MOOC remains a passive learning environment
Posted: Sun May 25, 2025 5:17 am
Low success rates
MOOCs are a form of distance learning. This form of learning traditionally has many students who start, but few students who actually complete the course. Kathy Jordan, a student at the Open University, has made an interesting overview of the data from 24 MOOCs.
This graph shows that the size varies between 10,000 and 100,000 students per MOOC. With an average of around 50,000 students. The success rate varies between 1% and 20%. These high dropout rates are unacceptable in Dutch HBO education. Now, it may not be the right way to look at the dropout rates. Because many students who start it actually have no intention of finishing the MOOC.
The idea is that the millions of third world students who do not have access to good education latvia phone number list will benefit from following a MOOC, simply because there is no alternative to education. In reality, it is unclear how many brilliant third world students actually follow such a MOOC. You do need to have internet, speak English and have some knowledge of mathematics. So these will not be the poorest students.
Despite the general pedagogical consensus that students acquire and retain information better with active work forms, many work forms in classrooms and online MOOCs are clearly on the inactive spectrum. The so-called 'Sage on the stage'. MOOCs are purely focused on testing the individual. Lonely and alone behind your PC you watch videos and fill in the MOOC tests.
MOOCs are a form of distance learning. This form of learning traditionally has many students who start, but few students who actually complete the course. Kathy Jordan, a student at the Open University, has made an interesting overview of the data from 24 MOOCs.
This graph shows that the size varies between 10,000 and 100,000 students per MOOC. With an average of around 50,000 students. The success rate varies between 1% and 20%. These high dropout rates are unacceptable in Dutch HBO education. Now, it may not be the right way to look at the dropout rates. Because many students who start it actually have no intention of finishing the MOOC.
The idea is that the millions of third world students who do not have access to good education latvia phone number list will benefit from following a MOOC, simply because there is no alternative to education. In reality, it is unclear how many brilliant third world students actually follow such a MOOC. You do need to have internet, speak English and have some knowledge of mathematics. So these will not be the poorest students.
Despite the general pedagogical consensus that students acquire and retain information better with active work forms, many work forms in classrooms and online MOOCs are clearly on the inactive spectrum. The so-called 'Sage on the stage'. MOOCs are purely focused on testing the individual. Lonely and alone behind your PC you watch videos and fill in the MOOC tests.