MOOCs to support the Commons
Rita Kop, Fredericton, NB, Canada
International MOOC colloquium, The changing MOOC identity, Capri, September 2016
In today’s corporatized university, college students have become consumers who can now choose across a variety of educational products, rather than cultural citizens who must grapple to understand themselves and their world, as both individuals and participants in the welfare of the commons.
Knowledge has been reduced to a market commodity, to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. Teaching in many classrooms now resembles a market “quality-controlled” operation driven by standardization and a banking pedagogy (Freire, 1971), overwhelmingly obsessed with the use of expensive and ever-changing technology. Darder, 2016, pg. 43.
Relevance of MOOCs• MOOCs reside on the
margin of the institution• How might MOOCs serve, enhance and expand the Commons?• Could their openness foster that multiple voices will be heard?• How long might they be
used to experiment with?• Openness
Strategic decisions to inform policy with regards to MOOCs should be based on
Widening Access and Openness to Learning and Education
“Beauty does not reside in simplicity. Nor in complexity, per se. For a molecule or a song, for a ceramic vase or a play, beauty is created out of the labor of human hands and minds. It is to be found, precarious, at some tense edge where symmetry and asymmetry, simplicity and complexity, order and chaos, contend”. Hoffmann (2003, p. 7-10)
Human minds are not cognitive machines
Rita Kop
• Level of communication• Technology used• Active engagement• Context• Diversity• Degree of distance
Rita Kop
MOOC design and teaching
Teacher a mere noise?
Teacher and learner are both required to “invest something of themselves” in learning which results in personal fulfilment and genuine receptivity (Bonnett, 2002, p.241). That is what makes teaching as a profession worthwhile, this genuine interaction with other human beings.
Rita Kopritakop.com [email protected]://yorkvilleu.academia.edu/RitaKop