Learning from the MOOCs model

Massive Open Online Courses are a form of distance education, with internet-based learning courses intended for large-scale participation. The key word is “massive”. The business model is that thousands of participants give large economies of scale, with low marginal costs: hence it is possible to have large-volume, low-cost offerings. Many MOOCs provide access to learning materials for free, and charge for assessment and certification; some MOOCs also charge for access to the materials. Web 2.0 technologies enable both live chats or synchronous discussion, and asynchronous discussion forums. The business model assumes that the participants or learners will become a de facto self-help community, so a relatively small number of instructors can serve a large number of learners. High-profile institutions like Yale and UC Berkeley, have used movies of traditional 50-minute lectures as their primary online learning materials in chemistry MOOCs. American chemistry degrees consist of theory-only courses (subjects or units), and laboratory-based courses; the MOOCs showcase some theory-only courses. The production values of these chemistry MOOC lectures are high. For example, the Yale and Berkeley lectures feature their best lecturers (professors); there are multiple cameras that are operated by live technicians, so that the cameras can pan, move, and zoom. Each lecture is effectively an advertisement for the university and would have required a marketing-type budget. However, the chemistry education community, both in Australia and overseas, have not embraced MOOCs because it is not possible to offer laboratory-based learning via the internet. Laboratories are still the signature pedagogy in chemistry education [see reference 1: Chemistry in Australia, September 2013, page 35]. The same is true of biology and other laboratory-based disciplines. In contrast, much of modern physics uses computer-controlled instrumentation for experimentation, so these can be converted into internet-accessible form. The Australian FarLabs (Freely Accessible Remote Laboratories) program is an example of such physics experiments, even at high-school level.2 A second reason why the Australian chemistry education community has not embraced MOOCs, is because MOOCs are incompatible with the mission of most Australian universities, which seek to serve the Australian community. Currently 32% of Australians aged 25 to 34 years old have bachelor degrees; it is intended to raise this higher education attainment to 40% by 2025.3 The 2008 Bradley Review recommended that government and universities encourage and cater for groups of students, who are currently under-represented in higher education: by 2020, 20% of undergraduate enrolments in higher education should be students from low socio-economic backgrounds.4 Students from a variety of backgrounds, and with a variety of learning needs, require a range of supports in their learning. One size does not fit all. The institutions in the MOOC space aim to attract elite students, who can excel with relatively less academic support, in universities where much of the teaching is done by graduate-student teaching assistants. Australian universities do more than impart discipline-based knowledge; they also offer help with study skills. For example, in an average Australian university, many science students have weak mathematics skills.5,6 Professor Roy Tasker, the recipient of the 2011 Prime Minister’s Award for Australian University Teacher of the Year, often says that the best learning is a collective and social endeavour. Student-student interactions as well as interactions between staff and students are crucial. MOOCs have student-to-instructor ratios of thousands-to-one; the much smaller student-to-instructor ratios in Australian universities are not perfect but they do permit explanations and learning activities to be adjusted to cater for students from a variety of backgrounds, especially those from non-traditional educational backgrounds and those who are weaker in the discipline and related areas. MOOCs do have important lessons for us. Yes, electronic learning resources and learning objects should be used where appropriate. Yes, the stand-and-deliver passive-learning lecture has long been inappropriate for most students. Successful MOOCs break up the content delivery into small packages, typically of 5-10 minutes duration, interspersed by other learning activities. In fact, the successful MOOC model of learning is similar to active learning programs like POGIL (Process-Orientated Guided-Inquiry Learning) and ALIUS (Active Learning in University Science), which have been used successfully in chemistry education [see reference 7: Chemistry in Australia, December 2008, page 22]. The lesson is not that internet-based delivery will be the salvation of our universities; the lesson is not that we must teach online 24/7; the lesson is not that we should embrace MOOCs because they are the newest and biggest fad. The lesson is that we should engage students in learning, and recognise that students are not empty vessels into which knowledge can be poured. The lesson is that teachers need to interact with students in this collective and social endeavour, called education.