Time is not a valid reason for low MOOC completion rate

We asked students who completed several of our previous MOOCs (Power Searching and Advanced Power Searching with Google) why they didn't complete the course. The most frequently selected answer, nearly 70% of self-selected survey completers, was "not enough time," which was much more frequently selected than alternatives like "class was too difficult" or "problems with technology." This corresponds with what I've been reading and hearing about MOOCs (like this non-scientific article in OpenCulture).

I believe that when someone says they don't have time for something, it really means that they did not find that activity valuable enough to prioritize it over other activities. If I say I don't have time to call my grandmother, it's not because I don't have time. It's because I'd rather play a few extra rounds of Candy Crush. I prioritize tasks based on their inherent value to me. Relaxing with some casual games almost always seems more fun than writing blog posts. I don't play games while I'm at work, though, not because I don't have time, but because I prioritize getting my work done instead of risking the consequences.

Implications for MOOC instructional design

• Communicate how long you expect students will spend in your course. (I am guilty of seriously underestimating how long it will take students to complete assignments. For Advanced Power Searching, I even said in the intro video, "We estimate that you could complete this course in three hours." We found via anecdotes that some students took ten to twelve hours to complete a single challenge.)
• Communicate the benefits to the students early and often. What will they be expected to do differently after the course? Will they earn a certificate? If so, what's the value of the certificate?
• Make the course as flexible as possible. If students don't want to sit through seven hours of lectures, can they jump directly to the end of course projects? Can they complete activities without watching videos? Can they choose the content that is relevant to them? 

Areas of future research
I'd like to know, when students say, "I didn't have time to complete this course," what they really meant. Did they mean, "I had more important obligations," or "I didn't see the value in completing it," or "It was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be?"

Google's Experiments with MOOCs at ASTD Conference

I'm excited to be presenting at the ASTD international conference in Dallas, TX in May. Phil Wagner and I will be talking about what it's like to create a MOOC from an Instructional Design perspective. We will highlight examples from our work on Google's MOOCs, including Power Searching with Google and Advanced Power Searching with Google.

Session Description

Will we see you there?

SXSWedu: Thoughts, reflections, and questions

I enjoyed attending SXSWedu this month on behalf of Google. Between spending time chatting with folks in the Google lounge and giving presentations about Course Builder, I managed to sit in on a few sessions. I left the conference with more questions than answers.

Overall thoughts, reflections, and questions

• I thought it was highly ironic that the panelists in the Online Education session were touting the benefits of open online learning but still rely on elite schools/degrees to find their “experts.” 
• Will employers get beyond requiring formal degrees from high-powered schools to a model where potential employees will be able to demonstrate their skills prior to being hired? 
• MOOCs + Makers? How could we blend the two to get the best of both worlds? If you flip your classroom and provide the background knowledge via video/text, then in class you could have maker-style projects to apply the skills.
• Who sets the common core standards? Why aren’t skills like collaboration, research, presentation, and negotiations in there? These are skills that will enable students to succeed in most businesses. Why is there such a disconnect between education and business?
• I wanted to meet more teachers. There weren't as many as I had hoped, likely because it was in the middle of a 

Hanging out

I was one of the panelists in EdSurge’s Live from SXSWEDU Hangout on Air about the current state and future of higher education. Betsy Corcoran from EdSurge moderated the panel; there were two other folks from Noodle and 2U. She asked questions about trends, quality of online courses, equity of access to courses, and who owns student data.

MOOC Keynote

Andrew Ng (Coursera) and Anant Agarwal (EdX) spoke about the history and future of MOOCs. 

• Why have MOOCs exploded now? 
• Students can take courses from the best professors at the best universities along with a community that supports each other
• Social networking + video (YouTube) + expensive college
• “I think that what our conception of a MOOC is may turn out to be wrong.” -Andrew Ng
• “[Working with humanities professors has been] An inspiration to learn about different types of pedagogy.” -Ng 
• Will half of all colleges be bankrupt in 15 years? 
• Ng: no. Espcially for weaker students, the relationship between professors and students is sacred
• The real value in attending a top university is the interaction between students and with professors
• Flipped classrooms will take over in the future
• We’re shifting to a continuous-knowledge world; 4-year colleges will morph into 2, 3, 7, year colleges that we will use for the rest of our lives
• The question of credit/accreditation: how is it evolving?
• Students have been adding MOOC “letters of completion” to their resumes
• Agarwal: Employers want skills, not credentials
• Agarwal: The degree concept is starting to change
• Why are most MOOCs semi-synchronous on a certain time frame? 
• Cohort effect: students in the community can work on materials together
• No deadlines: saw much lower traffic
• Probably something in the middle will emerge
• EdX courses leave the materials open after the course ends without certificates
• At many universities, profs were rewarded for research, not for teaching (because research would have a bigger impact on the world). This is starting to change!

Reviving the blog

A lot has changed in the three years since I posted last. I have been heavily involved in the MOOC trend that has swept through Silicon Valley (I would say that it's more grandiose than that, but I still encounter people who haven't heard of MOOCs). It's time to publish some thoughts about my MOOC philosophy, experiences, and experiments, if only to help refine my own perspectives.

In theory, there are people who are interested in reading what I write, and I hope will comment thoughtfully.

Old concepts new to me

Switching teams last week has left me with some extra time to read, learn, and think. I wanted to note some of the key themes that I have been thinking about. 

"New approaches to performance mean change, and preparing people for change is the business of training and its only justification." (Gilbert, T. 1982. "A Question of Performance Part II: Applying the PROBE Model." Training and Development Journal)

We commonly think about training as a solution to teach people things. Redefining training as "preparing people for change" is very compelling to me. I think that it really helps people focus on the performance impact that training has. 

"The process of design is not just for designers, but for anyone whose business it is to create or lead something... anyone whose job it is to imagine something that does not yet exist and then plot the path from imagination to existence." (Pacione, C. 2010. "Evolution of the Mind: A Case for Design Literacy." Interactions)

I love the description of what a designer does in the statement above. I don't think I had ever thought about what it really means to design something; as an instructional designer, I certainly imagine what doesn't exist and then make that solution happen.

"There are more starry-eyed engineers out there building incredibly hard-to-use things than there are competent designers trying to make things comprehensible and pleasurable for human beings." (Pacione, C. 2010. "Evolution of the Mind: A Case for Design Literacy." Interactions)

This is highly relevant to my new role of working on the engineering training team!

White House crashers: a training issue?

Last night on CNN, I heard a Senator talking about the "White House crashers." He said that this training issue would be addressed with the Secret Service. 

I confess to not knowing the ins and outs of this situation (thank goodness I'm not on the Secret Service training team), but I feel that this type of comment illustrates what's wrong with the perception of the training world. It seems that, in this scenario, the security guards knew that they were supposed to check the guest list and identification at the door. Why didn't he do it? If he knew how to check the guest list and identification, then this is not a training issue! It could have been another performance factor that interfered: were the expectations to check every single guest not clear? Was he not motivated to follow proper procedures? Were the procedures too arduous, was the line of guests too overwhelming? Was the process flawed? 

I don't profess to know all the answers, but I'm pretty sure that this was not simply a training issue. 

Thanks for attending our session at DevLearn!

We had a great turnout and a lot of fun. 

Remember that you can try out our tools and see results of the carousel survey at the session's website: http://sites.google.com/site/ispigoog/devlearn-home