MOOC Students Who Got Offline Help Scored Higher, Study Finds

By Steve Kolowich. One of the first things researchers have learned about student success in massive open online courses is that in-person, one-on-one teaching still matters. For online learners who took the first session of “Circuits & Electronics,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s hallmark MOOC, those who worked on course material offline with a classmate or “someone who teaches or has expertise” in the subject did better than those who did not, according to a new paper by researchers at MIT and Harvard University. The research, published this week by the journal Research & Practice in Assessment, is one of the first peer-reviewed academic studies based on data from a MOOC. Read more...