Last week I described how UC Davis is making efforts to personalize one of the most impersonal of learning experiences – large lecture introductory science courses. It is telling that the first changes that they made were not to the lecture itself but to the associated discussion sections led by teaching assistants (TAs). It is well known that much of the instruction in lower division classes at large universities is led not by faculty but by TAs. This situation is often seen as a weakness of the business model of a research university, but it can also be leveraged as an opportunity to lead educational change. Consider this interview with staff from the iAMSTEM group at UC Davis from our e-Literate TV series on personalized learning:
Tag: NY Times
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UC Davis: A look inside attempts to make large lecture classes active and personal
In my recent keynote for the Online Teaching Conference, the core argument was as follows:
While there will be (significant) unbundling around the edges, the bigger potential impact [of ed innovation] is how existing colleges and universities allow technology-enabled change to enter the mainstream of the academic mission.
Let’s look at one example. Back in December the New York Times published an article highlighting work done at the University of California at Davis to transform large lecture classes into active learning formats.
Hundreds of students fill the seats, but the lecture hall stays quiet enough for everyone to hear each cough and crumpling piece of paper. The instructor speaks from a podium for nearly the entire 80 minutes. Most students take notes. Some scan the Internet. A few doze.
In a nearby hall, an instructor, Catherine Uvarov, peppers students with questions and presses them to explain and expand on their answers. Every few minutes, she has them solve problems in small groups. Running up and down the aisles, she sticks a microphone in front of a startled face, looking for an answer. Students dare not nod off or show up without doing the reading. (more…)
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NYT Michael Crow Condensed Interview: More Info needed . . . and available
The New York Times ran an “edited and condensed” interview with Arizona State University (ASU) president Michael Crow, titled “Reshaping Arizona State, and the Public Model”.
Michael M. Crow sees Arizona State as the model of a public research university that measures itself by inclusivity, not exclusivity. In his 13 years as its president, he has profoundly reshaped the institution — hiring faculty stars from across the country, starting a bevy of interdisciplinary programs, growing the student body to some 83,000 and using technology to bring his ideas to scale, whether with web-based introductory math classes or eAdvisor, which monitors students’ progress toward their major. Last year, Dr. Crow made headlines when the university partnered with Starbucks to offer students the chance to complete their degree online for free. His new book, written with the historian William B. Dabars, is called, appropriately, “Designing the New American University.”
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No Discernible Growth in US Higher Ed Online Learning
By 2015, 25 million post-secondary students in the United States will be taking classes online. And as that happens, the number of students who take classes exclusively on physical campuses will plummet, from 14.4 million in 2010 to just 4.1 million five years later, according to a new forecast released by market research firm Ambient Insight.
On the positive side, Moody’s notes that the U.S. Department of Education projects a 20-percent growth in master’s degrees and a 9-percent growth in associate degrees, opportunities in both online education and new certificate programs, and a rising earnings premium for those with college degrees.
– Chronicle of Higher Ed, 2014
Q. How likely would it be that this fraction [% students taking online courses] would grow to become a majority of students over the next five years? A [from institutional academic leaders]. Nearly two-thirds responded that this was “Very likely,” with an additional one-quarter calling it “Likely.” [That’s almost 90% combined]
– Grade Change, Babson Survey 2013
More than two-thirds of instructors (68 percent) say their institutions are planning to expand their online offerings, but they are split on whether or not this is a good idea (36 percent positive, 38 percent negative, 26 percent neutral).
Still, the [disruptive innovation] theory predicts that, be it steam or online education, existing consumers will ultimately adopt the disruption, and a host of struggling colleges and universities — the bottom 25 percent of every tier, we predict — will disappear or merge in the next 10 to 15 years.
You could be forgiven for assuming that the continued growth of online education within US higher ed was a foregone conclusion. We all know it’s happening; the questions is how to adapt to the new world.
But what if the assumption is wrong? Based on the official Department of Education / NCES new IPEDS data for Fall 2013 term, for the first time there has been no discernible growth in postsecondary students taking at least one online course in the US. (more…)
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SJSU and Udacity: The Obvious Problems and Value of Report
SJSU has announced via an official blog post that they are studying the results of the SJSU Plus program using Udacity.
First, news coverage and much commentary have been based on very preliminary and unanalyzed data from a spring 2013 pilot of three SJSU Plus courses with Udacity. We are currently awaiting a more comprehensive National Science Foundation data analysis and report that will be available in August (spring semester courses ended and final grades were submitted only seven weeks ago). We look forward to discussing these results next month.
I mentioned in my post last night that I believe this is a good move.
How often do we get the chance to review the results of traditional college courses and see institutions publicly study the learning outcomes in order to improve the course effectiveness? This open review is one innovation from the SJSU Plus program that should be extended to other courses.
There are plenty of people who do not share my optimism of the reporting process, partially due to the expectation that we already know most of the lessons learned and there should be no real surprise. Indeed, if you read the news coverage of SJSU pausing the Udacity program, there are several findings that are already fairly obvious.
Findings to Date
The following summary is based on several articles and blogs directly based on first-hand experience.
Finding 1) The program was rushed, and the courses were still being developed while students started the courses:
IHE: But, because of the haste, faculty were building the courses on the fly. Not only was this a “recipe for insanity,” Junn said, but faculty did not have a lot of time to watch how students were doing in the courses because the faculty were busy trying to finish them. It took about 400 hours to build a course, though the courses are designed to be reused.
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SJSU and Udacity: Poor Planning and Support, but Valuable Reviewing of Results
A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed for an article in the NY Times about recent pushback against MOOCs.
Jonathan Rees, a history professor at Colorado State University at Pueblo, who has written critically about MOOCs, said their spread is likely to lead to a three-tiered world, with a few high-status “super professors” for whom the courses provide both status and royalties; a larger pool of tenured professors who continue to teach their regular in-person classes until they retire; and “a huge army of adjuncts and teaching assistants,” whose jobs will be vulnerable to online competition.
“The problem with this MOOC-as-labor-issue argument is that it has no place for students and learning,” said Phil Hill, an education technology consultant. “Our starting point ought to be what students need and whether this is an effective form of learning.”
Perhaps to the dismay of Jonathan’s Aunt Nancy, my comments were positioned as refuting his comments. In the context of the NY Times article, that positioning was accurate; however, in Jonathan’s follow-up blog post, he misinterprets my meaning.
MOOCification is about power too. If people with access to power want to convince recalcitrant professors to accept MOOCs, arguing that they must be because this must be is a terrible idea. Yet this is precisely what the two quotes following mine in that New York Times article from last week try to do. [snip]
Whenever Phil makes that infuriating argument, I usually respond with some variation of “profs gotta eat.” Not surprisingly that argument works really well on other profs, but not so well on Phil. However, I want to point out to Phil’s clients that they can’t just wish the class divide away. Since profs gotta eat, they’re going to worry about eating whether you tell them they’re allowed to or not. Moreover, plenty of us believe that by looking out for our interests we are looking out for students and learning. Therefore, making this kind of argument simply serves as a way to shut down all discussion of the subject, which will only breed resentment. [emphasis added]
While I enjoy reading Jonathan’s blog and appreciate his real concern with student learning and the profession of teaching, he is incorrect in his assertion that I want to “convince recalcitrant professors to accept MOOCs” or that I don’t believe that “by looking out for [professors] interests we are looking out for students and learning”. I am not making “this kind of argument”.
Focus on Students and Learning First
What I meant to say is, ironically, what I said: “Our starting point ought to be what students need and whether [MOOC] is an effective form of learning”. The lens of MOOC-as-labor-issue tends to create an us-versus-them, you’re either pro-MOOC or anti-MOOC, mentality that leads to, well, nowhere except arguments. The lens of MOOC-as-teaching-method to be explored should lead us to critically look at learning outcomes and exploration of how to apply or refine the teaching method.
Michael made this same point in a more elegant fashion in his commentary on the SJSU Philosophy Department rejection of edX:
Rather than thinking of MOOCs as products to be bought or rejected, they could have approached them as experiments in teaching methods that can be validated, refuted, or refined through the collective efforts of a scholarly community.
SJSU Plus and Udacity
And this is where the story comes to San Jose State University and the recent announcement that they were “pausing” the Udacity MOOC-for-credit pilot program (SJSU Plus), as described at Inside Higher Education: