experimenting between moocs and doocs

Experimenting between MOOCs and DOCCs Adeline Koh @adelinekoh

Tuesday, March 18, 14

MOOCs: The Explosion

• First courses in February 2012 by Sebastian Thrun (then of Stanford)

• Major players: Udacity, Coursera, Harvard’s EdX

• Promises:

• scale,

• making education affordable

• global reach

• Criticisms

• Not good pedagogy, as it is primarily content-based and lecture-based

• Low retention rates

• New Scientist article in March 2014: Who takes MOOCs? Educated, Employed, First World Men. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/


http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2014/03/mooc_survey_students_of_free_online_courses_are_educated_employed_and_male.html






Anti-MOOCs: FemTechNet’s DOCC


DOCCs: Emphasis on building community rather than content delivery: a specifically feminist pedagogy


Cathy Davidson’s #FutureEd Coursera MOOC turned into a DOCC


Similar to #FemTechNet: encourages creation of community through feedback, peer grading


Used #FutureEd in my MA level course, Introduction to Digital Humanities. Link to syllabus: http://tinyurl.com/kohdh


http://tinyurl.com/kohdh

http://tinyurl.com/kohdh

• Student learning about the industrial model for education rather than specialized, individual-focused education that is peer driven

• Students working on:

• Coming up with their own “Class Manifesto”

• Remixing the Syllabus

• Coming up with their own “grading contracts”

Most Valuable Exercises


Highlights: Class Manifesto

• “AMST 5011 is an experimental graduate level course committed to identifying, evaluating, creating and rethinking solutions to educational challenges that our changing society faces in the twenty-first century. We aim to seize opportunities to fully realize and harness the possibilities of twenty-first-century literacies, which we define as the mindsets, skills, and collaborative techniques needed to make full use of the Internet as a space of learning. We believe that the Internet and technology are changing how individuals and communities understand themselves and the world around them, and that this connected age offers a tremendous opportunity to make teaching, learning, and knowledge more accessible, more affordable, and more meaningful for everyone involved. AMST 5011’s purpose is to examine the ways in which technology influences educational dynamics and to collaboratively propose and share new possibilities for the Information Age so that we--scholars, teachers, and students--can best respond collectively to the challenges this new paradigm poses for learning.”


https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/815685/wiki/class-manifesto


Highlights: Class Manifesto

• AMST 5011 Class Goals and Practices for the Semester (Spring 2014)

• Create an evolving individual online presence aimed at advancing our digital literacy to exemplify the possibilities of technology in higher education

• Collaborate in a constructive manner as we assign, guide, and assess the work of peers.

• Practice judicious time management in assigning tasks to others and completing our own.

• Arrive to class on time, fully prepared to participate, having completed assignments on time.

• Represent ourselves and the class both online and face-to-face as engaged scholars who are committed to advancing the above principles.




Highlights: Grading Contract

• Contract Grading + Peer Evaluation: Explanation and Contract

Evaluation Method:You determine your grade for this course by fulfilling a contract that spells out in advance the requirements as well as the penalties for not fulfilling the terms of your contract. Learning together giving and receiving feedback is the core concept of our class. Every student will be responsible for submitting to Professor Koh anonymous peer-grading of his classmates twice this semester, a midterm evaluation (due by March 7th) and the final (due by April 23d). A peer grader will evaluate the work of his / her classmates using Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory descriptive evaluation format (up to 300 words). The unsatisfactory midterm peer assessment is intended to provide the opportunity for a student to improve his / her performance by the final evaluation. In case of a student receiving an Unsatisfactory peer evaluation, recommendations for improvements are to be determined by the peers collaboratively. The goal is for everyone to produce satisfactory work, and the peers will work with each student to achieve that goal.


https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/815685/wiki/grading-contract


Highlights: Grading Contract

• Contract Grading:

The advantage of contract grading is that, the student, decides how much work he / she wishes to do this semester; if the work is completed on time and satisfactorily, the student will receive the grade for which he / she contracted. This means planning ahead, thinking about all of the obligations and responsibilities this semester and also determining desired grade in the course.




Results

• Most empowered class of students I’ve ever had the experience of teaching

• Great commitment to work that goes over and above the other classes that I’ve taught

• Collegial classroom environment

• Amazing levels of engagement


Challenges

• Faculty “loss of control”

• Giving up power, stepping outside of the classroom when students work on these documents

• Faculty fear of lacking “rigor” etc. versus student empowerment, plus emphasis on collaboration

• How to move beyond these issues?


Finally... I leave you with a Youtube video created by my student William Albertson as part of his work for the class. Available here and on his website, http://wpastocktondh.com/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYT3vM0J4QM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYT3vM0J4QM

http://wpastocktondh.com/




experimenting between moocs and doocs

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