Engagement, MOOCs and Success
We love research and MOOCs is certainly an area that needs more research. But sometimes the results just seem to be rather obvious.
Take as an example, the Stanford University researchers studying MOOC participation who found that students who participated frequently by posting in online forums scored much higher than those students who posted little or nothing.
Wow. Engaged students do better.
Stanford researchers Jane Manning and Marc Sanders, say that those "super-posters" are a minority. They looked at 23 MOOC offerings by Stanford through Coursera Inc. from early 2012 to early 2013 and the majority of students are not engaged by MOOCs.
Traditional online courses and universities in general have felt threatened by MOOCs and this kind of research, along with low completion rates, will probably be seen as encouraging. Maybe MOOCs won't tear down colleges and degree programs.
San Jose State University had suspended its online courses through Udacity because of the high failure rate on final exams. The passing rate for the courses was 24-44%.
But after that disappointing spring semester, San Jose State and Udacity reported recently that their massive online open course pilot fared much better during the summer semester.
They made some changes that may explain the summer improvement, but student demographics changed considerably between the semesters. The spring courses were focused on high-risk students who had previously struggled. The summer courses were open to students from around the world, many of whom may have been better prepared for college learning.
For the summer semester, those same courses had pass rates of between 30% and 83%. The most successful class, Elementary Statistics, had a 83% pass rate. That exceeded the 76% pass rate for the regular face-to-face section of the course.
Take as an example, the Stanford University researchers studying MOOC participation who found that students who participated frequently by posting in online forums scored much higher than those students who posted little or nothing.
Wow. Engaged students do better.
Stanford researchers Jane Manning and Marc Sanders, say that those "super-posters" are a minority. They looked at 23 MOOC offerings by Stanford through Coursera Inc. from early 2012 to early 2013 and the majority of students are not engaged by MOOCs.
Traditional online courses and universities in general have felt threatened by MOOCs and this kind of research, along with low completion rates, will probably be seen as encouraging. Maybe MOOCs won't tear down colleges and degree programs.
San Jose State University had suspended its online courses through Udacity because of the high failure rate on final exams. The passing rate for the courses was 24-44%.
But after that disappointing spring semester, San Jose State and Udacity reported recently that their massive online open course pilot fared much better during the summer semester.
They made some changes that may explain the summer improvement, but student demographics changed considerably between the semesters. The spring courses were focused on high-risk students who had previously struggled. The summer courses were open to students from around the world, many of whom may have been better prepared for college learning.
For the summer semester, those same courses had pass rates of between 30% and 83%. The most successful class, Elementary Statistics, had a 83% pass rate. That exceeded the 76% pass rate for the regular face-to-face section of the course.
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