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Keynote lecture by George Siemens at the European MOOCs in Global Context Workshop (19-20 June 2013 @ UW-Madison) http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/european-moocs-in-global-context-workshop-19-20-june-2013-uw-madison/
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Disruptor, Saviour, or Distractor: MOOCs and their role in higher
education’
George Siemens, PhDJune 19, 2013
UW-Madison
Context
Education Sector Factbook, 2012
Allen & Seaman 2011
Increasing diversity of student profiles
The U.S. is now in a position when less than half of students could be
considered fulltime students. In other words, students who can attend campus five days a week nine-to-five,
are now a minority.(Bates, 2013)
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2013
McKinsey Quarterly, 2012
Moody’s Investor Services, 2013
The “why we have MOOCs” formula
DK+ T+ L + (-)U= MOOCs
Plus humans have been very naughty historically, so we deserve them
The MOOC formula
Diversification of knowledge needs + advancement of Tech/digital/mobile + increased proficiency of Learners + lack of University response = MOOCs
Prominent MOOCs enshrine, optimize, and instantiate the education system of the past
This is bad
“Both student and teacher are unhappy when chained to curricula and syllabi, to tests and mediocre standards. An atmosphere of uninspired and uninspiring common sense may well produce satisfactory mastery of technical “know how” and testable factual information. Such an atmosphere, however, stifles genuine understanding and the spirit of adventure in research.”
Karl Jaspers, The Idea of the University 1959
An education system that fails to emulate the characteristics information in an era is
doomed to fail. Information today is:
OpenDistributedScalableSocialGenerativeNetworkedSelf-organizedAdaptiveGlobal
(I’ll pick up on this later)
What we are seeing is the complexification of higher education
Learning needs are complex, ongoing
Simple singular narrative won’t suffice going forward
The idea of the university is expanding and diversifying
Much of what MOOCs address is the shadow education system. They are not actual competition with the existing education system
The university among us
From the current standpoint, we see the MOOC as the hub of change
MOOCs are more accurately seen as a node in an expanding ecosystem of edtech innovation, emerging pedagogy, and complexification of society’s education needs.
Ed-tech startupsWith transformations already underway in news, music, videos/movies, startup gold rush now turning focus to education
2013: The year of the anti-MOOC
Ian Bogost, Georgia Institute of Technology
(Brief interlude, aka rant)
We (faculty) have lost the narrative
Education=employment
Basic research=devalued
Market forces and competition drive education’s future
The day Coursera became mortal
A little bit about change models
Kuhn: accumulation of anomalies, create “phase changes” (sorry, hate the ‘p’ word):
dramatic change, alteration of core premises, development of a framework to account for sub-changes
Carlota Perez: techno-economic change
2008, 2009, 2011
To unchain students from curriculum and syllabi and foster creativity
Distributed content and conversations
“…the fundamental task of education is to enculturate youth into this knowledge-creating civilization and to help them find a place in it…traditional educational practices – with its emphasis on knowledge transmission – as well as newer constructivist methods both appear to be limited in scope if not entirely missing the point”
Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006, Cambridge Handbook of Learning Sciences)
When systems are distributed, alternative modes of integration are needed
Stasser-Titus (1985)
Challenge then is to create a new integrated whole
Social and academic connection to the university
Boyer (1987), Tinto (1993)
Psychological sense of community:“Acknowledged interdependence”
Sarason (1974)
To integrate the university more deeply with the knowledge needs of our society
Me (2013)
Disruptor? Saviour? Distractor?
Twitter/Gmail: gsiemens