Mapping the Massive Learning Model Across Theory, Pedagogy & History

MOOC CARTOGRAPHY

Rolin MoeEd.D Candidate, Learning TechnologiesPepperdine University

Twitter - @RMoeJoAbout Me– http://rolinmoe.orgAbout MOOCs – http://allmoocs.wordpress.comDissertation Proposal - http://prezi.com/dhlgix-6bjag/the-evolution-impact-of-the-mooc/

PURPOSE OF PRESENTATION• Utilizing a thorough literature review to adequately define Massive Open Online Courses

(MOOCs) along a variety of strata

• History of Education

• Educational Philosophy/Theory

• Cultural & Political Interpretations of Education

• Importance of adequately defining MOOC

• Discussion & debate that would benefit via an accepted definition of the model

A (RHETORICAL) BATTLE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

MOOCs are a lightning strike on a rotten tree.- Clay Shirky

There’s a tsunami coming.- John Hennessey (President, Stanford Univ.)

The MOOC revolution…is here and real.- Thomas Friedman

Gustave Dore, Illustration of Paradise Lost. 1866

January Suchodolski, Battle of Berezina. 1866.

THERE ARE NO XMOOCS• In differentiating the various MOOC models, C. Osvaldo Rodriguez (2012) labeled the

connectivism-borne MOOCs as cMOOCs, and the Stanford model MOOCs as aiMOOCs. http://www.eurodl.org/?article=516

• MOOC discussion, as catalyzed by various media outlets and forms (example – Tamar Lewin’s MOOCs, Large Courses Open to All, Topple Campus Walls - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/education/moocs-large-courses-open-to-all-topple-campus-walls.html), began using MOOC to label the AI borne courses in early 2012, paying no heed to cMOOCs. The courses and platforms of Coursera, Udacity and edX are just MOOCs.

• xMOOC was first used by Tanya Roscorla in defining the emerging LMS movement against the connectivist history http://www.centerdigitaled.com/policy/MOOCs-Here-to-Stay.html

• The use of xMOOC since has largely been pejorative, creating “us vs. them” mentality rather than allowing for serious debate.

• Cognitive Learning

• Memory Recall

• Khan Academy

• Divine Right / Cult of Personality Instigation

DOMINANT MOOC IDEOLOGY

Influences

A HISTORY OF EDUCATION (DOMINANT IDEOLOGY)

Salman Khan & Michael Noer, A History of Education. Via Forbes.

A HISTORY OF EDUCATION (ABRIDGED)(UDACITY IDEOLOGY)

• Education is a societal superstructure (Marx). Within an institution a structural definition is sufficient for operations, but across a superstructure such a definition omits the numerous variables at play in superstructures.

• The acute focus of researchers and practitioners to debate what MOOC means as a structure not only ignores the larger debate of MOOCs as representative of higher education shifts, but it fails to engage a dominant paradigm that has never debated the structural meaning.

THE PROBLEM WITH STRUCTURAL DEFINITION OF MOOC (AND EDUCATION IN GENERAL)

Inforgraphic by Mathieu Plourdebased on Jon Becker’s posit

• Distance Education

• Online Learning

• Machine Learning

• Education Theory

• Education Policy

• Education & Economics

• Education Access

TO DEFINE THE MOOC WE NEED TO INCORPORATE MULTIPLE HISTORIES

• University of London International Programmes (1858) – first HE accrediting correspondence body

• Cornell University’s Correspondence College (closed in 1883; never admitted a student)

• Television Broadcast Training Programs via Stanford University, University of Nebraska (1970s, 1980s)

• 1st Generation – Correspondence (1850s – 1910s). Inexpensive production and distribution.

• 2nd Generation – Broadcast & Multimedia. Use of radio, TV, and in some cases computers. Method of learning stays same, delivery change.

• 3rd Generation – Telecommunications. Not just computers, but the difference between one-way and two-way communication for learner and expert.

MOOCS & DISTANCE EDUCATION - ABRIDGEDvia Soren Nipper’s Three Generations of Distance Education (1989) Notable Examples

• PLATO (1960s – present) – a computer-aided instructional program through the University of Illinois offering content modules via terminal interaction.

• MIT OCW (2001) – Initiative by MIT to put course syllabi and materials online for interested parties.

• Fathom/AllLearn – two higher education conglomerations designed to offer lifelong learning opportunities for institutional alumni through pedagogy similar to the MOOC (video lecture, interactive assessment). With no options for credit and a need to charge tuition, both programs closed.

MOOCS & ONLINE LEARNING - ABRIDGED

• A large split in learning theory at the dawn of cognitive theory.

• One group (largely educators and psychologists) ended up following learning and interaction to social learning theory, constructivism, constructionism, activity theory, etc. Despite gains and monumental theory shifts, many classrooms still operate via cognition theory

• Another group (largely computer scientists) looked at cognition in artificial intelligence (expert systems, connectionism, intelligent agents). The AI Winter of the late 80s-early 90s saw economic setback that would not recover until the mid-2000s.

COGNITIVE LEARNING - ABRIDGED

Adventure through Inner Space (sponsored by Monsanto), Monsanto Hall of ChemistryDisneyland’s Tomorrowland, 1955.

Clockwise fro left: Morgan Freeman as Principal Joe Clark in 1989 feature Lean on Me; Michelle Pfeiffer as 2nd Lieutenant LouAnne Johnson in 1995 feature Dangerous Minds; Robin Williams as John Keating in 1989 feature Dead Poets Society; Geoffrey Canada, CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone, in 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman.

• In the USA, education is a superstructure organized and regulated on a state level.

• The initial history of federal intervention in higher education (Morrill Land Grant Act, GI Bill, Higher Education Act of 1965) was designed primarily to provide money and land for state or individual use toward HE

• Recent federal intervention has focused more on solidifying results (A Nation at Risk, NCLB, Race to the Top).

• There is more government oversight and less government money in education today than at any time in US History

EDUCATION POLICY – ABRIDGED (USA-CENTRIC)

• 1000s – Education is offered through sacred institutions to young men of nobility

• Enlightenment – shift in philosophical thinking that pushes the religious and noble out of education requirement

• 1860s – Morrill Land Grant Act designates space and finance for higher education, further eroding classist change

• The GI Bill, Women’s Suffrage and the Civil Rights Era culminate in the Higher Education Act of 1965, designating numerous monetary options for those pursuing higher ed.

• Gert Biesta, Henry Giroux, Noam Chomsky and others would say we are in an age of neoliberalism, where politicians believe free market commerce is necessary to fix the problems that ail superstructures.

EDUCATION ACCESS (YES…ABRIDGED)

• Learning model taking advantage of social media opportunities

• Learning model taking advantage of a continually lower operational cost to produce and distribute quality broadcast education

• Learning model viewed as favorable for a society in economic hardship

• Learning model favorable for private enterprise

• A phenomenon purporting the best idealism of higher education but largely ignorant of issues behind the struggle of the education superstructure

• A phenomenon in conjunction with a rise in artificial intelligence/machine learning popularity and utility

• A phenomenon denoting society’s shift in technological thinking but inertia in psychological/theoretical understanding

• A learning model indicative of a political climate of public-private partnerships and outsourcing (neoliberalism?)

CAN WE DEFINE THE MOOC PHENOMENON?

• Currently employing a Delphi study with 20 experts from a variety of MOOC-related disciplines to help define the phenomenon, its place in history, its cultural and political impact, and its effect on the future of higher education.

• Panelists come from fields of MOOC development, MOOC professors, distance education/online education researchers, political/corporate/economic voices in education, and media/cultural critics focusing on education

• Discussion centered around 12 quotations from MOOC literature, paraphrased in order to focus on debate rather than identity.

• Blah blah blah tenured humanities professor sanctimony. Explain to me how you occupy the moral high ground when your students graduate $30000 in debt and have no marketable skills.

• MOOCs reflect changes in education. In themselves, they are not "disruptive' (what a terrible word - it needs to be taken out back and shot and never used again by educators).

• In many ways I think [MOOCs are] a better practice than going to a lecture in a classroom.

THE PATH OF THE RESEARCH – IN PROCESS