mooc stuff
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Here is a link to a Washington Post article on mooc:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/in-education-innovatio n-moocs-are-only-the-beginning/2013/03/29/88d77ae6-97ef-11e2-814b-063623d80a 60_story.html?wpisrc=nl_tech At friam this morning we talked about whether this approach could be used to develop a "best" teaching approach. The last three paragraphs of this article gave an interesting perspective on how this can be done. It's copied below: "But is there a method of detecting whether a student has learned anything? Quizzes and tests are imperfect measures. Enter, sensor-based technology, which could detect the interest, learning, and emotion of the student. For example, NeuroSky markets a headset called MindWave that the company says measures brainwave signals and transmits them via Bluetooth to a mobile device. The $99 device, according to the company, detects the attention level of students as they learn mathematics, science, or any other pattern-recognition disciplines. Affectiva is developing a biosensor bracelet called Q Sensor to measure electrodermal activity, which changes based on one's emotional state. Ideally, the sensor would detect when a student is anxious, bored or excited. Now, imagine the digital tutor of the future. If a child likes reading books, it teaches mathematics and science in a traditional way. If that doesn't work, the tutor tries videos. If that's too boring, it switches to games or puzzles. The digital tutor takes the student into holographic simulations to teach history, culture, and geography. It teaches art and music through collaboration. The tutor, via sensor data, knows what the child has learned and the time of day when he or she learns the most. It asks experts from all around the world the questions it can't answer. It tells the parents how the child is doing whenever they want to know. It becomes the child's trusted guide - a teacher tailor-made to fit them." This could probably be adapted to determine if a student is cheating on a test! ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Reminds me of A Clockwork Orange (*not* my favorite movie). CurtOn Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 7:34 PM, Jack Stafurik <[hidden email]> wrote: Here is a link to a Washington Post article on mooc: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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One of mine, however.
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 8:01 PM, Curt McNamara <[hidden email]> wrote:
Doug Roberts
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Kubricks CO was disturbing when I first
saw it at 14 (much too young, despite having read Burgess' novel
already) and easier to watch but still very disturbing even as a
mature adult.
I have to admit that Curt's observation matched my own feeling that a great deal of the discussion around MOOCs gave me eerie premonitions of dystopian times. I wonder if the lessons offered by CO are not being ignored as we plow forward, creating more ways for our youth to be disaffected, bored, confused and our establishment even *more* incompetent but adamant (no child left behind?). I had a mere handful of teachers/professors I can give more than mediocre marks to and a few who taught me the most as hugely bad examples. I'm not sure I would have *any* if I had gotten my formal education through MOOCs... I can give a lot more credit to mentors (including nominal peers) but those were more self-selected. I don't know if we have any *early career* educators, but I'd imagine that the *good* ones would find this trend disturbing... mainly because it separates you from the students... Both of my daughters considered teaching at one point or another and abandoned the idea after spending a little time in rudimentary experiences... primarily because they found the students undermotivated and the parents too often more harm than help. MOOCs may support those somewhere out on the Autism spectrum, but for many, the only way they will learn is in a social context with both competition and support from their peers. I don't know how to replace that in a MOOC context. I do suppose that a few teaching assistants/mentors coupled with the MOOCs and some *classroom* discussion/troubleshooting/brainstorming/problem-solving time might do well? One of mine, however. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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What's missing is the matchmaking service to allow potential MOOC students to find compatible fellow students for clustering together into collegia. Which could happen in inner city squats, as long as there is some kind of coffee shop in the neighborhood. More serious groups of students would probably try to find a suitable tutor or two for their proposed course of study, again a missing matchmaking service, or perhaps the tutors are acting as the student matchmakers. Existing campuses are free to compete as matchmakers, squats, or tutors, but most of them gave up competing to serve students a long time ago, choosing a different path through the woods instead. -- rec -- On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 9:53 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Or following the CO riff, the student
groups could form in the same way street gangs do... Sharks v
Jets to put an almost sweet face on it compared to Bloods/Cryps or
whatever the wankers in CO were? The smartest (instead of the
toughest) would be a natural leader with some smart(ish)
lieutenants helping smartypants manage the lesser smarties...
providing focus and loyalty and interest. Would a diploma (in the
form of a neck tattoo?) from the Bloods have more street Cred than
if from the Cryps? I'm feeling a Neil Stephenson novel coming on.
My daughters partner is a former instructor at TVI who moved to teaching HS in ABQ and then Portland, who finally moved to tutoring. I will ask him if he thinks he (or others like him... freelance tutors) could restructure their work around MOOCs? Currently his students are mostly HS but some University in conventional courses... but perhaps some of the HS students (often either advanced or with special needs around focus/attention) he tutors might want to take on college level work via MOOCs. He tutors only physics and math right now but is often asked to do Chemistry and other things which he is competent in but not up to speed to actually tutor effectively. He could probably handle a wider range in the context of a MOOC where he could "study ahead" himself and be prepared before the students got to material. I think the one thing he misses about TVI and HS teaching is the group experience (though he doesn't miss baby-sitting teens and running interference with interfering parents). - Steve
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There are self-organizing groups popping up around MOOCs. MeetUp is great for facilitating things like that. Here's one example (in the Washington, DC area): Data Everywhere (http://www.meetup.com/Data-Everywhere/?gj=ej1b&a=wg2.3_rdmr) "This is a group for anyone interested in learning anything and everything about Data Science, Analytics, Big Data, Data mining, Predictive Analytics and Statistics. There are no presentations and pizza. Just learning and doing. We will follow Data Science/Analytics related courses offered on Coursera as a group and have regular meetups as the course progresses. Looking for people who are serious about hand on learning. Come out and join us!!!!" Admittedly, that group is for adults interested in doing self-directed learning toward a subject that most likely has applicability to their livelihoods. The situation may be different for students in HS and college who don't have that context yet, and, especially in HS, may have had much of the joy of learning sucked out of them... Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" is what came to
mind for me when reading the last paragraph of the Washington Post article below, although I haven't read Clockwork Orange and don't have much desire to given how disturbing the movie is. Diamond Age includes a nanotechnology instruction book for the main character (a young girl) which, if my vague memory is correct, behaved much like the description in that paragraph. Brent From: Steve Smith <[hidden email]> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2013 12:51 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A Clockwork MOOC. Or following the CO riff, the student
groups could form in the same way street gangs do... Sharks v
Jets to put an almost sweet face on it compared to Bloods/Cryps or
whatever the wankers in CO were? The smartest (instead of the
toughest) would be a natural leader with some smart(ish)
lieutenants helping smartypants manage the lesser smarties...
providing focus and loyalty and interest. Would a diploma (in the
form of a neck tattoo?) from the Bloods have more street Cred than
if from the Cryps? I'm feeling a Neil Stephenson novel coming on.
My daughters partner is a former instructor at TVI who moved to teaching HS in ABQ and then Portland, who finally moved to tutoring. I will ask him if he thinks he (or others like him... freelance tutors) could restructure their work around MOOCs? Currently his students are mostly HS but some University in conventional courses... but perhaps some of the HS students (often either advanced or with special needs around focus/attention) he tutors might want to take on college level work via MOOCs. He tutors only physics and math right now but is often asked to do Chemistry and other things which he is competent in but not up to speed to actually tutor effectively. He could probably handle a wider range in the context of a MOOC where he could "study ahead" himself and be prepared before the students got to material. I think the one thing he misses about TVI and HS teaching is the group experience (though he doesn't miss baby-sitting teens and running interference with interfering parents). - Steve
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2
Terry -
That was a good summary from your perspective. I'm sharing it with the mail list where the discussion arose. I found two of your points very poignant. The first being about the value/importance of developed rapport between student-mentor (or student-teacher or even student-institution). The second is the paradoxical problem of as we make things more of a commodity, we reduce the perception of their value. Thanks! -Steve
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