What is an Education?

I have been following the growth of the MOOCs closely including taking several for a better understanding. Posner has recently opined on the topic and I suspect he has not sampled the broth so to speak. So far I have tried MIT and Harvard, and as noted regarding the MIT course I had taught it a few decades ago.

Posner states:

The format seems superior to the conventional lecture. The average quality of the lecturers is much higher, because there is no limit on the number of students “attending” the lectures and so no reason why any student should be stuck with a mediocre lecturer. The online format has other advantages. The student can scroll back, or fast forward—in short can go at his own speed, which he could not do in a live lecture. A first-rate lecturer can communicate more effectively than a textbook (and of course the student can supplement the lecture with a textbook), and, of great importance, one doesn’t have to travel anywhere to attend an online lecture. One can obtain in effect a first-class American college education wherever one lives and however little money one has. All you need is a laptop computer and an Internet connection. There is a problem of asking questions of the lecturer in a class of ten thousand students, but some MOOCs solve it by allowing students to post questions that the student body votes on, and only the most popular questions are put to the lecturer.

Well yes and no. I have found them a bit disorganized. They seem to take what may work in a classic lecture format and then throw together what they think works on a web based system. My major concerns are of a bit higher level. For example:

1. Why are the universities doing this? It costs money and they already spend like drunken sailors. Just look at any campus today and you see the costs in buildings, one after the other. Build a building and you have a century or two of costs keeping it up. That in may analysis is the major driver in the exploding costs base. So the issue is why add more costs.

2. What is success? How do you know you succeeded?

3. What is failure? This is the all too critical factor. When do you call it quits. Or does this just keep going on?

4. Who is the target market? What are the quality measures? etc.

5. How do we avoid ambiguity of expectations. The university is we assume altruistic just trying to help people. But what do the people expect, say the student in India. Is a certificate from MIT worth anything? First we have no idea who took the course, not necessarily the person whose name is on the certificate. There is no authentication. If the student wants more than say just better understanding the material, how is that done. Will there be a back lash?

6. Posner states that one can get a first rate college education. Perhaps, but doubtful. The experience oftentimes require the preparation for admission, the peering relationships inside a university, the interaction with faculty. I had 350 students and between myself and my staff we knew each student personally, their strengths and weaknesses, their problems and their capabilities. That can never be accomplished here as presently structured.

Posner continues:

On the supply side of the MOOC market, there is the problem of developing a viable business model. As long as the market for MOOCs is limited to the first two groups of demanders—persons seeking intellectual enrichment and persons seeking marketable skills—the costs of providing the product are very low. They primarily consist of modest bonuses for the lecturers—modest because most lecturers would consider a huge expansion in their audience to be a substantial bonus in itself, as well as auguring a likely very large market for their textbooks, though the overall market for textbooks will decrease as MOOCs catch on. On the benefits side, even without sale of advertising space or the charging of an enrollment fee, MOOCs provide cheap advertising for the colleges and universities that provide the lecturers.

Indeed the viable business model is key.  If MIT raises tuition $10,000 per year because they want to do this charitable work, then the students who are paying and who competitively got admitted are bearing the burden, or the alumni who have been cajoled to contribute, at least for the first round or two. Then again without a viable business model this may all come to naught.

Is there something here? Yes, indeed there is. In the mid 1950s I took College Chemistry on what became PBS today at 6 AM. It was in a TV series called Continental Classroom. Every morning there was a lecture, you had to watch at 6AM, take notes, do the problems, and send them in. Did it work? Yes for a short while, but I guess there may have been 10 to 20 other kids like me who would do that religiously. This was before AP Chemistry, and besides I had 4th Year Latin and First Year Greek instead at school.

The challenge will be to find the business model. It must be a business, the students must contribute something, perhaps based upon a country standard, and there must be some authentication. Then and only then is this something which makes sense.