Importance of a cohort in a MOOC

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Apostolos K.

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Jul 12, 2011, 9:35:29 AM7/12/11
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I know eduMOOC is about online learning, and MOOCs are online, so I
guess this discussion fits in here.

One thing that struck me in another thread is the idea of a rolling
MOOC, no end and no beginning. This kind of reminds me of old school
Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) where I have spent A TON of time over the
past 15 years and I have learned a lot. It also reminds me of self-
paced eLearning (although a MOOC being massive and open, I don't know
how an self-paced fits in).

So here's the question that came to mind, for which I don't have an
answer, but I'd like to see what you think: Do you think that cohorts
matter in a MOOC? The idea of dipping in and out of weekly content is
something that has been brought up as well. Both a rolling enrollment
and an inconsistent week-to-week group serve as diminishing the
cohort, so it could potentially affect other people's participation.
For example in CCK11 and in mobiMOOC I enjoyed reading a contributions
from a handful of people (and I regularly checked their blogs for
them). Once I had identified my cohort (so to speak), if they didn't
post, I found some weeks dry and I would be less apt to participate.

So, do cohorts matter in a MOOC? Does the Massive and the Open
encourage cohorts to form? Would the lack of cohorts be detrimental to
participation and learning in a MOOC?

Mary

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Jul 12, 2011, 2:06:13 PM7/12/11
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This is a really good question, Apostolos?
I think it may depend....
Having participated in a series of MOOCs offered by folks at Regina
(Cormier), Athabasca (Siemens) and the Canadian Research Council (Kopp
and Downes, Downes), I see that people who have maintained blogs and/
or who have conversed over these five years, particularly the credit
students, seem to be collaborating on research and sharing all matter
of content. Openness is one of the principles of participation in that
network. Diversity is valued there, as well. Credible and capable
facilitators who make sure people get connected.... and those special
guests who have presented during Elluminate sessions are likely to
draw people back into conversations. The fact that all of the courses
in the sequence are open has the effect of creating the sense that one
is a part of a cohort group and a network that goes far beyond the
course. I am more drawn into conversations with the individuals in the
Cohort that started in CCK08. Rather than trying to grow a large
network, I prefer to engage in sustained and substantive dialogue over
time... around interesting questions. I spend a certain amount of time
perusing the materials and technologies every week, and I don't rely
on any cohort to do that. I have specific goals that relate to my work
as a literacy teacher educator; there has been little constructive
interest in my field within the MOOC so I keep track of who's who and
what their interests are. If our paths cross, and I see something that
might interest to someone in the group, I post it in a shared space or
on their blog, as sharing is a norm within that group. I have taken
other online courses where building a community of inquirers and
researchers is not part of the socialization. These courses tend to be
professional development or training sessions (Not MOOCs--Not open or
courses, but massive and online) generally offered by organizations
related to some aspect of my work. In those online sessions, I
listen... take note... and it does not matter who is in the
session.... People tend to drop out of MOOCs if the content is not
related to their goals or interests and/or when confronted by other
work/life demands. Being a part of a cohort group might enrich a
person's learning experience in a MOOC, but in the absence of a
cohort, people still learn, contribute, and track....

Wayne Mackintosh

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Jul 13, 2011, 1:06:33 AM7/13/11
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Hi Apostolos,

Excellent but also a very important question!

This alludes to the unique and distinctive advantage of an open OER learning model. Imagine the ability for any learner in the world to start any online learning course of their choice at any time in the year.

Well, in theory I think that this is possible and something we will be aiming to achieve with the OER university - hence our interest in the MOOC model as a delivery option. In our UNESCO press release earlier this year, we stated that our aim is to provide free learning for all students worldwide with the option to gain credible credentials. I think that this is fundamentally doable.

The idea of an open academic year where students can register at almost any time is not science fiction. At Athabasca University, Canada's online university, students can enrol pretty much every month of the year. In distance education it is possible to separate learning from the constraints of the academic year / calendar.  Also -- if we disaggregate the services of teaching, assessment and credentialling from cohort-based thinking, it is possible to provide more individualised learning experiences. Learners who prefer to learn over a longer period of time, will be free to do so. Learners who want to compact their learning into a shorter period, will be free to do so in the OERu model.

Herein lies a very interesting opportunity and unique feature of a MOOC. If the MOOC is big enough -- it is theoretically possible to provide peer learning support for learners all starting their journey at a different time of the year. So I've been contemplating the size of MOOCs -- because sometimes, with big things you can achieve a level of diversified service provision not possible with smaller cohorts. A good example of how the OER university may be able to implement the principles of mass customisation in education.

Hence my curiosity in the question: How big is a MOOC? Double the number from one week to another ....

Let's make OER futures happen!

Cheers
Wayne

Vance

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Jul 13, 2011, 3:44:34 AM7/13/11
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So many questions: how big is a MOOC? what is the importance of a
cohort in a MOOC? what is its optimal time frame? can participants dip
in and dip out? in which case can they dip in and dip out over a
number of years? band together informally in a space that's not called
a MOOC?

What IS a MOOC? (Wikipedians working on that one as we speak)

In one of out EduMOOCasts, Jeff Lebow suggested that perhaps EVO or
Electonic Village Online is a MOOC. It is an ongoing event taking
place each January-February since 2001. It's massive on a scale of
hundreds to thousands, it's open, it's online, and it's a set of
courses. And it rolls over year after year at http://evosessions.pbworks.com,
but organizationally or logistically, it sustains itself year round as
its coordinators line up mentors prior to the call for moderators, who
then undergo training which is also organized year round, so they can
conduct the sessions in January and February.

I'm starting to think that communities of practice such as http://webheads.info
could conceivably be construed as a MOOC. This group is also massive
on the scales discussed here (over 1000), it is open, online, and is a
course insofar as its members are constantly learning from one
another, overtly in the case of its weekly online events which have
taken place every Sunday since 1998, and have most recently manifested
themselves in the seminar series archived at http://learning2gether.posterous.com.

Size is one thing that MOOCs seem to have in common. It has been
pointed out that this is a necessary characteristic, but I've been
experimenting with what I call Miniscule Open Online Courses, which is
where I think that the principles on which MOOCs are based apply to
courses run on a much smaller scale e.g. http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com.
Some of these characteristics are:
extremely student centered,
highly networked,
course consists of rich content,
facilitators provide coherent PLE,
participants navigate curriculum according to their interest and
individual choices

In recent renditions of the above course, assessment has been by means
of ePortfolios. I think there is an upcoming MOOC being arranged on
that topic, which is a logical accompaniment to MOOCs.

I think these ideas are revolutionizing how we (we in this particular
choir) are thinking about how we might configure and deliver
educational products, but as with most revolutions, the ideas have
been there all along, it's just that now the spark is there, or
connectivity is such that this is now possible on truly massive
scales, and the time is right for many of us to realize that the
people in the next cubicles (or in the ones we've been connecting with
recently) have been mulling these issues in the same way we have for
some time now.

In our most recent EduMOOCast Nellie Deutsch was hypothesizing on what
has given this particular MOOC its legs. She attributes a lot of that
to the relaxed degree of control that the moderators here have been
exercising, but I would say also that the participants in their
present mindset are also more in a position now to take their own
control. There are many experienced MOOCers here, which could not
have been possible with the first one just a couple of years ago, when
the ground rules were only then being formulated.

But that was when this phenomenon was first called a MOOC. Have we in
fact been MOOCing all along?

Vance







Jenny

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Jul 13, 2011, 3:50:59 AM7/13/11
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When I began eduMOOC my first thought was "How will my previous knowledge be useful to me here? How will I fit in?"

So I think creating an option for new members to join a cohort will meet a number of goals related to engagement and persistence. If I have some shared understanding of the knowledge principles in a selected CoI, I am able to establish connections with content and interpersonal relations quickly and begin knowledge exchange and construction. This explains why the experienced MOOC participants have said they  prefer to follow particular individuals rather than establishing connections with new arrivals. I surmise it is related to cognitive load because schemata unique to the cohort have been established by the CoI members and this schema may be situated within that cohort only, and not necessarily in the referenced outside of that setting by the individuals. In other words the actuated knowledge (?) can exist exist in the network.

The discussion relates to the work of Wenger and Lave, and other learning community theorists who posit that learning occurs more often when there is a network of connections, a repertoire of resources, time for sustained interaction and a program and a goal to produce a knowledge base. That describes a CoI or cohort rather well. So from a social cognitive perspective, providing an option to join a cohort is a really a good idea. 

I think offering rolling enrollment is another good idea. But not having some sort of marker like a calendar or project due date is not. Wenger suggests that we join  CoI to meet a goal and to produce a knowledge base (1998). Without some sort of benchmark towards progress, this would be difficult for individual members to determine.

Jenny

Wenger, E. C. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. (2006 ed). ISBN-I0-521-66363-6 paperback


Apostolos K.

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Jul 13, 2011, 12:25:51 PM7/13/11
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From some of the replies I gather that open enrollment (or rolling
enrollment) and cohorts aren't mutually exclusive. I guess the key
thing here (which was discussed in another thread, I don't remember
which one) is the issue of critical mass. If there is enough of a
critical mass in a rolling enrollment course, then the cohort issue
works itself out since people tend to form ad-hoc groups. if the
critical mass is not there, then the cohort issue does come into
play.

The question then becomes, how does one predict the popularity of a
MOOC? If a MOOC is popular enough to sustain cohorts in a rolling
enrollment model then things are OK. If the MOOC isn't as popular
(niche subject perhaps?) then it becomes and issue.

As a side note, I like Jenny's idea for the option of joining cohort
groups from the onset of the MOOC.

It's great for someone to reference Wenger! I remember him from my
Knoweldge Management days as an MBA student :-) Now that I work more
with education I keep coming back to CoP :-) I haven't read much on
CoI yet.

keith.hamon

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Jul 13, 2011, 12:57:26 PM7/13/11
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It seems to me that MOOCs have already ignored the concept of cohorts, except for those relatively few students who take the MOOC for credit. The engagement data suggests that people come and go in a MOOC as their schedules allow and as their interests wax and wane. The only sense of a cohort that I get is formed by the start and end dates, and even then, CCK11 is continuing on Facebook, DIIGO, etc. And I'm beginning to sense hard-core MOOCers mobilizing for an upcoming MOOC even before its start date. Thus, even the start and end dates are becoming irrelevant. I'm seeing lots of the same people in successive MOOCs, so it wouldn't be very difficult to say that there's just been one long MOOC punctuated by shifts in focus or topic and shifts in presenters, which would be expected if a MOOC lasted a long time.

To my mind, then, cohorts are already irrelevant to MOOCs, which raises very interesting questions about validation. What do we do when there is no end point other than our own wandering interests?

Rebecca

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Jul 14, 2011, 10:17:56 PM7/14/11
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I think the issue for me personally if a mooc ran all the time is that
I would loose interest and there wouldn't be anything to draw me back.
I put a lot of energy into participating in a mooc and there is no way
I could sustain it. So I think the fixed duration serves a special
purpose, it makes the time special and helps encourage participation
for otherwise you may feel a lost opportunity.

I do think the cohort is important. Although I scan all posts, I also
find certain people draw me to participate. So there is value in
recognizing a familiar "face".

Cheers
Rebecca

On Jul 12, 9:35 am, "Apostolos K." <a.koutropou...@gmail.com> wrote:

Mary

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Jul 22, 2011, 3:39:49 PM7/22/11
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In the MOOCs that have been facilitated by the Canadians (Downes, et
al.) and the extended network :

Its always a multiplayer game... within a game... within a game.
Inquiry is at the heart of learning.
Relationships, recognition, and responsibility emerge as values.
Practice/Research are connected so useful knowledge is created
Every end is a new beginning.

Rebecca

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Jul 23, 2011, 4:30:18 AM7/23/11
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I occurs to me that the issue of a cohort in a rolling mooc is the
same as the question of touch groups. If you had touch groups that
started at different times and had a limited duration (say, you make a
commitment to be in a touch group for 4-weeks), would that be long
enough to form the relationships necessary to keep you socially
motivated to participate in a MOOC?

Vanessa Vaile

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Jul 23, 2011, 12:37:40 PM7/23/11
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Also, four week commitment would be easier to manage - and sign up
participant volunteers. Very likely, a number would stay longer.

Cohorts remind me of what some public schools in Sacramento were
(maybe still are) doing - organizing into "houses" or smaller
divisions within the larger school. Hardly a new idea. I remember the
drive in the 50s to consolidate smaller schools in large ones to apply
economy of scale to education.

I noticed one repeating mooc, EC&I 831
(http://eci831.wikispaces.com/), posting a call for non-credit
participant volunteers to mentor credit participants less likely to be
repeat moocquies. This reminds me of older campers becoming if not
camp counselors then helping them with new campers. Another not new
idea. Anyone have experience with how that worked out last year?

Moocs don't just roll but repeat too ~ yet another factor effecting
dynamics, ecology ~ or never ending ethnography

Which will be the best way to form cohorts ~pre-determined according
to algorithm / selection criteria, random draw or self-forming ~
remains to be seen or maybe not, leaving the option open to host
preferences and other preferences. So far, it's all still
"insufficient data." I suspect (hope) conflicting tendencies will
manage to co-exist, available options.

--
Vanessa Vaile
Mountainair NM
vaness...@gmail.com

Marguerite Veres

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Jul 23, 2011, 5:54:44 PM7/23/11
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The cohort model would keep participants more focused. I do like the idea of limited times. I find myself coming in and out when time permits. I am getting so many good ideas for my own on line classes from this MOOC.

Mary Rearick

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Jul 23, 2011, 7:22:54 PM7/23/11
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I find the MOOC experience energizing, but there are times that work and family responsibilities get in the way of full participation. My way of managing energy is to  set purposes for participating in the MOOC, which may be satisfied through full participation or through engagement with a few people within the MOOC or through quick previewing of material.

I must say that when participants in a series of MOOCs decided to replace their photos with cartoons, characatures, etc. I did not feel much like contributing to any discussion.
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