Presentation Scales In Massive Online Courses; Does Interaction?

lpress writes "Coursera has demonstrated that they can scale presentations in massive, open, online courses — they have reached over 1.3 million students in 195 countries since they were funded in April. But can they scale student interaction? As of this morning, 7,839 Coursera students had formed 1,119 communities on Meetup.com in 1,014 cities — many outside the U.S." On the whole, isn't that a positive outcome?

Isn't that good...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the whole, isn't that a positive outcome?

I dunno; are they forums where the blind lead the deaf or are they staffed with people who are able to answer questions correctly and quickly enough that students don't learn the wrong lessons?

Not exactly scaling well

[artor3]

So 8k students out of 1.3M have formed study groups? While that's good for those students, I'd hardly call it scaling well. That's a rate of 0.6%. Far, far lower than what you get in traditional universities.

Do students really need to resort to a third party site to meet each other? If so, that's probably part of the problem right there. It seems like integrating social networking features right into Coursera would help to tremendously increase the rate at which students interact.

Re:What's special about study groups?

[redfield]

These are university courses. You don't learn anything useful by having someone tell you the 'right answer' to a made-up problem. The point of the problems is to learn to think about the issues and build the skills needed to find answers. Study groups are places where students can help each other build these skills. Even in face-to-face tutorials, a good TA doesn't just tell students the answers, but helps them find their own ways to the answers.

Re:What's special about study groups?

[AK Marc]

I passed more than one university course with the help of identifying what the professor wanted to hear. Some lecture from their writings and theories and test from the book. Others read from the book and test from lecture notes and other supplimentary material. Interaction with the grade giver has value. Chatting with some chums isn't the same thing, no matter how "wiki" it feels. The truth isn't decided by committee. In a university course, the truth is decided by dictatorship.

Granted there is a difference between learning about a subject and getting an "A" in a class about that subject. Given the choice, I prefer both to neither.