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Learning to Live with MOOCs

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Prof essor Ed Webb & Prof essor Liz Lewis, Guest Columnists
May 2, 2013
Filed under Opinion
T here has been a lot of hype about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), raising breathless predictions of
radical transf ormation of higher education. Such predictions produce excitement and alarm in about equal
measure. It is worth taking a sober look at what MOOCs are and what they might mean f or a college like
Dickinson.
As their name suggests, MOOCs use the Internet to deliver courses to very large numbers of participants.
Most media attention has been directed to xMOOCs, which are those of the kind provided by Coursera, Udacity
and others. T hese usually f eature video lectures by prominent f aculty, combined with the kind of assignments
that can be graded easily or automatically, such as multiple choice quizzes. If there is interaction between
learners and instructors, it is most commonly volunteer teaching assistants rather than the headline lecturer
who take that on. T his model clearly f avors instructivist learning, or the one-way transmission of inf ormation.
Other models include connectivist MOOCs of the kind pioneered by George Siemens and others in Canada (in
one of which Prof essor Webb has participated). T hese build networks of learners, f ostering peer-to-peer
connections, and f acilitating dif f ering learning goals and speeds.
T he successes of all kinds of MOOCs so f ar are ambiguous. At their best, MOOCs can unleash the potential
of the Internet f or inexpensive, easy sharing of materials and many-to-many communicationincluding social
media and f ree online toolsto build global learning communities that otherwise would not be possible. More
than f ive million people world-wide have registered f or these types of online courses, according to A.J. Jacobs
in the April 21 issue of T he New York Times.
However, they suf f er f rom very low completion rates, among other problems. We need to guard against the
seductiveness of low-cost or apparently f ree online education that is not, in f act, education. At their worst,
MOOCs will be a reduction of education to delivery of content without meaningf ul opportunity f or critical
discussion, thoughtf ul collaboration or rigorous assessment. To of f er mere transmission of inf ormation and
the most basic level of testing is to leverage the power of the Internet to promote a reductive,
instrumentalized, mass-production model of education. T he potential is so much greater.
A question we invite Dickinsonians to consider is whether MOOCs are compatible with a liberal arts education.
We believe they can be. T hey cannot replicate the benef its of a physically co-located learning community of
our kind. But done right, particularly in the connectivist mode, they can f oster some of the skills and attitudes
we value. MOOCs can provide a space f or promoting critical thinking, the exploration of diverse topics, and
creative engagement with ideas and people on a global scale. We need to be open to the possibilities. We
should prepare to learn f rom the f ailures that will inevitably emerge as MOOCs evolve, without turning our back
on their potential. T hose of us committed to a usef ul liberal arts education should work to ensure there is
space f or the kind of learning we care about within the universe of MOOCs.