Comments on: World History MOOC Report 16: In which I try to sum the whole thing up.

By: Black is white. Up is down. | More or Less Bunk

Black is white. Up is down. | More or Less Bunk — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:06:44 +0000

[...] my experience in Jeremy Adelman’s World History Coursera MOOC demonstrated almost the exact opposite. I’m hoping that you all will be able to read my extended thoughts on the subject of peer [...]

By: MOOC Reflections | Owen Guthrie

MOOC Reflections | Owen Guthrie — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 06:45:15 +0000

[...] I found several excellent and extensive reviews of the course. The one I enjoyed the most is the 16 part review written by Jonathan Rees on his blog, “More or Less Bunk.” Rees combs through the [...]

By: The beatings will continue until morale improves. « More or Less Bunk

The beatings will continue until morale improves. « More or Less Bunk — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:03:32 +0000

[...] * Come on, you just knew I wasn’t going to be able resist this subject for very long. [...]

By: Anne Corner

Anne Corner — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 06:20:25 +0000

You know, Jeremy, that up to now I hadn’t noticed that no learning objectives were stated. I really should have noticed as I had to always do them for the continuing education courses I used to teach. I felt that not enough was said about studying history and what that was all about and learning objectives would have helped. As for the peer assessing – not workable as currently set up and that is why I stopped writing the essays. Waste of time in my opinion. I learned a lot though.

Jonathan, thank you. This blog has really expanded my MOOC experience and I have really enjoyed discussing things with you and your followers. Happy Holidays everyone.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 01:14:54 +0000

On your more important points: I couldn’t agree more that I did make some assumptions about the level, and that there would be some prior knowledge. This is, after all, the course I give to Princeton students; these are literally the lectures that Princeton students watch alongside you and everyone else enrolled around the world. If some Courserians want something less driving, then they can look for other kinds of courses. But since what is on offer here is a Princeton course, I figure it should be a Princeton course. To me it’s not about the numbers, not about whether someone can license it at Univ X, and I would not allow that anyway.

The second major issue, the main issue, is the peer assessing. This, I agree, has not worked very well at all. Here, my assumption that what I was having students write and assess papers in order to learn how historians think by writing. I didn’t test on content and memory, or recitation. But the kind of epistemological aspirations was wayyyyyyy to hard to formulate into assessment rubrics. I think this is where peer assessing really broke down because the rubrics were clear but the point of them was not. Now, whether a trained professional is better at this IF I have been clear about the meta-goals of the course, I don’t yet know. (I can see you furrowing your brow now…”this guy just won’t give up…”). On incentives, maybe assessors should be assessed? A little too recursive and could degenerate into squabbles… But I will have to think more about whether incentives work for this kind of thing.

A last self-reflection, which I came to realize after the first month, is that I needed to do much, much more basic orientation and explanation — what’s a syllabus, how to organize time, the learning objectives…. Princeton students have the script (well, sort of), but others don’t. That was a big mistake.

Anyway, Jonathan, it’s a been a pleasure and a real learning experience reading your entries. You are the only peer who actually did any assessing of me, so I am very grateful for it. And it was free! I know we are staying in touch now on other venues, and that’s good. Have a great holiday everyone.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 01:00:04 +0000

Jonathan: Bra-burning was an activity meant to affiliate the burning of draft cards, as a public renouncement of traditional loyalties and obligations. The protest in Sept 1968 in Atlantic City was a dramatic coming out event for what was already a gathering movement. Actually what happened with that trash can was that the protest organizers DID plan to light it aflame after filling it with their undergarments, but the police stepped in and warned them not to without a permit! So they couldn’t at the last minute – but the image, and later the “unpermitted” activity took off. Robin Morgan was on record as of late 67 claiming this was an effective device. Of course, the term was NOT invented by them, and was soon, beginning with the New York Post, used to denote wacko man-hating mouth-frothing…etc. See how the Vietnam War and the history of global empire shapes the national story?

By: The Rich (Universities) Are Different QOTD « A (Budding) Sociologist's Commonplace Book

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:54:43 +0000

[...] Whatever is happening to higher-ed more broadly, something very different is going on at Yale, Columbia, Harvard and a handful of others. These universities may be generating the content for MOOCs, but they aren’t worried about their traditional model disappearing anytime soon. And gee whiz do they have a lot of money! As Rees elsewhere notes, the Coursera model seems to be premised on the idea that “super professors” will generate free content that will be offered in place of existing courses at less prestigious universities – basically, the most prominent and well-paid faculty doing free labor to (poorly) replace the labor of the adjuncts and TT faculty at lower-tiered schools. The poorly part is important – for some courses, maybe the MOOC is as good an offering as a big traditional lecture taught by a regular professor, especially if the lecture lacks any interaction whatsoever. But, as Rees repeatedly argues: [...]