Bibliographic record
Abstract
AbstractThe challenges that massive open online courses (MOOCs) bring to learning arena spur adult educators to improve delivery. A framework for a new type of MOOC is presented to address some of challenges presented by earlier models. This new MOOC, called a mesoMOOC, can bridge several challenges that hinder current effective delivery of MOOCs and utilize proven strategies in online learning to better implement MOOCs. The framework for mesoMOOC calls for MOOC designers to address orientation process, embed a connectivist synchronous component to classroom, provide online formative and summative assessment, and develop subsections within classes.IntroductionIn spite of development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) as a form of adult learning, adult educators as a whole have not been at forefront of ensuring that effective pedagogical and andragogical principles have been embedded in process. Thus, not all forward movement has been characterized as progress. Linda Morris (2013), President of American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE), acknowledges that MOOCs are gaining ground as a means of reaching adult learners. She encourages educators of adults to enter discussion that is already taking place and challenges us to address ineffective practices of MOOCs.McAuley, Stewart, Siemens, and Cormier (2010) explain that a MOOC integrates connectivity of social networking, facilitation of an acknowledged expert in a field of study, and a collection of freely accessible online resources (p. 4). If one were to stop there, this definition might fit current definition of a MOOC. However, McAuley et al. continue on to say that perhaps most importantly, a MOOC builds on active engagement of several hundred to several thousand 'students' who self-organize their participation according to learning goals, prior knowledge and skill, and common interests (p. 4).The research on MOOCs is minimal yet growing. The research shows a clear delineation in what a MOOC of 2008 and what a MOOC of 2013 represent.In 2008, Siemens' theory of Connectivism became basis for development of CCK08, which is now referred to as first MOOC and was delivered through University of Manitoba (Mackness, Mak, & Williams, 2010). This MOOC was designed with the notion that large numbers of participants (thousands) might gain significant benefits from participating in a course (O'Toole, 2013, p. 2).cMOOCsConnectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) follow connectivist principles, where large numbers of participants self-assemble collections of knowledge, learning activities and curriculum from openly available sources across publicly open platforms (O'Toole, 2013, p. 1). The idea behind cMOOCs is that they focus on collaborative education through knowledge creation as opposed to duplication of knowledge already known (Siemens, 2012, para. 3). The assumption then is that with collaboration greatest benefit occurs when more people put in more effort and thus work more intelligently (O'Toole, 2013, p. 1).The Challenges of cMOOCsAlthough cMOOCs embed and practice many effective techniques for reaching participants, there are a number of challenges that cMOOC design and implementation should address. Kop (2011) noted that:The motivational factors in a traditional adult education classroom are very important in learners.... If confidence levels are low, it is not likely that a person will take up connectivist learning. The technology itself or activity learner is taking on could form a barrier, (p. 22)Another challenge of cMOOC lies in inability to effectively reach a massive audience. Stewart (2013) points out that with cMOOC the network effect of peer-oriented communications and connections and process-focused knowledge generation may thus be difficult to contain entirely, particularly at scale (p. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".