Inside Higher Ed had this article on suspension of certain Udacity courses being offered at San Jose State. Also mentions edX project at SJS.
If nothing else, it gives some “talking points” to those who would like to derail, or dramatically slow adoption of online learning. Something for those who desire to push back, to push back with…
Similar article in Slate: here, gives a sense of how “journalism today” reports these things.
The half full report on this would include this:
But, because of the haste, faculty were building the courses on the fly. Not only was this a “recipe for insanity,” Junn said, but faculty did not have a lot of time to watch how students were doing in the courses because the faculty were busy trying to finish them. It took about 400 hours to build a course, though the courses are designed to be reused.
Another factor in the disappointing outcomes may have been the students themselves. The courses included at-risk students, high school students and San Jose State students who had already failed a remedial math course.
OTOH, who knows what “courses”…. or as we like to say instead, Defined Learning Experience (DLE) because new methods need new boxes… will look like in the future. Will they be instead week long DLE? Or embedded in some larger/smaller learning context than a singular “course” as it is today?
Do we know how well the present Udacity SJS courses “setup” actually fits various learners online, and how advanced the various “learning elements” are in these Udacity courses. For example, how much adaptive learning is going on? How effective is the Social Learning Construct (SLC)? Is there a Dynamic Learning Plan evoked for each student?
Any Gamification? Any Story Based Learning involved? (SBL)