Ditto.
Yes. SMALL classes, frequent synchronous/live/interactive expert instruction. THEN it works. It works better for humanities than for math/science, however. Aside from computer science, which is obviously well-adapted to the medium.
The online model is flatly not very well-suited to math or science instruction. Period.
It's okay for math-- among autodidacts, that is, and understanding that this can be a developmental problem even for highly gifted youth. It's nearly insurmountable in anyone with executive function deficits.
In that population, the organizational and time-management skills needed and assumed are simply not available to be tapped without real-life supports. I really question whether or not online/virtual instruction in a conventional educational program can work for those students. In K-12, and with the support of parents who are supervising day to day, yes. But for post-secondary? No way would I encourage my ADHD college student to try this. No way.
The MOOC model is a disaster for anything below post-baccalaureate level teaching of math or science topics, honestly.
I can't really speak to how well it might work with humanities topics, but my guess is that the model itself could support a pretty great history or psychology course-- assuming semi-expert (e.g. grad assistant) facilitation/moderation. But what little I've seen suggests that these courses tend to mostly operate without the necessary level of support there.
Developers are focusing so heavily on the delivery model and the "how" of it all that they are forgetting to examine whether the model itself is inherently flawed when it comes to human learning.
I suspect that it is.
