[The Montana Professor 23.2, Spring 2013 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]

Learning in the Time of MOOCs

Robert Squires
Director of Instructional Design and Technical Support
UM-Missoula

It is perhaps safe to assume, in this context, that the reader has substantial teaching experience, so please reflect for a moment on a simple question: How do you plan for student learning?

There are myriad answers, but on analysis these will be informed by experiences within institutional cultures and two competing ways of viewing education: one where curriculum and course content is considered to be of primary importance and a second where students and their individual learning pathways are considered to be most important./1/ Your particular thoughts on this matter will determine, in fair measure, the type of pedagogical approaches used when constructing educational experiences. In courses where the curriculum and course content is thought to be most important, we might expect to find activities where knowledge is delivered and organized by the expert(s) and where assessments invoke answers that are deemed to be correct. Lecture classes and packaged online courses with multiple choice assessments fall at this end of the spectrum. In courses where the student is considered to be central to learning, you will find greater student input in course planning, collaborative and guided inquiry-based approaches, and assessments that demonstrate creativity and real-world applications of knowledge. Small group tutorials, lab-experiences, and online courses based on constructivist learning principles lie at this end of the spectrum. While different approaches and combinations may work better in different contexts, a growing body of research in the learning sciences supports the creation of experiences that provide students opportunities to emotionally and cognitively engage in ways that are personally conducive to learning. (See research at the National Center on Universal Design for Learning, http://www.udlcenter.org/research/researchevidence).

For most of you, there's probably nothing groundbreaking in this last paragraph, but it's important to rehearse these considerations before discussing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Following recent news in the Chronicle Of Higher Education, Campus Technology, and Inside Higher Education, you could be forgiven for thinking MOOCs represent the end of engagement, taking us into a neo-industrial age where learning is standardized, automated, and delivered to the masses by superstar professors who are few and far between. This is one (corporate-driven) possibility, but in pedagogical terms, it falls at the same end of the spectrum as the traditional lecture class or packaged online course rather than at the end focused on placing students at the center of the learning experience. There is no reason why MOOCs need to utilize predetermined content and standardized assessments any more than undergraduate courses need to have lectures and multiple choice tests. In fact, MOOCs began in a tradition that directly challenges that top-down distribution of knowledge. In Siemens's words, the pedagogical approach is to "make sense of complex knowledge by connecting to others, creating and making 'stuff,' and engaging in discourse and interacting with the ideas of others" (Siemens, 2012, para. 20). This approach may sound similar to how many of our quality learning experiences are currently constructed. But what is different—and what MOOCs can provide us a degree of insight into—is how the potential to engage in learning has developed with the use of the Internet to become an ever-present ecosystem of information, expertise, and potential connections. This shift from learning that is bound by institutional location and resources to ubiquitous access to knowledge and the knowledgeable throughout the world suggests several key considerations for instructors in Montana, especially those working toward UM President Royce Engstrom's vision of "Education for the Global Century." These broadly fall into three categories: getting connected, overcoming constraints, and demonstrating, above all, that quality counts.

Getting connected

Last summer, I co-designed and taught a graduate level multicultural education online course through the Curriculum and Instruction department at The University of Montana. The course had 20 regularly enrolled students and about 20 guest participants—including individuals from four continents as well as several students and a professor of multicultural education from Long Island University in New York. This could have been called a Mini Open Online Course, but we chose the more celebratory "Wee Open Online Togethering," or WOOT! As expected, the vast majority of these participants were simply curious and did not participate much. However, the contributions of the participants from Tunisia, Argentina, and Venezuela provided cultural insights that would have otherwise been unavailable to the enrolled students. It also provided the opportunity to make meaningful connections to people who had a personal interest in similar topics outside of the classroom. One unexpected product of this coming together occurred when the participant from Venezuela, who completed his doctoral work at MIT, decided to discuss his experiences of the course in a Google hangout. His point was that individual opinions needed to be more adequately grounded in the research. This was a perfect opportunity to reinforce course expectations, but also situate these academic expectations within the context of the "real world," which for many students is the place that is encountered after university.

Overcoming constraints

As an undergraduate student of literature in Aberdeen, Scotland, in the early 1990s, I remember having my first conversations about email and the Internet. These days, a motivated student with the understanding that the Internet is a portal to both people and information can readily access the latest articles, discussion groups, and communities of practice and strike up conversations with thought leaders in the field—wherever they may be. In such a world, it is no less incumbent on the instructor to be actively engaged in the learning of his/her students, but it is less necessary to be the source of definitive knowledge. To overcome our limitations in the multicultural education course, we invited Dr. Geneva Gay, Professor of Education at the University of Washington, and Dr. Paul Gorski, Assistant Professor at George Mason University, to join us. Both web conferences provided unique insights on race, gender, and social justice, but what was arguably as pleasing as interacting with their ideas was that the sessions modeled the great value of including alternative voices in a learning experience, and how easy it was to connect with professionals who are more than willing to share with those who demonstrate a genuine interest.

Quality counts (above all)

Opening a course to the world will not really do anything for our existing students unless the course is well organized, has our active attention, and displays an effort to design a rewarding experience for everyone involved. There are several frameworks to help design this type of course, including backwards design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2001), the Community of Inquiry Framework (Swan, Garrison, & Richardson, 2009) and Universal Design for Learning (http://cast.org). However, it's still possible for a carefully designed course to fall flat if an element of excitement isn't built into the experience. This can be done through incorporating choices, creating alternate learning pathways, designing an engaging look and feel, using powerful multimedia, and extending the learning into spaces where students have more control—in other words, being creative. Fortunately, the ability to address the needs and interests of our students has been the hallmark of education in the Montana University System for many years. And, I believe, this is still the area where we have a great deal to offer on the local, national, and international stage in the time of MOOCs. Size can bring great potential, but unless we put people at the center of the learning experiences, we will likely find that we have missed the point.

Conclusion

MOOCs, like any other type of course, can serve a host of pedagogical aims, but what they have shown us is the power for students to connect with learners throughout the world and access leaders in the field. They have demonstrated that the most current knowledge and expertise is accessible to everyone, and we can harness these resources for our own purposes if we are willing to reach out. They have also shown us that it's possible to bring the world to Montana in a way that is harmonious with the care and attention Montana faculty have traditionally shown their students. Whether courses are massive, open, or online may ultimately be moot. We are challenged today, as perhaps we always have been, with creating rewarding educational experiences that will foster the leaders of the future. The bottom line is that being able to situate contemporary learning experiences within a hyper-connected digital world is more necessary than ever in helping students realize their own goals as they operate in a world that continues to become more complex.

Notes

1. John Dewey articulated this tension between a curriculum and student-centered perspective over a century ago in The Child and the Curriculum (1902): http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29259/29259-h/29259-h.htm.[Back]

References

[The Montana Professor 23.2, Spring 2013 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]