rhizomesandtrees

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MOOCs, MOOCs, MOOCs,

The promise and challenge of large format courses

Thousands of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have flooded the internet over the past decade. Their topics range from the popular Indigenous Canada course from the University of Alberta – promoted by Dan Levy of Schitt’s Creek fame – to economics to machine learning. How can educators prepare for this trend in adult educating?

If you need a quick overview of what a MOOC is, check out this video below.

How does this affect how we teach?

Tony Bates’ book, Teaching in a Digital Age (2019), he focuses on how the success of MOOCs depends highly on context. What is the learner’s situation? What contributes to their ability to learn from a MOOC? The infographic below explores some of the key themes with using this style of education, including experiences for the learners, credibility and instructor experience.

(Image from Teaching in a digital age – second edition, Making sense of MOOCs © Giulia Forsythe, 2012 and JISC, 2012).

Some of the strengths he identifies (2019) include:

Potential for delivering high quality content to anyone with access to a internet and a computer

Valuable for continuing education, lifelong learning and developing basic conceptual learning

Can reduce costs for higher education institutions by incorporating peer to peer communication as a method of learner support and assessment

He also names some weaknesses (2019):

Despite high user enrolments, there is low participation and completion rates

The courses are expensive to develop

Assessment for higher levels of learning (i.e., not acknowledged for credits)

Limited by copyright, or time restrictions

To address these weaknesses and build on its strengths, course design should be at forefront of conversations for implementation. How can you engage up to thousands of students in your curriculum design when it’s not possible to have individual connections with each student?

One study showed that instructor presence strongly affects learner engagement in MOOCs (Jung & Lee, 2018) and there are other ways to create community among learners through discussion opportunities.

One study highlighted that students’ abilities to time management is a key component to feeling connected to the course and completing its material (AL Harrasi, 2023). Given its significance, I wonder about building time management early into the curriculum to help support learner success.

Specific examples of engagement strategies.

Instructors need to explore engagement strategies for these online courses to increase learner completion and engagement. Gamification of content is one potential approach to increasing student engagement (Rodrigues Major & Mira da Silva, 2023). However, this requires extra preparation time.

Another options is to include study groups or peer-to-peer engagement opportunities for learners (Chen & Chen, 2015).

Overall, MOOCs present a unique opportunity to engage a huge scale of learners. However, to create a course that captivates learners and supports their retention, it will require a lot of time and thought, and potentially technological support (i.e., coding or other programs to support interactive options), to execute.

Sources

AL Harrasi, K.T.S. (2023). Reexamining the online environment for self-directed learning. Cogent Education, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2255080

Bates, A.W. (2019). Teaching in a digital age – Second edition. Tony Bates Associates Ltd. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/

Chen, Y.-H., & Chen, P.-J. (2015). MOOC study group: Facilitation strategies, influential factors, and student perceived gains. Computers and Education, 86, 55–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.03.008

Jung, Y., & Lee, J., (2018). Learning engagement and persistence in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). Computers & Education, 122, 9-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.02.013

Rodrigues Major, R. & Mira da Silva, M. (2023). Gamification in MOOCs: A systematic literature review. Cogent Education, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2275820

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Creating a positive learning environment

As most instructors know, creating a positive learning environment is critical for your students' success.

The graphic above is from Sam Barrow's great blog post explaining how respect is an important aspect for fostering learning environment. Check out the full post here.

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What is competency-based education?

Imagine taking a course – what would it involve and how do you think you will be evaluated? Many people’s experiences in the Western school systems involve being taught something in a lecture style, and then being evaluated on their learning with an assignment or test. What do alternatives to this look like?

What is competency-based education?

A recent trend in adult education is competency-based education. The Aurora Institute defines this as having seven key features (Levine & Patrick, 2019):

Students can make decisions about what they are learning, how they apply knowledge and how they demonstrate it

Assessment is timely, relevant and actionable; meant to be a positive, empowering experience for students

Support for students is timely and differentiated based on their needs

Progress is assessed by mastery, not time spent in seats

There are different pathways for learning and varied pacing

Equity strategies are embedded in the pedagogy, culture and structure of educational institutions and systems

Expectations for learning are transparent, transferable, measurable and explicit.

Competency-based education is more than just flexible pacing or a checklist; it focuses on building connections between what a person is learning and contextualizing them. Technology can be very supportive of these methods, especially with online learning environments where content is available for students to progress at their own pace.  

What implications does this have for public engagement?

In a study of shifting to competency-based education in medical schools, Gruppen et al (2016) noted that there are many benefits to shifting to this form of teaching, however there were a lot of challenges when shifting from a time-based framework within an institution that is structured around semesters. One example they provided was complying with financial aid structures. One benefit they highlighted it allowed for deeper community building amongst students and faculty.

Similarly, they noted that individualizing aspects for learners was a highly positive experience, but required a lot of time – translated to lots of staff hours. Specifically faculty required more time to advise learners, and design a learning plan collaboratively.

Thinking about timelines, often a lot of the public engagement project I work on are very strict on timelines. Programs are grant funded, or designed to meet certain details; it is very rare to have a project with an open timeframe for completion. Having the a competency-based approach to longer-term engagements where stakeholders want a group of people to learn more about – for example – new city policies, and provide detailed feedback to the local government, could adopt some of the principles of competency-based education. There is a lot of possibility with online engagements to have asynchronous learning taking places (e.g., series of videos online that participants could work through), or having options for projects or ways people choose to bring their feedback (e.g., a photo voice [see Nykiforuk, Vallianatos, & Nieuwendyk, 2011], verbal feedback) rather than expecting information sharing through group conversation as many engagements traditionally use.

What we can do to prepare for more of this approach

From the start of designing an engagement, or a series of engagements, myself and my team members can ask ourselves what our core outcomes are, and build a roadmap of potential ways for members of the public could share the information we are hoping to gather.

Bawane & Spector (2009) note that online instructors are required to perform many roles, from designing curriculum, to maintaining a learning environment, to choosing the appropriate technology, to researching the content for the curriculum, to advising students on their needs and performance. To me, this is a reminder that there are many dimensions to consider in working online. Adding in a competency-based education approach perhaps would be more work upfront, and would also require a lot of user testing to ensure that the public can navigate the system in a meaningful way.  

In person, the other piece I think will be important is having conversations with funders and stakeholders about what is traditionally considered public engagement, and potentially expanding what input they accept and deem acceptable for project end.

Overall competency-based education has a lot of exciting potential, but will require systemic conversations about how to adjust to its approach.

Sources: Bawane, J., & Spector, J.M. (2009). Prioritization of online instructor roles: implications for competency‐based teacher education programs. Distance Education, 30(3), 383-397. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587910903236536

Gruppen, L. D., Burkhardt, J. C., Fitzgerald, J. T., Funnell, M., Haftel, H. M., Lypson, M. L., Mullan, P. B., Santen, S. A., Sheets, K. J., Stalburg, C. M., & Vasquez, J. A. (2016). Competency-based education: programme design and challenges to implementation. Medical education, 50(5), 532–539. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.12977

Levine, E., & Patrick, S. (2019). What is competency-based education? An updated definition. Vienna, VA: Aurora Institute. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED604019

Nykiforuk, C. I., Vallianatos, H., & Nieuwendyk, L. M. (2011). Photovoice as a Method for Revealing Community Perceptions of the Built and Social Environment. International journal of qualitative methods, 10(2), 103–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691101000201

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One trend in adult education is exploring the flipped classroom. This is a great 3-minute video overview of the topic from Sprouts.

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At work, we'll be having a professional development session early next year on Deliberative Democracy. This video is an introduction to the format and reasons behind choosing this methodology for engagements. The Standford researchers argue that it is a tool that can build empathy, which can combat polarization when exploring policy and how it relates to people's values and beliefs. I imagine this could also be a useful tool in a course or classroom!

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What's going on in the realm of public engagement

Public engagement is a dynamic field. Topics of convening, engagement strategies and methods, and best practices shift depending on the local context where it is based. I wanted to highlight two significant trends present in the field that will have an impact on its trajectory in the coming years.

Polarization

In Aftab Erfan’s conversation with the Tyee, she highlights how we are living in a very polarized society at the moment and many people have lost a lot of conversation skills. She also names that conflict management and dialogue go hand in hand, and that good facilitators need to be skilled in both. For her, two key pieces in managing this is slowing down conversations so they don’t escalate, and building people’s capacity to listen closely and frame their opinions and facts.

I think these are critical considerations for the public engagement field as media coverage and protests become more and more polarized – see the conspiracy theories around 15-minute cities and their effects on public hearings as one example. As a practitioner it raises questions about how do we build participants’ skills so that all in the conversation are able to share their perspectives in a way that remains as safe as possible for all parties involved. Similarly, how do I ensure my skills are refined so I am able to facilitate spaces where difficult conversations can be held?

Centering Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI)

Since 2020 there has been an explosion of calls for incorporating perspectives of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) into curriculum, organizations and public engagements. These perspectives are not new, rather the protests for the murder of George Floyd brought calls to support JEDI in our workplace to the forefront of many people’s minds. While there is debate around the success and sustainability of the initiatives that have taken place since then, JEDI remains a critical perspective at my work as we design engagements and decide on which audiences we are engaging.

Many toolkits exist for incorporating JEDI into public engagement (such as this one) and groups like Provincial Health Services Authority have developed cultural safety courses like San'yas, which focuses on working with Indigenous peoples and communities. I think that in the coming years we will see more internal trainings like this being developed for a many community groups on best practices for engagement, and also offering context and histories that may not be highlighted or covered by public education systems.

Overall, I thinking centering JEDI principles and actions is critical to have well balanced and effective engagement with the public. If we only hear from one group in the community our perspectives are limited, and not representative.

Sources

Cheung, C. (2023, September 15). In polarizing times, the ‘fine art’ of tough conversations. The Tyee. https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/09/15/Polarizing-Times-Fine-Art-Tough-Conversations/

Gaudiano, P. (2022, July 27). Two years after George Floyd’s murder, is your DEI strategy performative or sustainable? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paologaudiano/2022/06/27/two-years-after-george-floyd-is-your-dei-strategy-performative-or-sustainable/  

Georgieva, K. (2023, April 16). Debunking the 15-minute-city conspiracy theory – and why it erupted at Essex County council. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/15-minute-city-conspiracy-theory-essex-county-council-1.6808005

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I wanted to share one of the theories behind the name of this blog. Three Minute Theory has a great breakdown of the rhizome theory from Deleuze and Guattari.

This concept has been applied to many educational contexts, including MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), and can be a useful metaphor when considering how and where we believe learning takes place.

The citation for the original book is below - check it out in your local library if you are curious to learn more!

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

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Welcome!

This blog will incorporate resources and my thoughts on adult education and more, through my coursework with the PIDP program.

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