inside the mooc – an argumentation analysis of mooc implementation strategies
TRANSCRIPT
Inside the MOOC – An argumentation analysis of MOOC Implementation strategies
Markus Deimann FernUniversität in Hagen
Science in Action vs
Ready made science
Intro
–Sebastian Thrun, 2013
„We have a lousy product.“ http://f.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/1280/poster/2013/11/3021473-poster-p-1-181-uphill-climb-udacity.jpg
MOOCs haven't lived up to the hopes and the hype, Stanford participants say.
!
Stanford | News October 15, 2015
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/october/moocs-no-panacea-101515.html
Why are MOOCs (still) so popular?
What arguments are used to support the
implementation of MOOCs?
Reconstruction of arguments: • What are the preconditions of
the argument?
• What are the claims to backup the argument?
• What are the relationships between arguments?
Mapping of arguments to provide a neutral overview
An exemplary account !
(far from exhaustive)
Material corpus• Policy reports from Higher Education bodies and
stakeholders:
• Conference of University Presidents (Germany)
• League of European Research Universities
• UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education
• European University Association
• Opening up Education (European Commission)
What are the premiss?• „EU education is failing to keep pace with the digital
society and economy“ (EU, policy)
• MOOCs provide opportunities for E-Learning advancements (HRK, technology)
• „MOOCs are at the moment showing the potential to change the face of educational delivery because they emancipate it and invigorate it“ (LERU, pedagogy)
• MOOCs are not the solution per se (UNESCO, institutional strategies)
Strategic positions
Academic analysis
• „What is taking place at the moment is that university leadership and industry are seeking possibilities to get involved in distance and e-learning, but without having yet a clearly defined idea of the economic or educative model to be followed.“ (EUA, 2013, p.11)
Institutional adoptions
• What are the goals MOOCs can address at the institution?
• Mission, Recruitment, Innovation, Pedagogy
Conclusions
Claims aligned to the position in the discourse
• MOOCs are exploited to serve the agenda
• EU: enhance the productivity of the workforce to compete with US. and Asian markets
• Extension of claims to strengthen the position
• MOOCs will improve the quality of E-Learning
• not supported by empirical evidence
Conflicting positions• “(…) having done this, I can’t teach at Stanford
again. I feel like there’s a red pill and a blue pill, and you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I’ve taken the red pill, and I’ve seen Wonderland.” Sebastian Thrun (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/education/moocs-large-courses-open-to-all-topple-campus-walls.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
• Lecture capture to free time for more interactions between teacher and student (but it is still massive)
New and better standards for MOOCs
• MOOCs are not state of the pedagogic art
• „The richness of MOOCs derives from their being essentially an Internet-based technology. To improve learning outcomes, governments and institutions should promote the use of the alternative pedagogical approaches enabled by MOOC technology.“ (COL Policy Brief 2015, p.5)
A better informed debate
• what does educational theory and philosophy have to say about MOOCs?
• merge isolated discourse (economy, technology, science)
Avoiding of „imaginary futures“
• Back to the roots thinking: No Hype, no revolution
• Take it seriously: MOOCs have potential
• continue and expand research
