In the Fifth Grade I had Sister Rosita for my teacher. Even though I was
performing well, somehow I never got the spelling stuff quite right. My readers
can amuse themselves reading the blogs wherein I have the right spelling but
the wrong word. That is, spell check, not me, I just spell the right word wrong,
not the wrong word right.
But what, you may ask; does this anecdote have to do with
MOOcs? Simply, MOOCs use computers to grade. Computers do not offer partial
credit. You are right or wrong. Over the years I mastered multiple choice
tests, Board exams, and the like, not that they prove anything, they are
required, but one learns a technique, not the reality of what one started
learning in the first place.
But back to MOOCs. I have been taking Lander’s MIT Biology,
brilliant course, I know most of it but it is always good to gain a new
perspective from one who really knows what they are doing. It is a typical MIT
course in many ways, except it is a MOOC.
To explain, allow me again to digress back some almost fifty
years when I was teaching at MIT. As a
faculty member when we sat to do the final grades, say in 6.02, the required
Electronics course, we had all the Teaching Assistants, Section Instructors,
and myself, gather and look at each student. If the student got say a 95 average
on all 12 Problem Sets but totally blew the Mid Terms we asked what we did
wrong. Clearly the student knew something and each of us knew something of that
student. We examined the exam. Frequently we could see that we had a set of
problems that if one concept was misinterpreted then all that followed, albeit
properly done, rely on a correct first answer and thus was wrong. So what did
we do, partial credit, regarded, and alas, the Final and Mid Terms went up. The
person came out with the A.
But this is not at all possible with a MOOC. Now I am not
after a grade. I have no idea what I would do with one. I am there to learn the
material and the process.
Now back to Sister Rosita. Decades later I found that the
problem was not my spelling but my particular kind of dyslexia. I can now look
forward in the family and see it there and I guess if I could look backward I
would see it also. But I can readily understand and inter-relate complex
patterns, but somehow have a heck of a time differentiating “a” and “c” and “b”
and “d”. But wait, I find that I have an even more challenging time with A, T,
G, C! I get the idea but ask me to look at a sequence of five and then go and
find the same five on another sheet of paper! Then present say 100 or so bases
randomly presented and ask to find say six of a particular pattern, no way,
ever. After all is that not why God created computers.
Now back to the MOOC. You see, in one of Lander’s Exams the TAs
made you read the gene and you could not readily cut and paste it. I did
finally remember how to do it but after the exam. Thus since this was the first
part of some 65 point single question, miss that and you were sunk. No partial
credit etc.
Now I did not worry but in examining the comments, I never
comment on these things, but many students had the same if not similar problem.
Thus what is the lesson MOOCs could learn?
Simply, not all students are the same. We all find ways to work
around our handicaps, whatever they may be. But when administrators of sorts
decide upon “rules” they believe to be correct, then it is incumbent upon them
to understand the consequences. MOOCs will never look at every student the way
we did half a century ago. Yet they can come close. They can and must become
capable of understanding what a student is doing wrong, not just marking it
wrong. One learns through one’s mistakes. One learns how to manage “blind spots”.
Artificial walls should not be constructed because of the arrogance of some
intermediary.
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