Where MOOC’s Go From Here
By: Alec Stapp
Tags: Edtech, Education Technology, Education, Mooc

The hype cycle, a phrase coined by the research firm Gartner, set out in graphical form what many in the technology industry already knew intuitively. That is, every exciting new technology starts with a wave of escalating expectations, peaks at some point, descends toward what’s known as the “trough of disillusionment,” and then, finally, after hitting the trough, when tinkerers and innovators start finding real applications that actually make sense for the new technology, the hype once again starts to increase (even if it will never again reach its previous peak).

When Massive Open Online Courses first came to education, they were not immune to the hype cycle. Businesses and organizations — from EdX and Khan Academy to Coursera and Udacity — sprang up to support and take advantage of this new technology. They were going to revolutionize education, making the best education in the world free to everyone, regardless of background, location, or ability to pay.

But with average course completion rates hovering around 15%, the hype has died down and many are wondering whether MOOC’s will ever deliver on their initial promise. In the early days of MOOC’s, the most common approach for course creators was to upload a series of videos to Youtube and let students watch them for free” strategy. This strategy had its merits. It didn’t require major investments in new technology or building relationships with existing institutions, so it could be scaled up quickly and freely accessible worldwide. But we’ve reached the limits on what this can accomplish and there’s room for growth.

THE WAY FORWARD

In the future, MOOC’s creators should consider these four changes to improve student success:

1. Deliver a concrete benefit

We know that people want to learn and better their lives, but without a structured and rigorous system to support them, failure rates in MOOC’s have proven that thirst for knowledge alone is not enough to overcome traditional barriers to education and professional development. MOOC’s can still maintain the “open” part of their acronym, they just need to have the option to earn class credit at an accredited institution or win a job offer or earn a verifiable credential. Because without a tangible benefit at the end of a MOOC, beyond learning for learning’s sake, experience has shown that other things in life take priority and people fail to persist in their courses.

2. Have proctored exams

To deliver concrete benefits to students, schools and companies need to be able to verify that a specific student learned a specific amount of material. In the world of brick and mortar, this is a relatively simple problem. But with exams delivered via the internet, MOOC’s have to incorporate some kind of proctoring service, many of which use the computer camera and specialized software to detect and report suspicious patterns of behavior. As these online proctoring services improve, we’ll be able to more easily verify that students are actually learning what the MOOC’s intended to teach.

3. Be slightly less open

MOOC completion rates and student success might improve if students are required to pay a small amount of money. While this will limit the openness of MOOC’s, charging students will leverage loss aversion — the fear of having wasted money by not completing the course — to nudge more of them toward the finish line. The payments also represent a sustainable business model which will grow the market for MOOC providers beyond nonprofits.

4. Use a social learning approach

This one’s our favorite approach here at Notebowl: create a social learning environment. Research from the ACT and other groups has shown that if you keep students engaged with their peers, they have a higher chance of persisting in school. When social interaction and engagement are at the forefront of the platform providing MOOC content, students will feel more supported and might reach out to their peers for help when they feel like they’re falling behind. And when students interact with each other and their instructors more, they start to build a sense of community that will ultimately lead to higher student success.

ON THE SLOPE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

If the educators, schools, and the companies that create MOOC’s keep these four principles in mind, this new technology will be able to do what so many early students in MOOC’s weren’t able to: finish the cycle.