There is a lot of buzz around the massive open online courses (MOOCs) these days. When the Ivy Leagues like the Harvards and the MITs, traditionally considered elitist, open up their curriculum for mass consumption and that too free of cost, there is bound to be some commotion in the market. Justin Marquis of OnlineUniversities.com calls MOOCs as ?the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. They are the opium of the people. The abolition of MOOCs as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.? Some insist that MOOCs are a bubble that will burst, while others like Coursera and FutureLearn that have received investments to foster learning through MOOCs think otherwise.
Marina Gorbis of the Institute for the Future (IFTF) calls MOOCs a disruptive innovation that will enable replacement of current model of education gateways (that permit or restrain the social mobility) by a model where learning is best conceived as a flow where learning resources are abundant and not scarce, and a learner autonomously takes a dip in and out of the continuously available learning flows.
During a recent conference on transferring Indian education through MOOCs, Prof MM Pant, Prof Marmar Mukhopadhyay and the likes called upon the policymakers to support the spread of MOOCs and the educators to own up technology-enabled education in a major way.
So, the question arises, is this really that serious an intervention? Is this a disruptive innovation? Is there something really unique about this pedagogy that the educator needs to worry? After all, distance education and online courses have been there for ages, so what?s new? And if it is threatening, why have the educators really innovated this? Why aren?t the perpetrators worried?
Responding to the latter first, it is important to note that all the schools that have opened their curriculum to MOOCs follow the participant-centred learning approach. This approach considers the student a motivated learner and the faculty a facilitator for learning. They challenge the ?sage on stage? and encourage the faculty to ?be the guide on the side?. Be it Harvard, Stanford or MIT, case method, simulations, role plays are all techniques they follow to deliver classes. All these require the student to read the material, understand the concepts and come prepared to classes for discussions in order to learn how to apply the concepts to real life scenarios. Reading the course material is, therefore, a prerequisite to appreciate what?s taught in the class. The value the instructor offers is, therefore, not in the course material but in what is transacted inside and outside the class between the faculty and the teacher and among the student groups. Any institute or professor who creates value beyond a book or a written word has no reason to worry. Naturally, these institutes have made available the material, which is, in any case, available in books or with case publishing houses. Curation of the material for a specific course is, of course, an advantage that MOOCs offer.
Some educators in extension or community schools at the undergraduate level in the US picked up some MOOCs, provided these for class preparation, and started using the classes for discussions and practical learning. This, in turn, gave a significant lift to the results of their courses, triggering a heated debate on benefits of MOOCs as against academic freedom of faculty.
However, what could become uniquely disruptive, is when the technology geeks will pick up the material, now freely available, and combine it with video lectures to create distance/online learning experience that covers almost anything that is available. The phenomena could take the shape of Wikipedia or the Khan academy where any professor could contribute a video-guided course. Now if that becomes available free or at minimal costs, it would provide access to a large number of aspirants who do not have access due to money, location or time disadvantages. A life-long learner would find it an immeasurably worthy resource. A motivated student would find it useful to embellish the learning.
Thus, MOOCs could potentially change the world of education. When small and big modules become freely available to all and when access is opened to masses in a sector that is supply-driven, the changes would be akin to what were witnessed in recent past in many sectors. MOOCs have the potential to do to education what liberalisation did to economy, internet did to information, transparency did to governance, consumer forums did to service providers, Wikipedia did to knowledge and what Napster did to music. The thread that weaves all these together is the disruption that technology caused to force a flipped model in each of these domains. The control moved from government, organisation and producer to markets and masses; what could be done or accessed by a privileged few became the right of all and the game changed from limited access to competence, raising the bar for all.
So, for educators who may be about to lose control, is this time to rejoice or rebel? To celebrate or mourn? Well, it’s an individual call because no matter what the educator chooses, the revolution is about to come; the change is bound to happen?whether they choose to lead the change or follow willy-nilly is a choice they can make.
Looking at it through an opportunist?s lens, the innovation is not really a threat to an educator. An increase in the online learning preference without the desire to earn a degree/certificate will open up a vast opportunity for all kinds of educators. A tenured professor teaching, say, 100 students for 30 years, ends up influencing 3,000 students, but one viral video can have him/her influence 30,000 students in one go. The equity one could build for oneself and one?s institute is a great value-add worth the time and effort. For a rookie professor and a victim of unemployment, this is a chance to independently develop lectures and offer courses online. A success story online would establish credentials when the educator applies for a job unless he/she decides to stay put as an independent educator. A retired professor who has a wealth of experience has the opportunity to offer online courses from the comfort of his/her home with a possibility of both?encashing brand equity or building one, not to mention the extra buck that could be earned.
If you are a ?sage on the stage? type, there could be no better time than now to showcase your lectures through state-of-the-art videos supported by animation. It’s time to be a rockstar teacher. If you are ?guide by the side? kind who is struggling to have the students read up more and be better prepared for discussions on application, then it’s time to switch to blended classrooms where you could add quality material or videos from the MOOCs to the course pack and have a more enriched discussion in the classroom. If you are the ?writing kinds?, it?s time to ink your thoughts as more and more students and learners use online learning.
The Company Bill 2013, making it possible to have a one-person company, couldn?t have come at a more opportune time. So, if the educator has in addition the entrepreneurial spirit, it?s also the best time to launch a thousand MOOCs. The recent conference ?Transforming Indian Education with MOOCs? witnessed leading educators speaking about the promise that MOOCs hold for a country that depends so much on the education revolution to be able to realise the youth potential, on which banks the realisation of the dream of becoming an economic superpower.
The author is chairperson (PGPM), MDI Gurgaon