I’m really interested in talking to anyone who’s interested in the problem of scale: How do we move from individual innovation with particular tools & practices to larger adoptions, at the level of a program, project, or even a campus? Â This might well be part of a conversation on MOOCs: Is there such a thing as a studio model for MOOCs, a MOOC that makes makers? If even the social or connectivist MOOCs aren’t the answer, and they likely aren’t, what kind of investment should departments, colleges, and universities be making instead? What would make the innovations of individual faculty more spreadable?
Along these lines, Emory is sponsoring a symposium in late January on Digital Publication, Undergraduate Research, and Writing. Key thinkers for the event will be folks like Jim Groom & Tim Owen at UMW, who plan to bring their Domain of One’s Own pilot campus-wide next year (h/t Croxall). Or Rebecca Burnett of Georgia Tech, whose Brittain fellowships have helped re-start the careers of many a humanist (she has won one of the Gates grants for a first-year writing MOOC–very curious to see what that will look like!).
These questions of scale, effectiveness, and flexibility are very much of the moment in my neck of the woods, with edX offering more questions than answers. This would be a welcome conversation!
This interests me as well. With more of our pedagogical efforts in recent years tending toward finding ways to increase personal connections even in larger classes, yet with intense pressure to enter the fray, I’d enjoy the chance to discuss possible ways forward.
I read about the Domain of One’s Own project and was immediately captivated, and I’ve also participated in a MOOC and have a lot of thoughts about that experience. I’d be interested in talking about these issues.
I’d actually love to learn a bit more about edX, but I too am interested in how and (even more so) *why* to scale up teaching. I continue to feel a bit muddled about MOOCs, deeply suspicious both of them and at the same time deeply suspicious of my own deep suspicions.
In other contexts, I think I’ve resolved certain problems of scale rather well: the buzzword “platform” is a buzzword for a reason. THATCamp itself is a pretty good example of scaling up by decentralizing, by creating a replicable and customizable model that small communities can adopt for their own. UMW blogs operates on a similar principle, but so far MOOCs themselves don’t really seem scalable, oddly enough. Setting one up sounds like a whole heck of a lot of work.
Enough of this: suffice it to say I’m interested.
The issue of scale interests me too, not only how to scale up but how to scale down as well. My concern is whether our pedagogies can even scale at all, or whether each scale demands that we approach teaching and learning in a different way. MOOCs, at their worst, reproduce pedagogies designed for much different environments or scales. At their best, they challenge us to do things and interact in ways that would be impossible in a smaller class or at a brick-and-mortar institution.