Can you imagine a 100,000 student classroom? Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun couldn't either, until they were teaching one. Nationally known for his expertise in artificial intelligence, Peter Norvig had been teaching courses on the subject at Stanford, in person for some time before taking on the challenge of the free, online course.
Norvig discusses the project in this six minute, twelve second talk:
Points to Ponder:
- Norvig and Thrun set out to provide a course "equal or better in quality" to the courses taught at Stanford in person; do you think this is possible?
- Twenty thousand students completed the 10-week courses, putting in anywhere between 50 and 100 hours of course work during the course session. None of these students paid for the course. Is there a new level of motivation in our society - one leading self-starting, driven students to seek out high quality education without the high-dollar tuition?
- What's the most striking element of this short talk? What surprised you or baffled you?
- Do you agree with the statement on peer instruction? How do you encourage your students to work together in your courses?
- Would you consider taking or teaching a course like this, online?
I read an article about this class in Wired. So interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt would be cool if some of those 2 -minute videos were available to look at. It's an interesting idea--and I'd love to see how he integrates those quizzes. We have all this technology at our disposal; it's very user-friendly--why not put it to use to encourage active learning?
I wonder if there are particular disciplines that this type of class would work best for. I'm thinking of math and science? Would this work for something like writing? I know there are writing online classes, but students aren't all working on "the same" projects, so I'm not exactly sure how the class would be set up. Definitely it would have deadlines!
I was puzzled when he said his class was "flipped." I think most Coe classes are "flipped;" that is, students do the reading and work outside of class, and come together to discuss it. At least that's the way my classes are; I tend not to present information in class (I'm not particularly good at lecturing, anyway). Instead, we discuss issues that surfaced while reading the texts, questions they might have, how the text fits in with themes of the course, etc.
I hated it that he called college-level work "homework!" My students know this is a big pet peeve of mine. College students do not "do homework." Homework is little problems to mindlessly solve and get out of the way so that you can play video games or go to sleep. College students "study." Study is a college student verb! It is what they are here to do. Studying involves being in class, doing readings and assignments with an active brain, and basically immersing oneself in a field.
I know that many of my students think of their work here at Coe as "homework." But why not give them terminology that better describes what we want them to do?!
I don't know what the percentages are, but I suspect that there are still a significant number of Coe classes for which students do not read material prior to coming to class.
DeleteI think it is possible to provide an online course that is "equal or better quality" to the courses taught in person because, as it was done, they can be presented in a way that allows for the instructor to connect with the students as if they are individuals more so than in a physical classroom. When you are taking a class online that is constructed in Norvig's and Thun's method, you don't necessarily know that hundreds or thousands of other people are also taking it. The attention is on you and your learning.
ReplyDeleteI think people were drawn to this course because everything about it was compelling. World class instructors, knowledge, topic, and techniques will attract many people. It's a Purple Cow.
I am surprised at how many people signed up, watched at least one video per week, and ended up completing the course. In addition, I was pleased at the fact that we can use traditional and somewhat informal teaching methods along with, not in absence of, technology to create a course (sum) that is greater than its parts. I also like how defining the audience and approach was central to the development. I think many teachers try to teach the same way to every group, regardless of their needs or where they are coming from.
I often encourage students to work together when planning events, especially when I know a particular student or organization has planned a similar event and can share from their experiences. They also have developed best practices that can be passed along.
I have considered taking a course like this online and will eventually do so. I need to find a compelling topic and instructors.
This sort of course/pedagogy offers possibilities traditional teaching methods don't, and vice versa. A lot depends on the student's motivation, which speaks to another of Lisa's prompts. I could not do what I do at Coe with 160,000 online students. Before I came to Coe I taught at Western Illinois University, which had classes maybe three to four times the ones I teach at Coe, and even there I couldn't do things the way I do here. On the other hand, if someone just wants some basic information about a concept, I don't know that it really matters in what format the information is presented. There probably are several YouTube videos that explain the Electoral College as well or better than I do.
ReplyDeleteCan you do critical thinking this way? Or writing, which Jane brought up? I'm thinking not. But a fair number, maybe 1/4 to 1/3 based on preliminary assessment data, of my students don't think critically and don't write well.
What about a community of learners? That's important to some people, not as much to others. I think "online community" is a contradiction in terms, but I'm more than 50 so probably am missing something. I can get into discussions on Facebook, but they're nothing (to my mind) like classes or Political Science Club.
I just completed my masters in Library and Information Science through an on-line program. To be clear this was 100% on-line, no classroom work. Before taking this program I took a few masters classes, in a classroom, at the University of Iowa.
ReplyDeleteA few observations:
1. In an on-line program you are never outside of class. I worked while completing my masters, when I was taking classes at U of I it was very easy to cram on Saturday and Sunday, attend class on Monday, and forget about it until the next weekend.
Not so on-line, class is always in session, discussion is always taking place. Some professors even limited the number of comments students could make on the discussion boards so as to make keeping up with discussions manageable. Putting it off to the last minute meant catching up on a hundred or more discussion posts on top of assignments.
2. If you don't say anything in an on-line class you’re not present. With a class of 30 or more students you can't expect each student to participate every class period in the classroom. You have a limited time period, and multiple points to get to. On-line there is no visual indication that the student is present. If the student is silent their absent, there is no other way to tell they are there.
Further, that line of discussion brought up at the beginning of class isn't closed in a discussion forum. There are several times while working on my masters where I was lying in bed and thought "Oh, that's a good example of my point". I got up, signed on to the discussion forum clarified my position and went back to bed.
3. There are multiple platforms on-line designed to allow group work. One example is Google documents. I remember working on a group paper were four people were writing the paper at the same time (in the same document) while using the Google chat to discuss what we were doing (when we weren't asking questions of each other in the document its self). Here is a link to an assignment I worked on:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k1GLO2PXJ_T_TY00irgGtoD31p_tDXF7QJ3tGJPtwPk/edit?authkey=CLzPp4gO
We had trouble with Google Chat so most of our discussion ended up on the document (along with complaints about the technology).
4. I forget what my 4th point was, but I'll post later if I remember.
Hopefully I made some helpful points, and didn’t just ramble. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about on-line courses from the students point of view.
I think he presents some interesting ideas. One thing to consider is that the course was voluntary. It wasn't "required" and wasn't taken to complete anything. The people were invested in the content. They took the course because they wanted to. I think this makes a major difference. However, it was interesting that he still used "due dates" in order to get people to complete the work in a timely fashion.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I have with online versus in person is the connection is somehow lost. Yes, you get to interact with more people and get more ideas. However, you don't look into someone's eyes and have a dialog. For me, this is hard. I like to debate and discuss and really feel what the other person is talking about. Online, this is difficult to do.
While I don't feel that online will ever totally replace a classroom setting, I think every institution of higher learning needs to think about how to incorporate this type of learning.
You mention that a connection is lost during dialog in on-line discussions. On the other hand it is much easier for the shy student in the back of class to share their ideas in a forum than in the class room. In which case you get ideas that you may not have heard in person, and the student gets confirmation that their ideas are worthwile when the class responds.
DeleteI really appreciate your comments, Sara. I've been asking around and I don't know a lot of people who have actually TAKEN online courses. (It clearly shows my age...my digital immigration status.) I find myself having what I can only assume to be an antiquated idea of online courses. I think it's because, years ago as University of Phoenix started getting bigger, I remember friends of friends who would joke about getting their MBA or Master's through Phoenix. It was as if they were mocking the total lack of rigor and intellectual demands of the courses while simultaneously acknowledging that the credential was all that mattered.
ReplyDeleteI know that the online education industry has changed a lot but I have to overcome those old ideas. Reading about Sara's experiences with her program helps put things in perspective.
One of the things in Dr. Norvig's talk that struck me was when he indicated that the ones who most recently "got it" in terms of a concept are the ones most capable of helping others get it. I feel the same way about math and math teachers. I often tell future teachers who question their own abilities in math that they will be good teachers because of that questioning--they will remember what it was like to be unsure what they can do. I read an essay a teacher wrote about why he took guitar lessons. He was a bad student, often failing to practice between lessons. Yet his teacher was always patient, never making him feel bad about what he hadn't done and never pointing out that his lack of progress was directly related to his lack practice. He said the whole humbling experience helped him remember his own students' frustrations when he was trying to introduce a new idea in class. Harping on them about not handing in homework did nothing for the student or for him when it came to learning a concept.
On a related note, I do expect my students to work together. I make groups--sometimes based on intricate matrices of background, major, etc., and sometimes based on such trivial things as what color shirts the students are wearing on any given day--and I expect them to figure out how to get along. I have tried numerous times to connect them online--I set up group-specific forums or set up a Google doc they can all access--but they seem perfectly content texting one another. And they do seem to prefer working face-to-face. They meet at the library or after class. That's why they came to Coe, right? They are paying for a more intimate learning environment. But they also want the convenience of more technology-infused classes.
[One constant as I watched Dr. Norvig's video was--who reads and grades all of this? When I use online forums, I struggle with reading them all. Then I question whether I should grade based on quality or quantity. I want to focus on quality but, if I want students to buy in, I often have to go with quantity, full well knowing I am now assessing compliance, not critical thinking. I recently read some of my course evaluations and I got a kick out of one student's comment: "You should assign more busy work so we can get more points." Ah, the tenacious student keeping her eyes on the prize and finding glory in the busy work I try desperately to cull out of my classes...)
I am not surprised students prefer meeting in person for projects. I used Google Docs because my fellow project members were in different states, but I know some students who chose their groups because they were in the same state and able to meet-up (sometimes driving an hour each way to a central meeting point).
DeleteOn-line classes and tools are at their best when students are scattered geographically. For example: nine years ago when I was an incoming freshman at Coe, I did a summer reading class. I did the work on my own during the summer and then everyone who did the class met up once when we got to Coe. It would have been a much different experience if the class was held on-line, and the meeting once we got to Coe would have been much more interesting since everyone would know each other from the on-line discussions.
My son, Jon, completed an executive MBA program last year. Classes met every 2nd or 3rd weekend and students often had group work to complete. While tools like Google Docs make sharing files easy, much can be said for being able to work face to face. While actual face to face meetings were not really practical if group members lived in different states Jon became a believer in tools such as Skype. He appreciated the level of interaction that was possible.
DeleteTechnology can certainly be used to enhance learning. But I am still a bit skeptical about totally on-line courses. (I was never a fan of correspondence courses either.)
Very interesting talk, and the online mega-class seems much less horrible with a thoughtful instructor like this.
ReplyDeleteHere are some thoughts:
* I think FREE is one of the big things here. My (uneducated) observations have led me to think that the for-profit model of online education is a problem. Design a mega-class, and the only goal is to get people to sign up and get their money. It seems you would produce a very different class if (like Norvig) you were not making any money and if it was your goal to make a better class than you normally do.
* I expect the massive size of the class helped make the discussion forums a success. When you have 12 students in a class, online discussions (in my experience) can become forced and annoying. When you have mass numbers, then they might become more organic, just as they do in the out-of-the-classroom internet.
* I liked the thought that they put in to making the videos: making them short, making them feel "hands on," having due dates, etc.
* Of course we all wish that he had talked about assessment. "What are you doing this weekend?" "Not much, I've got 124,000 papers to grade."
* 160,000 students signed up; 20,000 finished. That is more than an 85% failure rate. I expect most of us would be lose our jobs if we continuously had those kinds of numbers.
* The video is timely considering the recent ill-conceived forced resignation of the UVA president, which apparently had to do with the board's nervousness that the university wasn't changing quickly enough to keep up with the "dynamic environment" represented by online courses like Norvig's. I suspect that none on the UVA board have ever taken an online course (just guessing), and they appear to have thought little about uses of digital technology in education. It is easy to forget that there are plenty of ways to use technology in education besides the "online class." The UVA board, for instance, was completely unaware that their own university has some of the largest digital initiatives in the humanities (they missed this because they only conceived of the issue in terms of online classes).
I don't think we are too far away from the regular use of internet presenters in a world where institutions are constantly looking at ways to reduce costs. I could see the use of room proctors or a technology facilitator being used, shared teachers between education sites, purchased lectures/classes, etc. and all sorts of things happening in the evolution of education and technology. The logistics of it all is hard to comprehend ....
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic. I am guilty of being a technology geek. I find a great deal of pleasure in trying out new educational technology and finding ways to use it to enhance the student experience or measuring something that was once difficult to capture. I am also very interested in seeing inside this course I would love to get a look at the actual videos, see how the quizzes are integrated, see how the results are tallied and wander through the forums. I hate to sound skeptical but I have visited many actual classrooms that touted best practices and present fantastic learning environments at conferences. Then when I would arrange a visit or excitedly jump in with a group that was going to visit the classroom, we were often completely disappointed. I am guessing that is because we educators like to tell stories and most stories get better with each telling. I do believe there are many things that we can do with variations of on line learning but I do not think we are to the point where we can match the personal experience students at Coe have become accustomed to. Of course there may be things that we could do better, faster or cheaper using technology.
ReplyDeleteAnother point to consider is as Chris observed the rate of failure or non completion is high. I was discussing this with a friend who works for the Iowa Department of Education his focus in on Junior Colleges and Veterans issues. He points out that the amount of money the Veterans Administration puts into online courses is high compared to traditional brick and mortar institutions. Unfortunately their rate of return is much less on the investment because of such a high failure or non completion rate. I believe it is less that 50% he was talking pretty fast at the time so I missed the actual numbers but I think he can send them to me if anyone is really interested I can get them and update this post.
I do think that online education is going to be the trend that we may see verses the more traditional face to face that we all have grown up with. Is this for the best ? May depend upon how it is approached & the instructor
ReplyDeleteA few thoughts I had:
*I do like the idea of a shorter time with video and questions. I feel this may keep the learner more engaged(wish we could see some examples of what they used).
* I enjoyed his comment re peer teaching (peers remember what it's like to not understand). In our athletic training major we attempt to have older AT students peer teach our younger students. While this in informally set up, I feel this is a valuable experience for both groups and want to stress this more this coming year.
Online classes are certainly becoming the norm for the larger universities. I have a cousin who teaches in the Wisconsin University system and he routinely teaches at least two summer classes online, each with at least 30-40 students enrolled. He is teaching business courses but he also has to read papers these graduate students are writing. To do that he prints them not because he cannot stand to read them on the computer. So, while the teacher and student never meet each other in person, there is a direct exchange through the writing if you assume that the writing being submitted is being cone by the student enrolled in the class.
ReplyDeleteWhile this does seem to be the way of the future for those institutions who deal with large volumes of students,I think that places like Coe can offer the alternative. I have not figured out how to teach theatre without being in the same room with the students. There is something about having the energy of a group in the same space that cannot be translated through technology in my experience.
During the 1970's Coe received an NEH grant. At that time some colleges were expanding their reach by offering courses through the newspaper. I remember one meeting where several faculty were against offering any such courses, even non-credit courses, because of the "je ne sais pas" of the instructor being physically present.
ReplyDeleteI have taken courses, before the time of computer use, where you received readings and assignments and a deadline for submission. I have also taken online courses. Of the two, I much prefer the online courses because I can replay the lecture any number of times until I understand, but still have the opportunity to ask questions through online forums.
I know that peer instruction can be very helpful. At one point, when I was supervising the work/study students in Academic Computing, I had the workers return to campus early to take workshops in the most commonly used software programs. This allowed these students to act as smes in their classes and dorms and brought many positive responses from both those doing the assisting and those getting the assistance.
It always interests me when educators are open to trying a new technique or procedure to reach students. While I do not have much personal experience with online classes I know enough people who teach them or have taken them to see the pros and cons of this approach. As a traditional college experience, online courses are another option.
ReplyDeleteI was a part of a test to determine if ISU could offer some online classes during my master's program. I was not a big fan. Obviously, the class was not nearly as thought out and planned like the one in the video, but mostly it didn't work with my learning style. I'm not sure if online classes ever will for me, so I'm not sure if I'd ever be interesting in trying something like this. But I know they work for many. I'm amazed at how many people attempted and finished this course, it actually gives me a great sense of happiness that there are that many people out there that are interested in learning!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in grad school, what I didn't like about the online classes was that I was getting behind during every second that I wasn't reading the discussion boards. This was annoying to me because I had other classes and an assistantship that were all part of my grad school requirements and it didn't seem reasonable to require us to participate in this course outside of the course time. It worked well for others who preferred that format. I can see myself enjoying it more when it isn't for credit. An on-going learning experience that is enhanced and contributed to every time that I sign online to read more. What a learning experience it could be! I don't think this will replace traditional classrooms, there is a lot of value in that of course. But I do think it will continue to become more popular and attracting specific students that will really benefit from this type of learning. It doesn't work for everyone, but perhaps it is a new type of teaching that can be added to be able to teach to "different" types of learners.
I'm impressed by Norvig's course, which seems (from the admittedly skimpy evidence here) to be a good candidate for "best practices" consideration in several ways.
ReplyDeleteBut.
We can rave about how much new technology enables these new educational practices, yet there's nothing apparent in what Norvig did that hasn't been at least marginally possible since the 1980's. Back then their video would have been disseminated on VHS, and there were certainly fewer people participating in online forums, but my point is that their tools have basically existed for decades. The only thing I can see that's truly novel here is that lots of people find it really exciting. Perhaps the key is what Norvig mentioned at one point: motivation, not information (or its means of dissemination).
I can't imagine 160,000 students listening to me, 16 makes me nervous. A few years ago I didn't think taking an online class would be beneficial. No, face to face interaction with anyone so, much of what you learn in many classes would not be possible But now with the chat and live video feeds I feel it is much more like being in a classroom. I like that he has interaction with the students (quick quizes) the peer instruction makes sense and students often feel more comfortable talking about what they don't understand with someone less intimidating and judgemental than their professor. I think several of these talks have brought out similar ideas that motivation is key and that students need to be activly engaged in their learning.
ReplyDelete