Gates, MOOCs and
Remediation
September 14, 2012 - 3:00am
By
Paul Fain
Early returns show that massive open online courses (MOOCs) work best for
motivated and academically prepared students. But could high-quality MOOCs
benefit a broader range of learners, like those who get tripped up by remedial
classes?
That’s the question the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wants to answer with a newly announced round of 10 grants for
the creation of MOOCs for remedial coursework.
“We’re trying to seed the conversation and seed the experimentation,” said
Josh Jarrett, the foundation's deputy director for education and postsecondary
education.
MOOCs tend to provoke strong feelings in the academy, and in the wake of
Gates's announcement this week, some observers questioned whether free, widely
available online courses could be tailored to students with remedial needs. But
others, including experts on developmental learning, welcomed the attempt to
tackle one of higher education’s most vexing problems.
“This has the potential for raising the quality of instruction in
developmental education, if used properly,” said Hunter R. Boylan, director of
the National Center for Developmental
Education.
Nagwa Abou El-Nga on 22 Oct 12Pearson ran a survey about the use of Social Media in teaching, here is the summar: ■64.4 percent of faculty use social media for their personal lives, 33.8 percent use it for teaching ■41 percent for those under age 35 compared to 30 percent for those over age 55 reported using social media in their teaching ■Faculty in the Humanities and Arts, Professions and Applied Sciences, and the Social Sciences use social media at higher rates than those in Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science ■Blogs and wikis are preferred for teaching, while Facebook or LinkedIn are used more for social and professional connections ■88 percent of faculty, regardless of discipline, reported using online video in the classroom
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