I
do find it interesting.
The one type of class in which students learned even more effectively than in either online or traditional classes, the study found, was an approach called “interactive engagement pedagogy,” where students interact frequently in small groups to grapple with concepts and questions. Such “constructive engagement” in the classroom is something education reformers have long pushed for, Pritchard says, and is already used in many MIT classes.
Well, yes-- but that's something that I think MANY people have stated previously-- "traditional" coursework in the sciences pretty much hasn't existed in a way that DOESN'T include such interactive engagement for at least 20 years.
Most of the educators that I know already know that this is what works well, and they tend to promote more of it, usually at the expense of things that they know do NOT work so well (listening to droning lectures or passively watching things happen, mindlessly cranking through repetitive formulaic homework problems one after another, etc).
I think that this is a bit of a straw man, however-- from what I've been able to tell, relatively
FEW MOOCS get this one right. It's a matter of scaling, just as it is in large institutions already.
I'm disappointed that there isn't more discussion of what "equal" gains means in this context-- there are hints that this might be some sort of absolute scale, and not a percentile/percentage, but it piqued my interest.
This is the real news:
Fiona Hollands, a senior researcher at Teachers College of Columbia University who was not involved in this study, says, “In my opinion, this study represents the most rigorous attempt to date to measure learning in a MOOC. This study provides an excellent demonstration of how learning in a MOOC, or in other types of courses, can be rigorously assessed. Applied to a broader population of students and a variety of educational settings, such investigations would provide valuable information about the relative effectiveness of different forms of educational delivery.”
Agreed. And really-- kudos to the study authors for working out HOW to monitor what works and doesn't, and to start using the power of the data generated in this format for figuring those things out.
