I have undergone a dozen of MOOC courses with cool groups like coursera, udacity, khanacademy, edx etc
As expected I completed a few and dropped off a few...
From a student's point of view, I am convinced now that the success of a MOOC depends on the following in the decreasing order of importance:
1. Teacher.
2. Course content.
3. Pedagogy.
The knowledge/educational qualification of a teacher plays an unimportant role in motivating/convincing a student over the internet. Remember, this teacher can't be reached beyond the video. In my understanding, a teacher's job is to install the basic building blocks and motivate the students so that the students rediscover the wheel by themselves. Spoon feeding doesn't help at all if you really want to "learn". I found that a number of teachers on the MOOC just failed to convince/motivate me. The were lecturing as if a student will approach them outside the class to clarify the doubts!
In at least four courses I found an interesting pattern. If you don't have access to the books, you will fall flat on your face. I could smell that the content was designed as a teaser, you know what I mean, like those movie teasers! No free education. hehehe
As expected I completed a few and dropped off a few...
From a student's point of view, I am convinced now that the success of a MOOC depends on the following in the decreasing order of importance:
1. Teacher.
2. Course content.
3. Pedagogy.
The knowledge/educational qualification of a teacher plays an unimportant role in motivating/convincing a student over the internet. Remember, this teacher can't be reached beyond the video. In my understanding, a teacher's job is to install the basic building blocks and motivate the students so that the students rediscover the wheel by themselves. Spoon feeding doesn't help at all if you really want to "learn". I found that a number of teachers on the MOOC just failed to convince/motivate me. The were lecturing as if a student will approach them outside the class to clarify the doubts!
In at least four courses I found an interesting pattern. If you don't have access to the books, you will fall flat on your face. I could smell that the content was designed as a teaser, you know what I mean, like those movie teasers! No free education. hehehe
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