MOOC Organization - Smaller Supported Groups Making Up Larger Network?

[Alec Couros]

My #eci831 course is cited as being one of the pre-MOOC courses that influenced some of the first Connectivist type MOOCs (once the name was formalized). In that course, I had 20ish students who were taking the course for credit (officially enrolled students), and I did a call for networked mentors that allowed other non-credit students to participate in the course. There is no doubt in my mind that those the benefitted the most from the experience were the 20ish non-credit students. There was certainly benefit to many of the non-credit students (especially those who were the most motivated and independent), but as an instructor, my focus had to be on the smaller group vs. the larger network.

Lisa M. Lane tweeted this to the other day:

@courosa you have the right idea with ECI831 design - focus on core students with supportive network - I should have paid more attention" (Source)

This is has been stuck in the back of my head ever since.

So, I'm wondering. What if we very explicitly designed this MOOC where Group Leaders (or some other designation) were responsible for a certain number of students (could be a uniform or non-uniform number based on type of group). Group Leaders might be those with a bit more experience with Ed Tech and running online courses. Groups could be formed by geography, by interest, or randomly.It would be up to the group leader to be responsible for their group (e.g., motivation, correspondence, sub-events, one-to-one support, etc.). We would still have the major MOOC type-events where everyone could attend, but groups could also partake in other types of activities. But of course, at the heart of all of this, we would still do our best to help each participant connect one-to-one, develop a PLN and a sense of networked individualism.

Thoughts?

[Elizabeth Dill]

Whom benefited most, the 20 credited students, right? In my experience that is certainly the case in librarianship. Forgive the analogy, but would these leaders be similar to grad assistants or more like online homeroom teachers?

 

At my university, the facilitators tend to be embedded based upon function, rather than location or some other criteria, but I don't know if that would work in this large environment.  It might be an idea you'd want to play around with, though. Sounds exciting!

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[Alec Couros]

Yes, definitely the 20 benefitted the most.

When I put this together I later thought of how we section some of our 'lab' classes, and I do think that analogy applies in some cases. However, I think it breaks down because I don't want to see any lead instructor (overarching) ... rather, I'd want all of these groups to be very independent and autonomous ... focusing very much on the needs of the individuals, groups, and then the larger network.

Basically, I want to support individuals through groups rather than leaving their growth up to networks. If we can help form and support those groups at sub-levels (modular groups/moods, sub-groups, sub-nodes, whatever we want to call this) I believe this will create a better experience for everyone at all levels.

Thanks for the feedback, Elizabeth.

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Associate Professor & ICT Coordinator

Educational Technology & Media

University of Regina, 

Regina, Canada

[Elizabeth Dill]

NP. I just had another idea for you to consider. As a way to possibly combat the non-credit drop out issue, you could consider applying some gamification princles in the MOOCs' instructional design. For instance, if you are breaking up participants into groups, the groups could be "teams" competing for idk, badges, or some other extrinsic goals? So not only the leader (or "coach," perhaps) is motivating the invidividuals within the groups, but the individuals within the groups themselves motivate each other so that the group as a whole "wins."  The first order of business could even be to name themselves some team name or something. I'm thinking of recent grad school projects when I had dreaded "group" work to do, I was far less lkely to procrastinate knowing I'd let the group down, thanI was as an individual where I'd wait until the night before to start.  Just crossed my mind as I'm considering doing such myself.

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[Elizabeth Dill]

This may be too much to incorporate in a large scenario, but I'll just throw out ideas as I think of them.

[Lenandlar Singh]

I really like the idea of smaller groups. I believe smaller groups by 'interest' might be a more natural way to organise (self-organise?) - i believe we organise naturally to some extent this way. I believe the challenge might be to allow fluidity across small groups while maintaining some level of focus within each small group since participants will have a range of interests. Course mentors/facilitators/leaders will definitely work well with smaller groups.

In large single/group MOOCs, im sure smaller groups form naturally but perhaps with more support for small groups, MOOCers might take away more from the experience.

Elizabeth, it is interesting that you mentioned gamification as a way to keep the group together - community building through competition?

Len

[valerie lopes]

Alec - I really like these suggestions of yours re the structure of the MOOC and I particularly like this:  "at the heart of all of this, we would still do our best to help each participant connect one-to-one, develop a PLN and a sense of networked individualism."

Valerie

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Alec Couros <aco...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Lisa M Lane]

That is exactly how I've organized the Program for Online Teaching Certificate Class. We call them mentors, and each is assigned 4-5 specific participants to assist throughout the class. It worked very well last year. This year people seem to think the mentor is supposed to be in the same field somehow, but we usually do it geographically so they can communicate synchronously if they want in near timezones.

[Alec Couros]

Cool. I must have been channeling you somehow. Glad it worked well!

How were the mentors chosen? How many participants did you have, roughly?

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Lisa M Lane <lisah...@gmail.com> wrote:

That is exactly how I've organized the Program for Online Teaching Certificate Class. We call them mentors, and each is assigned 4-5 specific participants to assist throughout the class. It worked very well last year. This year people seem to think the mentor is supposed to be in the same field somehow, but we usually do it geographically so they can communicate synchronously if they want in near timezones.

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[Elizabeth Dill]

I think an idea to group by field or occupation is an interesting one, for sure. I would love to mentor librarians, for instance (pretty please!!!). I think one thing to keep in mind is the potential for this to be extremely large group of people. Coursera's MOOCs have tens of thousands of people in them.  These are the cases where perhaps a tenth of the intial group actually complete the class. This example is my thinking behind the ideass I've presented thus far, i.e., gamification. 

Within the last week I've realized how esteemed Alec is (forgive me for not knowing sooner) and a huge figure and force in his field. But for safety's sake, let 's posit that there are hundreds of people in this MOOC (similar to the number of participants in the recent MOOC MOOC by Hybrid Pedagogy.) How do you build community and keep participants engaged? Because we don't have vast amounts of empirical  evidence to lead us all we can do is experiment.

@Len many studies have show that people are more motivated, engaged and often achieve more in games than in the real world. The 2012 Horizon Report predicts that game based learning is on the two or three year horizon for adoption in higher ed.  I think educators should keep open minds to new ideas and ways to facilitate learning :o)

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[CogDog]

This cannot be overlooked. The core of ds106 IMHO is having a group who is in it more for the casual interest. If you are paying for tuition and garnering the experience for credit somewhere, your stake in the game is much higher. If all it takes to MOOC it up is to click a button and not put any skin in, I am not convinced you have that critical core, or you are going to rely on the hard core dedication of volunteers.

So the trick is, what would be an incentive for people to invest more than just their interest? And not some sort of certificate, what can be asked of people in terms of commitment, like ante-ing up in poker? 

The other key factor, IMHO, for ds106, is that we are not trying to replicate the same experience for our core students as the experienced.  It is that expectation of many MOOCs that end up with the "drop out" rates (and I think that is a term that does not fit).

What are ways people can commit to this?

[Alec Couros]

I've been contemplating these issues long and hard, especially for the core support for a MOOCy thing like this. The heart of #eci831 was the core group that were taking it for credit, and the rest of the community built so well around it. I want to rebuild an experience like that (ran the course 5 times and it just got better each time), but I am seriously second-guessing that *this* could have the same type of success if it were to deviate away from being a course.

I've said on record that the 'course' part of the MOOC is the part that is most difficult for me, the part that the like the least, the part that holds everything back. Yet, it's hard to imagine how to get enough people, especially those newer to edtech at all, to break free from the order (and sometimes comfort) that a course provides.

At this point, I'm split between taking a risk on something very different that I'm not convinced will work well OR holding off until post-sabbatical (Sept. 2013) to run a substantially different course once I regain my core, registered students in #eci831. 

I'll continue to think about it this week. Thanks for everyone's support.

[Michael Wacker]

Alec,

one of the beautiful elements of Christian Long's "Alice Project" a few years back was the mentor piece provided by Christian't network. Though not required, the best part for me was in going through the inquiry and course requirements alongside the learners; reading the chapters they were reading, asking myself the questions they had and garnering up a few for myself. This was adults and young adults, but the idea was solid. Core facilitator driven questions or inquiries, that would ideally send folks off on rabbit hole adventures reporting back their experiences(s) and takes, or triggering more self-directed inquiry for the learner. The mentor model works well, and I could see a ton of joy, chasing knowledge with a handful of folks asking questions along the way. That would be quite fun.

I think that one thing you've always done really well is your push for open thinking, or learning out loud. If the expectation is that the only required "output" is public displays of academics, I think that is enough. g.

[Lisa M Lane]

No, I channel you, perpetually! ;-)

Right now we have about 40 people assigned to mentors, so about 10 mentors. This won't work necessarily for what you're doing, but we invite individuals to mentor by asking those who took the class sucessfully last time, plus volunteers, some of whom have done it before and enjoy it. On the Registration Survey, we ask everyone if they would be interested in mentoring, yes, no or only if needed. This lets us know the perceived level of the participant as well as whether they want to be a mentor, and gives us more people to call on.

That said, I'm not sure this is what you'll want for this class, unless it is designed in a similar way. I've been thinking a lot about design of these classes, mine and yours in particular. I'll post on my blog once get my thoughts together, but an important element is your own control of the structure and design. I can't tell whether you are crowd-sourcing the course design or just getting ideas.

Lisa

[Kirsten Hansen]

(This may be a response to multiple discussion threads so please forgive that, it all ties together in my head.)

In reading the responses here, I wanted to raise the issue of audience again. I am professionally interested in ed tech. Unlike many of the MOOCs out there which I might start out of curiosity or interest, ed tech is something that I would actually apply and something quite practical. For example, just in creating a MOOC we will be engaging in quite a few forms of ed tech. I am wondering if the target audience is primarily like me. Is the target people who use ed tech or who want to learn, people for whom this would be a form of professional development? (From what I've read, I really get the feeling that most of the MOOCs out there are a little less hands-on or immediately applicable, more for interest-level participation.)

If the target audience is people who use ed tech and who could be putting what they learn into practice (probably Fall semester or Spring/Summer if it rolls in Winter 2013), then we may have more investment from at least some participants. Also, those who are participating in the discussions prior to the course are more likely to have more investment so there may be a pre-existing pool of people willing to help drive things forward as mentors, group leaders, etc.

If we are looking at people who are in a field that would actually use ed tech as primary audience, then I definitely agree that more practical application and creating as opposed to solely discussing would be useful. For example, Learnist boards linking articles about using social bookmarking, with commentary about that issue. 

It makes me wonder about groups focused around forms of ed tech which produce a product which can share their knowledge with people who didn't participate in that group. That way the pedagogical discussions can be quite focused, people can participate in multiple groups if they have time/energy, but they can still get the benefit of those groups if they can't participate.

(I like the idea of groups based around people's fields but it could become unwieldy or be an organizational frustration if we have uneven numbers or awkward groupings.) 

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