No More Moocs

Jack, Gordon

Levinson, M. (2014, March 4). No More MOOCs: Pay Attention to Beyonce. Edutopia. Retrieved March 5, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/no-moocs-learn-from-beyonce-matt-levinson?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29&clReload=7844bd28

Summary

In this article, Levinson makes the analogy between changes in the music industry with changes in education.  Just as listeners are buying singles rather than a whole album, Levinson recommends that educators allow students to assemble pieces of information themselves instead of taking an entire course.  He states the weak completion rates of most online MOOCs as evidence that today’s student doesn’t want an “album” of curriculum.  Instead, more and more learners are gravitating to YouTube to select the “singles” of content they are most interested in.

The article suggests that educators take note of this phenomenon and crowdsource their course content.  “When the learning experience is constructed for students to find problems, generate questions and devise solutions to authentic challenges,” Levinson writes, “then the need surfaces for students to seek information.”  Levinson quotes Dr. Mark David Milliron who suggests that educators “turn students loose” on a topic and let them gather all the material they can from any source they can and then share the resources they used.  From there, the teacher can “create customized playlists for units of study.”

Evaluation

I don’t quite buy Levinson’s music analogy to education.  Some of the best music on an album isn’t always the hit singles, just as some of the most important information isn’t the kind students will easily find.  Also, sometimes a song needs to be heard in the context of the entire album to appreciate its value, just as parts of class only become significant in light of the other information presented in the semester or year.  Still, I appreciated his suggestions for making learning more meaningful to students by engaging them with compelling topics and questions and allowing students’ curiosity to drive their information seeking behavior.  I think this is a great way to hook kids, present a variety of content, and make learning more relevant.  From there, the teacher needs to help organize this information to give it some coherence and meaning.