning for the
students?
Because the
course is a capstone design course, the entire course is centered around a
group project where students essentially work together to “design a complete
power plant from a systems point of view. This plant must be able to both
generate electricity and produce hydrogen and liquid synthetic fuels as
outputs. Which outputs these are and how they are to used is up to you to
decide. This should be a conceptual design, characterized by sufficient detail
to demonstrate that the design is technically feasible, licensable, and
economically competitive” (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-033-nuclear-systems-design-project-fall-2011/Syllabus/).
Additionally
the goals of the course indicate that interactivity and problem-solving in a
teamwork setting are of utmost importance.
Again, from the syllabus: “This course aims to teach you how to work on
an open-ended, "no right answer" problem that requires choosing
design parameters, optimizing them, and backing up your judgment as a team.
Individual work as well as teamwork will be required to successfully complete
this project” (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-033-nuclear-systems-design-project-fall-2011/Syllabus/).
Clearly
this course is designed with group-based, active-learning pedagogies in
mind. To quote Beldarrain (2006), “Situated
learning theory proposes that real-life problem solving should be a
collaborative task, empowering learners to become part of a learning community.
Anchored instruction seeks to build problem-solving skills by anchoring
instruction around a situation or problem (Cognition and Technology Group at
Vanderbilt, 1993). Students solve the problem presented in context by
role-playing and interacting with both the content and their peers. Online
distance education can integrate emerging technologies such as blogs, wikis,
and podcasts to achieve the type of communication and interaction that would
support either of these learning theories, among others” (p. 147). As evidenced by the tasks and roles for
students in the syllabus, it is clear that this form of role-play and
interaction is present all situated around a real-world problem. To see student work examples of the final
project go visit http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-033-nuclear-systems-design-project-fall-2011/projects/final-project-presentation
However, since we can assume that
the originally course was designed for a F2F environment and then published
online as a MOOC that involves no coordinated effort or structure to maintain
student-to-student interaction, then presumably the course project would be
impossible to complete as a stand-alone unless you could identify several other
course users were willing to complete the coursework along with you.
References:
Beldarrain, Y.
(2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster
student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education 27(2),
139-153.
Dede, C. (2005).
Planning for neomillennial learning styles. Educause Quarterly, 28(2),
7-12.
Laureate
Education Inc., (n.d.) Planning and
Designing Online Courses [video]. Author: Dr. George Piskurich and
Jacqueline Chauser. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype=Course%26id=_2818555_1%26url=
Simonson, M.,
Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and Learning at a Distance. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon
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