In her TED talk, What We're Learning from Online Education Dr. Koller described the scarcity of opportunity to achieve advanced education, and the rapidly rising cost of it; as prohibitive factors for many people who want to learn and develop new skills. Additionally, she mentioned the shifting landscape of job opportunities, resulting in the lack of applicability of a degree earned, for many of those who can achieve it. Their careers may demand a different set of skills or knowledge than they received during their education. Coursera, created by Koller and her partner Andrew Ng, strives to be a solution to these problems. Armed with the mission to provide life-transforming educational experiences to learners by offering flexible, affordable, job-relevant online learning to individuals and organizations worldwide, Coursera offers courses from top colleges online, free, for anyone who wants to take them.
Free online education had existed before, but lacks the accountability and form that gives credibility to a students' claims that they have achieved something comparable to brick-and-mortar education.Elements that distinguish Coursera from other online open education proposals that came before it are: online content available on Coursera is available on a set date, with subsequent content issued according to a schedule. Students have deadlines for viewing and interacting with content, as well as submitting coursework.
The courses offered are dynamic and disrupt the usual educational model in ways that are proving to be highly effective. Content available in the courses is different from a lengthy lecture, delivered via video only. The material is broken into smaller modules, and can be aligned with preparatory lessons, or specialized lessons which apply basic information in various contexts. Even the component of a lesson which might take place through the viewing of a video is disrupted by requiring interaction from students in the form of intermittent comprehension questions.
Coursera has found that peer grading is a reliable method for evaluating some kinds of student performance. It can be used to grade online assignments that require critical thinking, especially related to humanities and social sciences studies. The results track closely to those garnered through instructor evaluation alone, and are even beaten by the reliability of results of self-grading. A disadvantage to peer and self grading is that, with such a diverse and immense student population, it is hard to predict how culture might affect one student's perception of another student's performance. It is also important to create incentives for honesty and being accountable for actual effort invested, lest students undeservingly give themselves high or passing marks.
Students enrolled in Coursera developed some of the potential of this new learning format. They began to self-organize into groups, along language, culture, geography and even according to a desire to interact with other languages and cultures. They shared information, advices, and provided companionship and support, much like in-person cohorts might do. They formed virtual and in-person student groups and enriched their educational experience through these connections and online communities.
Though the educational experience for students of Coursera sounds fresh and exciting, Dr. Koller shares that what educators have learned about human learning has been as revelatory and new. The significantly larger sample size of students from all of the world, engaging with course material virtually means that data is being collected about every student interaction. This provides insight as to common errors and confusion, and how to impact student performance.
Benjamin Bloom, educational psychologist, observed the effects of various modes of delivering instruction to students. He concluded that the lecture format was least effective of the methods he studied. A mastery approach, in which students still receive lessons in lectures, but cannot move onto new material before mastering current content, showed an improvement in student performance results. The most effective mode of instruction, according to Bloom, was individual tutoring. Coursera's proposal is, in some effects, providing something much more personalized than the traditional lecture format; almost a combination of the mastery approach and individual tutoring, as feedback can be more personalized and the experience itself is student-driven.
The consequence of being able to access top-quality education for all could tremendous for human-kind, at a moment when we might need it more than ever. Currently, human population is out-stripping the carrying capacity of the planet, and shows no sign of slowing down. Creative solutions, breakthroughs, depend on a diverse set of human ideas, and unique approaches to collaborating to test them and see them realized. Before Coursera, the bottleneck effect was strong, keeping most people from accessing top-quality education, due to lack of availability, proximity, or needed resources. By offering this life-changing opportunity to more people, in more parts of the world, we increase our chances for a robust response to the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Reference
What we are learning from online education
Daphne Koller @TEDGlobal 2012
https://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education
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Coursera: Online Education Model
Non-FictionEssay summarizing Dr. Koller's TED talk about Coursera.
