Why teach a MOOC?
By Carrie Saarinen. C.S. Lewis said, “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” Some people feel the same way about online courses, hence, the MOOC was born.
Working on the front lines of Canvas Network, I’ve learned there are plenty of great reasons to embrace MOOCs. Sometimes I talk with people who’ve thought long and hard about the philosophy behind MOOCs, while others approach it from a carefree "I just want to try it!" perspective. Whatever your mentality, teaching a MOOC is a great experience with lots of practical value. Here are a few reasons to consider teaching a MOOC. More...
cMOOCs: Putting Collaboration First
By Jeannie Crowley. While the term "MOOC" brings to mind thousands of students viewing recorded lectures without much interaction, alternative models are fostering creativity and collaboration with peers. What is a MOOC? The term has dominated the online education conversation over the past year, yet there is still a lot of ambiguity surrounding its definition. Even a look at the components of the acronym itself--massive open online course--can lead to more questions than answers:
- Massive:What is the threshold for massive? Is the threshold relative to the size of the institution?
- Open:Is the platform open source? Can anyone lead a course? Can any institution offer a course? Can any student enroll? Are all of the materials open? (Free and open are not synonymous.) Is it accessible for diverse learners and languages?
- Online: How do we define online? Are we thinking about SMS/mobile-only courses? What about blended learning?
- Course:What makes it a course? Why are we trying to replicate face-to-face experiences (courses) in a new medium? Is the traditional semester approach ideal for online environments?
It is tempting to create a one-size-fits-all definition of a MOOC based on our answers to these questions. More...
MOOCs click with Indians
By . Sankalp Garud, 17, has taken a course in mathematical thinking at Stanford, calculus at UPenn , social psychology at Wesleyan and mechanics at MIT. All while staying put in Ghatkopar. In Delhi, media manager Tituraj Kashyap is learning about the history of photojournalism from the star professors at University of London and is topping it with a songwriting course from the Boston-based Berklee College of Music. Techie Anand Sathe's academic basket includes eight courses ranging from machine learning to the theory of irrational behavior (the latter — taught by Dan Ariely from Duke University — is one of the most popular MOOCs). More...
How MOOCs Can Help India
. Online courses may help alleviate faculty shortages and improve education. Digital technologies have the potential to dramatically transform Indian higher education. A new model built around massive open online courses (MOOCs) that are developed locally and combined with those provided by top universities abroad could deliver higher education on a scale and at a quality not possible before. University enrollment in India is huge and growing. It surpassed the U.S.'s enrollment in 2010 and became second only to China that year. Every day in India 5,000 students enroll at a university and 10 new institutions open their doors. More...
Frequently Asked Questions on MOOCs
By Navleen. What are MOOCs?
MOOCs stand for Massive Open Online Courses. The idea behind the concept of MOOCs is that these are ‘Courses’, related to practically any topic, are offered ‘Online’, and are free and ‘Open’ for anyone to enroll into. So, an ideal MOOC would have unlimited number of enrolls, hence making it ‘Massive’!
What exactly is meant by Open Access?
Open access refers to the unrestricted provision of access to educational resources, free of cost. MOOC content is usually open for all, and there is no registration or fee required to enroll for one either. A web browser is all one requires to have Open Access.
Is there a limit on the number of participants in a MOOC?
No, there is no limit to the number of participants in a MOOC. A typical MOOC is designed to take on board millions of students and learners. More...
A-level results 2013: warning over exam 'gender divide'
By Graeme Paton. Old-fashioned gender “stereotyping” is leading to a huge division in A-level subjects taken by boys and girls, leading examiners have warned. Figures show that the gender split has been “very significantly widened” this year as more pupils sit courses that match traditional expectations.
It emerged that girls accounted for more than seven out of 10 English exams sat this year – an increase on 2012 – while boys’ likelihood of studying the subject dropped. At the same time, almost eight-in-10 physics papers were taken by boys – up by four per cent in a year – while fewer girls sat exams in the discipline.
Examiners suggested that teachers and parents may be fuelling the trend by filling pupils with stereotypical advice about their future career path. It was also feared that a lack of good role models in some subjects may be putting boys or girls off certain disciplines. More...
A-level results 2013: foreign language courses in 'freefall'
By Graeme Paton. An investigation is to be launched into the state of foreign language teaching in schools after the number of pupils taking A-levels in French and German plummeted to a record low.
Examination boards said they were working on a rescue plan in an attempt to revive interest in the subject following a year-on-year fall in entries over the last decade.
The inquiry is likely to look into areas such as the types of students studying a language and why relatively few A-levels are awarded a top grade.
It came after French and German – traditionally the two most popular language courses in schools – both appeared in a list of the 10 fastest declining subjects this summer. Some 11,272 pupils studied French in 2013 – a drop of 10 per cent in a year and a near 50 per cent decline over the last decade. More...
Encouraging results for education reform
By Telegraph View. The drop in A-level grades indicates that Michael Gove's reforms are having an effect.
The announcement of A-level results is a time-honoured summer ritual, with households around the country gathering in trepidation and then, ideally, exhilaration. Yet this year, there is a different flavour to events. As in 2012, grades are doing something decidedly untraditional: namely, going down.
This is not a fact to be lamented. No one seriously disputes that the exam system fell victim to rampant grade inflation: how else to explain the threefold rise in the proportion of A grades since the mid-Eighties? That this trend is now going into reverse is a tribute to the Coalition’s efforts, with the watchdog Ofqual and the exam boards given the clearest indication by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, that he wants to restore rigour and integrity to the system. More...
Top universities fight for brightest students to fill 3,000 vacancies
By Graeme Paton. Almost 3,000 courses were still available at Britain’s best universities on Thursday night as elite institutions scrambled to recruit bright students. Sixteen out of the 24 members of the elite Russell Group are advertising degree places through the clearing system. Courses are being left open to students who may have narrowly missed out on their original offer of a place at another highly sought-after institution. Many places are also likely to be taken by students who want to “trade up”, shunning their existing course offer after gaining better than expected grades. Last year, just 1,300 students gained places through “adjustment” but it is thought numbers could rise this summer. It represents the first evidence of a competitive market between universities after the Coalition reforms to the higher education system in England. More...
Graduate premium 'no matter what you study'
By Ian Walker. Research published yesterday shows that graduate earnings continue to exceed average non-graduate earnings whatever your degree, says economist Professor Ian Walker. The message from our research into the 'graduate premium' – published yesterday by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – is simple: it's all good news for anyone willing to study hard. On average, if you complete a degree of any kind you're going to see a substantial return on your 'investment'.
Not only is it the case that average graduate earnings continue to exceed average non-graduate earnings (despite the dramatic recent rise in higher education participation), but also the riskiness in graduate earnings continues to be less than that of non-graduates. So called STEM subjects and business related degrees continue to be the best bets – partly reflecting the importance of quantitative skills across the market. But all subjects show a healthy return. Moreover, despite the rise in tuition fees the average return remains huge. Indeed, the tweaks to the loan system have been designed to favour those that do badly in the labour market. More...
