By Jonathan Rees. Have you noticed that I’m sick of writing about MOOCs? It’s not the subject itself that bothers me. It’s simply the fact that I think I’ve read more hype than any one human being can digest and I don’t feel like digesting anymore. For example, other than the fact that the author acknowledges that he’s in the minority now, there’s absolutely no point in this article that hasn’t been written better and more clearly by some other member of the MOOC Messiah Squad over a year ago now. Yet students still aren’t paying to take MOOCs, MOOC providers still have no business model and even college presidents hate MOOCs now.
So why link to that article at all? There’s one point there that’s bigger than MOOCs and well worth my time to address:
Those in the anti-MOOC camp who are opposed to this model should provide well-reasoned arguments based on educational research, not more rhetoric about the imagined dangers of MOOCs as agents of educational imperialism. Mischaracterizing MOOCs as pawns in the service of a neoliberal political agenda distorts the legitimacy of the challenge that MOOCs pose to conventional practices and misrepresents their potential as catalysts of pedagogical innovation. By deflecting attention away from a serious discussion of their own agenda’s merits, those who frame MOOCs in terms of socioeconomic class warfare are not serving their own cause well. Neither smug self-confidence nor playing the victim card will stave off a research agenda that is hot on the trail of understanding the conditions that more effectively enable learning.
Research? Knock yourself out. But don’t you think we should define what we mean by success before we undertake a MOOC research agenda? Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen a great deal of work on what’s being done in the emerging field of “MOOC Studies.” Some of it is incredibly interesting. Some of it is incredibly disturbing. But here’s the thing that’s almost always ignored in my experience: What constitutes learning is going to be different in different fields. Read more...
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