Massive open online courses (MOOCs), sparks or ashes?

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In a highly competitive society, “If you don’t advance, you will retreat” is an unchanging truth. In order to survive, everyone begins to pay attention to further education and learning. Many people have dreamed of studying abroad, but have you ever thought that the scenes in the movie “Good Will Hunting” may one day appear in your life? We no longer have to spend $150,000 to attend Harvard University. As long as we connect to the online education platform, we can freely choose from a variety of courses offered by well-known universities in the world.

The term MOOC is a label that was loosely posted to a course which was organized by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08). (opens in a new tab) The title of this course derives from the Connectivism theory (opens in a new tab) which says that learning/training will be successful if we learn how to connect and build relevant networks. This idea of connecting to each other to construct knowledge is one of the key dynamics of a MOOC.

The origin and development of MOOC

MOOC (opens in a new tab) What exactly is it? Going back to 2008, Bryan Alexander (opens in a new tab) and Dave Cormier (opens in a new tab) from Canada proposed the concept of MOOC, and it was promoted by George Siemens (opens in a new tab) and Stephen Downes (opens in a new tab) offers the course “Connectionism and Connected Knowledge” at the University of Manitoba, which can be described as a pioneering work in the global education community. According to Wikipedia, MOOC can be called an extension of distance education and can be regarded as a large-scale open online classroom. MOOC allows people to learn conveniently through the Internet without being limited by time and space. Coupled with the advantage of easy access to learning resources, MOOC has been popular since its launch.

When talking about the characteristics of MOOC, the first one to recommend is its high-quality, borderless open education, which has also been recognized by the media and education circles in various countries. In 2012, three major education platforms, Udacity (opens in a new tab), Coursera (opens in a new tab) and edX (opens in a new tab), were established one after another. This year was also called “the year of the MOOC” by the New York Times, setting off a wave of open courses. The interactive mode of MOOC is not much different from the teaching method of universities and colleges. It just moves the class venue to the Internet! As long as you register on the platform in advance, you will have the opportunity to participate in the exciting courses offered by various schools and master important information without any time lag.

The current development status of MOOC in Taiwan

Today, many universities in Taiwan have begun to join the MOOC platform camp, and some professors are actively planning and offering courses. For example, associate professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering of National Taiwan University Ye Bingcheng (opens in a new tab), who taught the first Chinese course “Probability” on Coursera (currently also the CEO of the MOOC program of National Taiwan University), can be said to be a representative figure in related fields in my country. Professor Ye Bingcheng once said: “Teachers are one of the few jobs in the world that can affect other people’s lives. If they can convey important values, they can affect more people’s lives!” By participating in the construction of MOOC platforms and courses, he rethinks the relationship between “teaching” and “learning” so that students can have a greater sense of accomplishment and teachers’ knowledge can be passed on to more people.

It is particularly worth mentioning that in addition to practical theoretical and technical teaching, there are also many experts and scholars teaching topics in areas such as life philosophy on various MOOC platforms. For example, Chen Changfen (https://www.facebook.com/chen.felice (opens in a new tab)), who teaches at National Taiwan University and National Tsinghua University in Beijing, was invited to teach “Workplace Literacy (opens in a new tab)” (Professionalism) course on Coursera, which was widely praised by students on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Limitations and transformation of MOOC

However, although MOOCs are gaining momentum, everyone is gradually discovering its limitations and flaws. For example, the absentee rate of students is too high. Many popular courses often have many people signing up at the beginning, but the proportion of people who can complete the study is not high. Some scholars believe that it is difficult for MOOCs to completely replace face-to-face teaching in the classroom; in addition, some academic institutions have found that students’ learning results are not as good as expected, indicating that MOOCs have begun to face a crisis of transformation after nearly ten years of development.

In 2013, Armando from the University of California, Berkeley, USA. Professor Armando Fox (Armando Fox (opens in a new tab)) proposed SPOC (opens in a new tab) (Small Private Online The new concept of “Course” limits the number of students to a few hundred, that is, the course is not open to everyone on a large scale. It is hoped that this will effectively reduce the absentee rate and increase students’ willingness to learn and participation.

The emergence of MOOC has opened a new window for modern education, but this is just a new beginning and is obviously not the ultimate answer to future education. We also need more delicate and thoughtful teaching design, as well as closer interaction and communication between teachers and students, before we can truly flip the traditional classroom education. For example, the American writer William. Allen． William Allen White said: “Education is not about teaching young people how to make a living, but about teaching them how to create a life.”

★ Featured image source: unsplash.com (opens in a new tab)

★ Article source: This article was originally published in the June 2016 issue of “English Island (opens in a new tab)” magazine

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