MIT Report Questions the Fitness of the Course as the Organizational Metaphor for Higher Learning

by Nate Otto, Project Coordinator for the Badges Design Principles Documentation Project

Today saw the release of a 213 page report (PDF) from a cross-disciplinary MIT task force investigating the future of MIT Education, which makes 16 recommendations, including to further a commitment to innovation in pedagogy. The Chronicle of Higher Education today picked up on a key component of that innovation, a recommendation to explore "modularity" in the delivery of online learning environments, which could extend to experimentation in the classroom as well: Are Courses Outdated? MIT Considers Offering 'Modules' Instead.  

The question underlying the MIT task force's recommendation is whether a "course" as an organizing metaphor for learning continues to be appropriate in a landscape that sees as low as 5% MOOC completion rates.

Major Highlights of the 2013 Educational Assessment BOOC

by Tara Kelley and Dan Hickey

This post summarizes the high levels of engagement and learning that occurred in the Big Open Online Course (BOOC) on Educational Assessment in fall 2013.  The course will be offered again during summer 2014, starting May 13.  You can earn a certificate, digital badge, credit, or even just learn.  For more information and to register, visit here.

xMOOC, cMOOC, DOCC or BOOC: What's in a name?

Tomorrow is the official start of the Videogames and Learning Coursera MOOC developed by Kurt Squire and Constance Steinkuehler at University of Wisconsin Madison.  In this post I compare the pros and cons of Coursera's more expository "xMOOC" format with the connectivist "cMOOC" format  advanced by Siemans and Downes and show how the the more modest "big" format of IU's Big Open Online Course is turning out to be a useful interim context for design-based research of hybrid formats for future massive courses that can exploit the advantages of these very different formats while minimizing the negatives.

Google Course Builder Merges with Open edX: Implications for Our Big Open Online Course on Educational Assessment

This post considers some specific implications of the recently announced merger between Google's Course Builder platform and the Open edX platform.   These implications are specific to the Big Open Online Course on Educational Assessment that we kicked off on September 9, 2013 using Course Builder and with support from Google (and the blessings and oversight of Indiana University).  This post highlights the successful first week of the course and speculates about the future of several BOOC instructional innovations given this merger. This post is also intended to provide the 400+ students who registered for the Assessment BOOC with some explanation of the features they are now working with and some indication of how things are going.

On MOOCs, BOOCs, and DOCCs: Innovation in Open Courses

This post examines the features of Anne Balsamo's DOCC (distributed open collaborative course) in light of current issues in open courses.  This extended post discusses the pros and cons of a distributed approach to curriculum in light of the BOOC (big open online course) on educational assessment that Indiana University is offering in Fall 2013

Online Open Courses Raise Eleven Issues for Higher Education

by Daniel Hickey

            I introduce eleven issues that I am going to have to address with my university in order to teach a free open online course on educational assessment.  I then explore the first issue, Intellectual Property, and how that issue intersects with instructional innovation in open courses.

Google Funds an Assessment Practices, Policies and Principles BOOC

by Dan Hickey

This post describe the Big Open Online Course on assessment that was recently funded by Google.