Teacher Education, K-12 Education and the Massive Open Online Course

EDUCATION ON THE OPEN WEB:Teacher Education, K-12 Education, & Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Bonnie Stewart & Dave CormierUniversity of Prince Edward IslandAssociation of Canadian Deans of Education2016 Congress of the Social Sciences & Humanities

Or…How I

Learned to Stop

Worrying

& Love the

MOOC

@cogdog

The Story:MOOC Histories MOOC NarrativesMOOC/Open Models for EducationMOOC Futures

A Brief History of MOOCs

2008 – CCK08 2011 – Stanford AI2012 – year of the MOOC2014 – Sanity returns2016 – Growth

By NeedCokeNow - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27546041

2008 2011 2012 2013 – 2014 2015-2016 …?

MOOCs on the Gartner Hype Cycle

Massive Open Online Courses

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garymacfadyen/6860003781/

2010 Study:McAuley, Stewart, Siemens & Cormier•MOOCs embody digital practices •Harness & contribute to knowledge abundance

•Are participatory, networked & distributed

•Generate knowledge & connections that extend beyond course

•Share the processes of knowledge work, not just the products

early 2012…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/8028605773/

late 2013…

“We have a lousy product.”

http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb

MOOCs are over.Everybody go home.

WAIT.

Slope of Enlightenment?!?!

MOOC Narratives

http://www.flickr.com/photos/felmarah/5078680202

MOOCs make visible the ‘education is broken’ refrain of disruption, solutionism, & unbundling

1. Disruption

https://www.flickr.com/photos/94342662@N00/3869483214/

2. Solutionism“Technological solutionism” is the…tendency to identify simple answers

“before the questions have been fully asked” or the problems fully articulated.

Take, for example: “the Internet has changed everything about how we teach and learn.” Thus, “education is broken.” And from there, “technology will fix it.”

- Audrey Watters, 2013

http://www.slideshare.net/willdonovan/eotw-workshop-v3

3. Unbundling

…& the power of mass media & recognized brands

But narratives shift as MOOC providers struggle to

find business models.

So what does this have to do with us?

With all their issues, MOOCs still offer flexibility to faculties &

institutions.

MOOC / Open Models:Stories from the field

Stories from the field

What do you mean open?2012 MOOCsRemedial moocsMarketing moocsBrand moocsContract MOOCResearch/community moocs

https://www.flickr.com/photos/missrogue/3353012785

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lljohnston/7576247296/sizes/c/in/photostream/

University of EdinburghOpen as access

xMOOC

cMOOC

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcobellucci/3534516458/

• Loss leader• Conversion

Why would we do this?

Opening participation & new niches for sharing expertise

Yawn…


Why would we do this?

• Community outreach

• New funding sources

• Showcasing nicheexpertise

Opening Accreditation


Why would we do this? • Theorizing ‘school’

• International partnerships

Open Research


Why would we do this? • Networked

participatory scholarship (Veletsianos& Kimmons, 2012)

MOOC Futures

Deconstructing School

MOOCs for teacher education & professional development

Networked Development

K-12 Applications• Higher ed credits for high school students

• University prep classes for high school students• K-12 courses/AP offered across a district

• Supplemental hybrid or blended learning (a class joins a specific MOOC together OR content from MOOCs gets repurposed by K-12 teachers)

• Special interestcourses can

be offered even toremote learners.

Faculty of Ed Applications & Possibilities

• Showcase niche program or faculty specializations by offering an intro MOOC

• Coordinate common program offerings across province or country

• Attract funding in new policy / issue sectors• Encourage networked participatory

scholarship among faculty & students • Provide pedagogical leadership throughout

higher ed on good learning practice

Challenges• Cost/time• Minimal revenue• Working in the

open• The need for

brand (personal or public)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/magnopere/109128943/

If a MOOC is a solution, what’s the problem?

MOOCs are looking more and more like

‘online learning’

‘Suddenly all of this work is dismissed because MOOCs represent a year zero for

online education, and therefore everything you have done previously

cannot be counted.

It’s a landgrab – some of this confusion is accidental…but in other cases it is more

deliberate. By claiming that MOOCs invented online learning they look to be

the inheritors of its future.’-Martin Weller, The Open University, May

2016

Presence (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2001)

= key to ALL good online offerings

Online = people

There is no such thing as a digital native.

http://dubioblog.com/2012/01/08/how-to-learn-the-how-learning-domains/

Learning is Multi-faceted

Presence is Multi-faceted. So are good MOOCs.

http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/761/building-an-online-learning-community

…& sometimes you can’t beat f2f

Thank you.@[email protected]@[email protected]

Further MOOC Reading• http://blog.edtechie.net/mooc/appropriate-use-of-moocs/• http://www.thesociologicalreview.com/blog/is-it-a-bird-is-

it-a-plane-no-it-s-a-superprofessor.html• https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/04/28/

research-facebook-may-keep-students-in-moocs.aspx • http://qz.com/650283/coursera-is-offering-a-way-to-get-

a-real-masters-degree-for-a-lot-less-money/?utm_content=buffer8f37f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

• http://robinderosa.net/uncategorized/my-open-textbook-pedagogy-and-practice/