Stanford president refines his vision for MOOCs in education

These do sound like the kinds of things that learning scientists were saying at the start of the MOOC hype (like this post), but I’m glad that he now realizes that MOOCs have limited use and that students vary widely.

And as for MOOCs, which many still predict will displace traditional teaching, he said that they “were the answer when we weren’t sure what the question was.”

He said that their massive nature, which attracted so much attention, was ultimately a problem. “When I think about MOOCs, the advantage — the ability to prepare a course and offer it without personal interaction — is what makes them inexpensive and makes them very limited.”

Students “vary widely in terms of their skills and capability,” he said, such that massiveness is simply not an educational advantage. “For some it’s too deep and for some it is too shallow.”

via Stanford president offers predictions on a more digital future for higher education @insidehighered.