This is a guest post from Jen Lee, an aquaintence of mine from South Jersey who agreed to share her elearning experiences with us:
I took two MOOC courses at Coursera.org in the Fall of 2012, and am currently enrolled in another right now during Spring 2013.
I took "Learn to Program: The Fundamentals" from the University of Toronto, which offered a certificate of accomplishment for those achieving a grade of 70 or higher.
I took "An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python" from Rice University, which did not offer a certificate at all.
Currently, I'm taking "Learn to Program: Crafting Quality Code" from the University of Toronto. This is a followup to the first Learn to Program class, with the same instructors, and also offers a certificate of accomplishment for those achieving a grade of 80 or higher.
In all of the classes, there were video lectures with the professors explaining things in a very clear way from start to finish. There were no books required; all the learning was done through video lectures, exercises, and assignments. There were lots of programming tasks to complete, and quizzes to take. The students took to the forums, talked about everything, asked for help, offered help, set up google and facebook study groups, and generally posted a LOT. The forums were constantly buzzing with activity. Since there were SO many people, types of people varied drastically. There were complainers, there were people who kept asking for extensions on dates, there were people who made fun of those people, there were people who helped everyone out, there were people who asked a ton of questions, there were people who answered a ton of questions. There were people who were obviously seasoned programmers, so much that we all wondered why they would take a beginner class. There were people who just didn't understand the material who were struggling along the whole time. There were critics and supporters. People who loved the professors and people who hated them. People who thought the course was too easy and who thought it was too hard. The forums were a great source of information, and entertainment. Socially, it was comfortable and familiar. Especially because a good portion of people were taking both classes at the same time.
In the Rice University course, the team of professors (there were 5, though only 2 main ones) encouraged students to make their own videos explaining the course material for that week and post it to the forums. The student with the videos that were the most popular at the end of the course would win an iPad. I can see that they didn't know quite how popular that contest would be. Lots of students made videos, and a few made videos several times a week for the duration of the 7 week course. In the end, it tied... between a 19 year old girl... and a 12 year old boy. All these adults trying to learn programming... and a 12 year old boy was teaching them how. He was truly an inspiration, even to my kids, who have now taken an interest.
The professors interacted more than I would have expected. In all cases they did have community TAs to help people who needed it. But the profs monitored the forums regularly and commented a LOT. The forums helpfully marked which threads had a professor response included, so that was a nice feature.
Personally, I learned a lot in those classes. I enjoyed programming so much that I decided to enroll in the local community college to pursue a degree in it, purely because I like it and I would love to have those skills. Currently I am enrolled full time in the community college, with mostly online classes, and I'm still taking a MOOC from Coursera because I love it, and because that programming language (Python) is not offered at ACCC.
The online classes I'm taking at an actual college are jolting, coming out of Coursera. The online classes in programming at ACCC are more like self-taught courses. Here's the book, those are your assignments, these are tests and quizzes, here are the due dates for everything, now GO. It's nothing like Coursera. At Coursera, the video lectures and programming assignments are not released all at the beginning; they are slowly released as the course progresses. So, even advanced programmers can't move ahead and finish the course in the first two weeks. They have to stick around with the rest of us and do what we're doing... which is great, because the forums wouldn't work if only the slowest students were there posting and the faster students had already moved on. The faster students are the ones who have the patience and the knowledge to help the rest of us through the problems that we don't understand. At ACCC, you ask a question, and there's no one really checking the forums anymore to even answer.
I realize that online classes will likely never fully replace traditional classrooms. However, the model used at Coursera is very efficient, very conducive to learning, and well liked by many. The do-it-yourself model probably doesn't work well for students who are not self-motivated or who do not learn well by reading a textbook alone.
I don't have full statistics for the courses. At the end of the first Learn To Program class, though, the professors did post a summary, which gives some interesting data. Here it is:
The number of people who earned a certificate: 8243
The number of people who submitted each piece of coursework:
E1 38502
E2 25368
A1 18222
E3 17104
E4 14991
A2 13236
E5 12657
E6 10658
A3 9336
E7 9283
Exam 8938
The next two sections count the results only for people who wrote the final exam.
coursemark how many earned that mark
[0-10) 44
[10-20) 59
[20-30) 92
[30-40) 106
[40-50) 114
[50-60) 167
[60-70) 331
[70-80) 747
[80-90) 1840
[90-100) 4592
=100: 766
exammark # # earned cert # did not earn cert
(0-1) 0 0 0
[1-2) 0 0 0
[2-3) 58 7 51
[3-4) 39 3 36
[4-5) 64 8 56
[5-6) 103 15 88
[6-7) 79 29 50
[7-8) 109 49 60
[8-9) 168 98 70
[9-10) 233 180 53
[10-11) 409 357 52
[11-12) 735 661 74
[12-13) 1360 1278 82
[13-14) 2349 2247 102
14 3152 3055 97
We correlated the Week 3 Workload survey responses with course completion by category. The categories were:
"I had never programmed before.",
"I had written a few small programs or tried to take another programming course but didn't complete it."
"I had completed an introductory programming course."
"I have significant programming experience."
In the following table, we list:
* the category
* how many people in that category who wrote the survey
* how many people in that category still in the course
* how many people in that category still in the course (as a percentage)
* how many people in that category who earned a certificate
* how many people in that category who earned a certificate (as a percentage)
category survey # done % cert cert %
beginners 4167 3596 86.3 1386 33.26
novice 3335 3067 92.0 1666 49.96
some 2681 2434 90.8 1431 53.38
experienced 1806 1683 93.2 1136 62.90
everyone 11989 10780 89.9 5619 46.87
We are impressed be everyone who earned a certificate, especially the beginners and novices. You should be proud of yourselves. Well done!
Update on Blog Post
Hi!
Just wanted to update you on some MOOC info...
I finished my third MOOC this semester. Still loved it. This one was shorter (5 weeks as opposed to but it was still full of great information.
I was just browsing upcoming classes on Coursera and I discovered that they are now offering something called "Signature Track". It's a paid option for a MOOC that will run right alongside the regular MOOC offerings on Coursera, but they will be using typing patterns plus a webcam to actually determine that the person that is doing the coursework is in fact the person who has registered for the course. I'm guessing it's one step closer to actually getting MOOCs to be recognized and accepted as credit at brick and mortar institutions.
What I find strange about this much security is that the classes I'm taking online at ACCC don't require any sort of validation like that. It's pretty much "Go buy the book, here's a list of your assignments and due dates, email someone if you need any help." So, to me, the Signature Track at Coursera seems like complete overkill.
But, it is what it is. If it gets us closer to MOOCs being accepted as credit, I'm all for it.
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