The number of people writing to say they’re planning to take on their own Degree-of-Freedom like project in the near future has grown from one a month to one a day. The stories these folks tell are varied (I’ve heard from at least two older people telling me they were actively looking to become a […]
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Level of Demand in MOOC Classes
I don’t know if it’s because it’s summertime or just the luck of the draw, but my junior year classes seem to be demanding less of me. Not that I’m not learning a great deal from them. In fact, my Coursera Mathematical Philosophy course started with a bang this week by demolishing Zeno’s Paradox through […]
Culture of Integrity – 2
Other research results we learned about in that online cheating MOOC mentioned in the first part of this discussion include: Cheating levels tend to go down as the risk and level of punishment associated with getting caught go up If cheating requires more work than simply doing the assignment honestly, people will not go down […]
A Culture of Integrity – 1
For the final project for my Canvas.net class Understanding Cheating in Online Courses, I need to (and I quote from the course’s web page – so you know I’m not plagiarizing): “design a plan of action for helping to cultivate a culture of academic honesty and integrity in one or more specific contexts (like the […]
MOOC Homework – Tech Talk
The folks at Coursera have graciously allowed me to say a few words at their blog on the subject of succeeding on homework, quizzes and other assignments associated with MOOC courses. The focal message of that posting is to do what it takes to get the most out of MOOC assignments: pace yourself for maximum […]
Cheating on MOOCs
This is the first blog post I’ve done as a homework assignment. For the teacher in my new Canvas class in Understanding Cheating in Online Courses (Bernard Bull, Assistant Vice President of Academics and Associate Professor of Educational Design & Technology at Concordia), has asked those of us who blog to write something about their […]
MOOCs and Peer Grading – Part 2
While most professors participating in the MOOC experiment still come from US universities, the student body is global. This international reach is one of the most celebrated virtues of free online learning, providing opportunities for students in nearly every nation to participate and interact in flat, global classrooms. But this global audience also presents challenges […]
MOOCs and Peer Grading – Part 1
During a recent series on MOOCs and testing, the only subject I didn’t get to was peer-grading, the mechanism some massive classes are using to allow students to submit assignments that cannot be machine scored (such as written papers or other “artifacts” whose grading still requires the subtlety of the human mind). We’ll put aside […]
MOOC Testing – Final Thoughts
So the good news is that massive courses have the technology and the audience needed to generate massive (or “Big”) data, enough data to give course developers the statistics they need to refine and revise testing so that it more capably screens those who know from those who don’t. And, if combined with some of […]
MOOC Testing and Big Data
I hope I’ve not lost too many people as this week’s series dove into some of the more technical aspects of testing. It’s just that, having spent so many years in both the professional testing and education industries, it struck me how some of the principles of the former could really improve the quality of […]
