MOOCs and online learning: learner support and teacher workload Diana Laurillard London Knowledge Lab Institute of Education 08 July 2013

The issues Global demand for HE The aims of HE The roles of TEL Modelling MOOCs Teachers as innovators The Challenges to Higher Education

The global demand for HE The new UNESCO goals for education: Every child completes a full 9 years of free basic education … Post-basic education expanded to meet needs for knowledge and skills … (Draft for UNESCO post 2015 goals) By 2025, the global demand for higher education will double to ~200m per year, mostly from emerging economies (NAFSA 2010) Implying significant graduate and teacher training needs for this level of schooling and HE 1:25 staff:students??

The knowledge industry is regarded as a global business… Because HE is seen as a market game rather than a social project… universities no longer have to apologize for treating international students as customers who represent a significant income stream (Scott, 2011: 64) UK Export income of HEIs: £2.4bn fees; £4.3bn for living So online teaching as an export generates much less ROI We are now entrepreneurial universities, but which of our classic values do we preserve? Universities as businesses

The aims and purpose of HE The purposes of higher education: To inspire and enable individuals to develop their capabilities to the highest… To increase knowledge and understanding for their own sake… To serve the needs of an adaptable, sustainable knowledge-based economy… To play a major role in shaping a democratic, civilised, inclusive society (NCIHE, 1997) How could mass HE achieve that nurturing of the individual, while reducing the current 1:25 staff:student ratio for student support?

The fundamental academic aims To improve the quality and scale of HE across the world - Not to access masses of data from desperate would-be students - Not simply to market our existing courses more widely - Not to provide free CPD to employed professionals

Adaptive feedback (simulation/models) Expositions (lecture videos) Automated grading (MCQs, quizzes) Readings (pdfs) Collaboration activities (wiki) Peer group discussion (forums) Peer grading against criteria (tests) Tutored discussion (forums) Tutor feedback (e-portfolio) Adaptive feedback (simulation/models) Expositions (lecture videos) Automated grading (MCQs, quizzes) Readings (pdfs) Collaboration activities (wiki) Peer group discussion (forums) Peer grading against criteria (tests) Tutored discussion (forums) Tutor feedback (e-portfolio) Adaptive feedback (simulation/models) Expositions (lecture videos) Automated grading (MCQs, quizzes) Readings (pdfs) Collaboration activities (wiki) Peer group discussion (forums) Peer grading against criteria (tests) Tutored discussion (forums) Tutor feedback (e-portfolio) Understanding high quality T&L MOOC vs standard online coursePreparation time (fixed costs) Support time (variable costs)

Lessons from Georgia Tech MOOC Issues AT&T is donating $2-million; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation support Some students want a great deal of guidance Evaluating students writing can only rely on peer review Platform constraints affect pedagogy: Not allowed to a fail a student who gives no feedback So many students get no peer feedback Students can automatically peer revieweven if they failed the training Good points Students form communities within the discussion forums Peer help with questions about content or technology More ambitious students have developed study guides Some self-identified instructors have formed their own forum, to consider how they can use our course to teach their own students

The Duke MOOC Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach Taught in class for over 20 years Experimental move to a free and open MOOC 12,000 students enrolled from >100 countries 8 weeks long 97 ~6 min videos 22 GB of data 1052 files 18 graded exercises, including a peer-graded writing assignment and final exam (Duke University 2013)

The Duke MOOC Not for undergraduates Potential undergraduates Enrolled students

The Edinburgh MOOCs Not for undergraduates Enrolled students Potential undergraduates 40% 30% 17% 10% 3% Edinburgh 2013 – Report #1

The Duke MOOC Not for the faint-hearted Comparable with normal online u/g courses = 2% of enrolment

The Edinburgh MOOCs Average student numbers per course = 10% of enrolment

420 hours to develop materials and course design Basic MOOCs vs the Duke MOOC: Comparing the learning experience Videos and pdfs Quizzes Wiki Peer discussions Peer grading Tutored discussions Summative assessment High on prep time Zero contact for 42 hours Low on prep time High contact for 8 hours 200 hours to support ~500 students for 8 hours = 1:20 staff student ratio Basic: 8 weeks, providing 50 hours learning time, no support Report at Duke: 8 weeks, providing 50 hours learning time:

Comparing teacher hours for a basic MOOC and the Duke MOOC (48 hour course) Support time Duke MOOC 20 hrs200 hrs2000 hrs Basic MOOC 0.00 Teacher support time rises to 2000 hours for 5000 students hours = 1 year of a tutor for a 5 credit course. = 24 FT tutors for 120 credit course. Total teacher time Preparation time = 420 hrs The variable cost of support does not achieve economies of scale Prep time = 420

Modelling the benefits and costs We need to understand the pedagogical benefits and teacher time costs of online HE What are the new digital pedagogies that will address the 1:25 student support conundrum? How do we turn variable-cost pedagogies into fixed-cost?

Large-scale pedagogy (Edinburgh MOOCs) Academic reads posts selectively and summarises each week so not a variable cost + Popular with students Academic reads posts selectively and summarises each week so not a variable cost + Popular with students

Pedagogies for supporting large classes Concealed MCQs The virtual Keller Plan The vicarious master class Pyramid discussion groups Tutorial for 5 representative students Questions and guidance represent all students needs Conceal answers to question Ask for user-constructed input Reveal multiple answers Ask user to select nearest fit 240 individual students produce response to open question Pairs compare and produce joint response Groups of 4 compare and produce joint response and post as one of 10 responses... 6 groups of 40 students vote on best response Teacher receives 6 responses to comment on Introduce content Self-paced practice Tutor-marked test Student becomes tutor for credit Until half class is tutoring the rest

Teachers as designers need the tools for innovation Tools for teachers as learning designers To find or create new ideas Adopt Adapt Test To collect learning analytics Redesign Analyse Publish Creating knowledge about effective blended and online pedagogies Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a Design Science: Building Pedagogical Patterns for Learning and Technology. New York and London: Routledge.

Tools for teachers as learning designers

A library of patterns to inspect Teachers sharing their best designs

Colour-coded text identifies content parameters Black text expresses pedagogy design Capturing their mixed mode pedagogies

Category of learning type duration in minutes teacher contact/not Defining the metadata of their pedagogies

Export to Moodle for Ed students

Reversioned for Med students The cycle of professional collaboration: Search - Adopt – Adapt – Link resources and tools – Test – Revise - Annotate – Export to VLE – Publish to repository – Search Turning Mode 2 knowledge about the practice of teaching into Mode 1 knowledge that is explicit, articulated, testable, shareable, generalisable and localisable (Gibbons et al, 1994)

Conventional Blended Categorised learning activities Analysis shows more active learning A computational representation can analyse how much of each activity has been designed in Modelling the pedagogic benefits

Learner hours Learning activities Group size WeeklyNon- weekly Total Tutored discussion Readings Formative practice (tutor) Formative practice (peer)1 0 Formative practice (computer)1 0 Summative assessment (tutor) Building up own notes Exploring resources Application of concepts Personal tuition1 1.5 Self-directed learning8.5 Total learning hours300 Modelling the benefits of blended courses Academics define the mix of physical and digital activities, group size, and distribution of total learning hours

Figure 2(b) Teaching time for a course with 40, 80, 160 students, gives profits of -£12000 £13000 £35000 Figure 2(a) Teaching time for a course with 40 students each year, gives profits of -£12000 £5000 £8000 Modelling the costs of online courses Modelling an IOE course over 3 years Prep hrs Support hrs Yr1 Yr2 Yr3 Prep hrs Support hrs Yr1 Yr2 Yr3

Modelling the costs for increasing student cohort size Scaling up to large numbers will never improve the per- student support costs… …unless we come up with some clever pedagogical patterns that support at better than the 1:25 ratio The question is – what are they, and how do we develop and share them?

An institutional approach to blended learning Create a T&L learning organisation: Changes to T&L are modelled carefully Model the Universitys preferred pedagogies Innovation is designed to collect and use evidence Invest in teachers innovating Teaching innovation is rewarded alongside research Reconceptualise teaching as knowledge building Start from the vision / problem, not the technology The Senior Team must ask how can technology help?

Teaching as a Design Science: Building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology (Routledge, 2012) tinyurl.com/ppcollector Further details… The ALT MOOC OCTEL Open Course in Technology Enhanced Learning at April 2013http://octel.alt.ac.uk/

The global demand for HE requires investment in pedagogic innovation for MOOCs to deliver TEL-based pedagogic innovation must support students at a better than 1:25 staff-student ratio Teachers need the tools to design, test, gather the evidence of what works, model benefits and costs Teachers are the engine of innovation – designing, testing, sharing their best pedagogic ideas Teaching as a design science: Tools for professionals teaching MOOCs The global demand for HE requires investment in pedagogic innovation for MOOCs to deliver TEL-based pedagogic innovation must support students at a better than 1:25 staff-student ratio Teachers need the tools to design, test, gather the evidence of what works, model benefits and costs Teachers are the engine of innovation – designing, testing, sharing their best pedagogic ideas