Rounding off week one

Today's question:

• Based on your experience as a learner, what do you think you will be able to get out of this course? And what ideas do you already have about the future of education?

Based on my experience as a learner, I expect that I will read all the material, interact with the others as is expected of me (and then go way over the top, as I have done with this new blog), and complete the entire course.

This in itself will be an achievement as even though the common class size is about 20,000 (!) only a small minority in each class actually complete the MOOC they are taking. That is amongst the 6.7 million students who use MOOCs as a learning tool. There is a difference, in addition, between completion and learning. I am sure that a lot of people who are able to complete, do not complete for practical reasons, and not because the low-threshold format didn't fit them. Just as I am sure there are some who complete who didn't actually learn a thing.

Mind you, my definition of learning something is linked to Säljö's (1979) five types of learning, where the last two, abstraction of thought/material and the application of that material to alter the way in which you interact with the world, are the two most complex ones and the two I associate closest to actual learning. It's also what I am aiming for myself. In addition, I am hoping for something more.

What I think I will learn and get out of this course is ultimately not just mastering the course content (or course structure) itself. Naturally I hope to master and learn the material and topic the course covers; but I also hope to lift that learning to a meta-level, where I will be able to critically assess how I interact with material through the MOOC model of learning and MOOC education.

As I have been discussing in my previous blog posts, I believe that MOOC learning places different demands and has different expectations on the MOOC'er than the traditional student. The ability to reflect on one's own learning process and to critically assess one's own position in the relationship between material, reflection and learning, is paramount for successful learning through MOOCs. Perhaps this is one reason why the efficiency and ability of MOOCs to replace traditional (campus-based) learning is questionable. 

Consider this: Education may have changed since I was in school, but has learning changed? Fads come and go, of course, associated with a number of different theories. But are these not ultimately teaching theories? Theories about how we learn have different approaches to the act of learning, but the nuts and bolts of the process are basically the same. (For a longer discussion on the definition of learning, check out JS Atherton.) One can be critical of dictionary definitions of learning, but the general point I am making about learning and the process of learning (which is probably more a sociological, anthropological or neurological understanding depending on where you come from), is that while we more or less all agree all agree what learning is at its most basic form, the approach to learning and the learning system (the educational system) is constantly changing.

This is not good or bad, it simply is; and what we must realise is that faced with a new tool to assist this process (learning) we must also change the ways in which we interact with that tool. (Or, a more complex thought is that tools of learning change our approaches to learning as much as we have to change our approaches to being taught). 

What do I mean by MOOC meta-learning? A lot of the discussions relating to the first week's work (check out my Padlet contribution, for example, further down in this blog) take their starting point in what the different individuals themselves experienced in school or in higher education. That's great. But, if the learner isn't able to look past this, and to objectively and critically work through this experience, the learning becomes superficial and sporadic: Simply associated with personal, subjective experience. We are not talking about surface learning (where the student basically learns the bare necessities to make it through the course), but closing the gaps between thought, reflection and material and differentiating between that which is learned and that which is taught.

MOOC meta-learning requires that you not only critically assess that which is taught, internalise it and personalise it (so, learn it), but you also need to constantly revise where you are in the learning process and how you are relating to the material. It is self-driven, as opposed to being fed the material by teachers (the stand and deliver/blackboard concept which isn't used for this particular course - although I am sure some MOOCs do use it), and actually reflects a very advanced relationship to learning and education. Am I there? I don't know, but I am sure to find out as we advance through the next stages of this course, The Future of Education.

As to ideas on the future of education - considering the problems educational systems around the world are facing, the need to get more kids successfully through the educational system, LLL, and knowledge based economies - I am sure what we need more of to secure the future of education is learning how to take advantage of the MOOC method and what it has to offer, while taking the most significant parts of traditional teaching and implementing them in a different way of thinking about education. In closing, this implies emphasising a meta-understanding of learning, and learning how to learn, amongst school age children. How to learn, as well as how we learn, should perhaps be the first thing kids learn to discuss - and challenge - in school.