Friday, March 14, 2014

To Mathbabe

Dear Cathy,

Colleagues alerted me to the fact that you have two questions for me. I'm happy to answer. Thank you for your generous comments about my teaching.

I'll start by pointing out that outrageous, especially in italics, was not my choice of word; it's yours.

To be clear about what I was objecting to, it was people asking me to be an instructor and then telling me I shouldn't feel any particular obligation to instruct. When I'm an instructor, I instruct. Go figure.

As my only way to connect with students in the MOOC setting is through the forum, I made a conscious decision to be present on the forum every day, and people liked the course. That's association, not causation. And you're right that my contact with tens of thousands of people must necessarily be limited to those who read or post to the discussion forums or read my course updates.

So how much do I matter, you ask. Well, that question has occurred to others including me, as you can probably imagine, and my colleagues and I are studying it as statisticians should: with a randomized controlled experiment, as I said at MSRI. Hang in there and we'll actually have some data to talk about.

It's worth noting that MOOC students get the same number of hours of me in lecture as do my campus students, but they get more hours of me outside lecture. On campus, many faculty hold two or three office hours a week regardless of the size of their class, and connect only with those who show up. My half an hour to an hour a day for the MOOC is not only more hours per week, it's also archived: every one of the 28,500 students can listen in on all my conversations with other students. I can't help thinking that many of my on-campus students might consider this a better value proposition than what they get.

I'm actually not guarding against my MOOC being "replayed forever". I've been saying for a year that I'd like the course to be open all the time. It's an introduction to a much-maligned and poorly understood field, which is one of the main reasons I created it.

And in fact it's been replayed ever since it went online: it's archived and freely available to anyone who cares to register. They just have to go to "Past Courses" in EdX and there it is. They'll get the course materials for all 15 weeks. What they won't get is an instructor.

That's what I'm guarding against: the conflation of instruction and the provision of course materials. The two are not the same.

So I've asked simply to be called the author rather than instructor of my MOOC, unless I'm actually instructing. This was a novel thought, apparently, but it's been well received. One of the next iterations of Stat 2X will likely be used to develop some "best practices" for how to hand off a MOOC to an instructor who's not the author. I expect the MOOC world will have authors of course materials and instructors of courses as routinely as traditional courses do.

Which brings me to your other question, about how authors or creators of MOOCs can protect their rights. This is not so different from the same question about authors of textbooks, say. You choose your publisher and your contract carefully; if you don't, you might have trouble, as their lawyers are almost always bigger than your lawyers. But we've been playing this game for a long, long time. Nothing much is new here.

I don't actually have a contract with EdX. EdX has agreements with BerkeleyX, and BerkeleyX has agreements with ... etc. It's been hair-raising occasionally, as anything involving such agreements tends to be, but by and large people have been great. I think it helps that the Director of EdX is a faculty member and himself a great teacher who created a terrific MOOC.

Those were your two questions, and now you have my answers, imperfect as they are. The questions were thoughtful; thank you for asking.

In closing, I have to tell you about one moment of hilarity for me, reading your post; I don't know if you intended it. It's when you said people like me "loved MOOCs because MOOCs were working for them." How I wish I had known that when I was up till 3:30 a.m. for eight months, creating a course and video text book in real time, after my day job, for free. I'd have felt so much better.

MOOCs have sparked conversations about teaching, and will motivate faculty to re-assess how they teach, whether in traditional courses or OCs (I just made that up: MOOC - MO = OC, becoming more common on campus) or MOOCs. That is good for everyone in the profession. But at the moment they're mostly a labor of love, with many creative and adventurous people donating their time to explore this new world. That isn't sustainable. And once money starts getting into the act, I expect it's going to feel a lot like the old world ... I wouldn't start ordering wreaths for math research just yet.

Best,

Ani

22 comments:

  1. Hi, Ani

    I keep reading your posts here :-)

    "
    But at the moment they're mostly a labor of love, with many creative and adventurous people donating their time to explore this new world. That isn't sustainable. And once money starts getting into the act, I expect it's going to feel a lot like the old world ..
    "

    Hope it won't happen. Money doesn't buy everything, let alone love. As long as love exists, teacher's love to make possible the unsustainable and student's love instead of mark/credit eagerness, there always will be a place, maybe hidden but real, for outliers.

    Best wishes!

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    1. Atopos! I'm so happy to hear from you! Thank you for staying in touch with the blog.

      Sustainability of the MOOC enterprise, with the emphasis on the M and the first O, is a major question both in terms of finances and the availability (= time and commitment) of faculty to create high-quality new materials.

      A big question for me is how best to use the materials that I created for Stat 2X in my campus courses. I came into online teaching backwards, as it were, by first teaching 50,000 students and then thinking about how that could help the 300 in front of me. It's most likely that my next foray into the online world will be through developing materials for a campus class; later they might grow into a MOOC, or not. At the moment I don't see the new MOOC, because I don't see the software to grade more than one line of math, whereas I'd want students at the next level to turn in something less restricted than that.

      I miss your kind and lively presence on the forum. Interestingly, you don't seem to have a "successor" who posts R code.

      Thanks again for staying in touch. Best wishes,

      Prof. A.

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    2. Ani! I'm quite sure your course will always shine with its unique light among all of the Statistics courses in the MOOC universe (and there are a lot of them currently, and some of them a work of love too). You've decided to go calmly and deeper into the intuition of intricate concepts than customary. That singles out your course, and that pays off on the long run, for the students.

      As for follow-on, testable, courses, yep it seems an unreachable challenge given the actual intelligence of current grading agents. You know the solution others have proposed: peer-reviewing. I have mixed feelings about this. It appears, though, to be the only feasible way at this moment.

      P.D. I'm also quite sure than an R (and better) successor will arrive, sooner or later :-)

      A joy to keep in touch! Best!

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  2. Hi Ani,

    Thoroughly enjoying your course and thank you for making it so accessible and easy to understand. Your teaching style is great and your passion for the subject shines through.

    Thank you.

    Megan

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    1. Hi Megan,
      Glad you like it – it's good stuff. Welcome to 2.1X. It's almost time to think about 2.2X; hope to see you there too. Best,
      Prof. A.

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  3. Thank you for teaching this course. I like the way you use English first with the formulas. You have made statistics seem simple by breaking it down into comprehensible chunks. Your voice is also great - sounds good at different speeds. Thanks for helping to educate the world.

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    1. What a relief! I thought I'd sound like a chipmunk. I probably do, at high enough speed. Prof. Alvin ...

      It took quite some thought, figuring out exactly how to speak for the recordings. You've just given me an idea for the next blog post. Thanks!

      Glad you're enjoying the course,


      Prof. A.

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  4. Hello Prof. Adhikari,
    I am also grateful for your teaching style, and that you chose to teach a statistics MOOC. I especially appreciate when there are challenging exercises which I find forces one to look very carefully if one wants to find the correct solutions. The exercises have caught me up here and there, however, I'm determined to improve going forward. I'm on board for 2.2X and 2.3X as well!
    Best,
    MNJN

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  5. This is such a great insight: discussion threads recording previous queries and answers eliminating time wasted traveling to a professors office if the answer to a student's question can be found online.

    It's so simple and such a better system for the students who won't or can't go in person and ask when they have a question.

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  6. MOOCs like yours are a lifesaver for me, Prof. Adhikari. I already have a college degree - in history - and I decided way too late that I'd really like to learn a lot more maths. Going back to college is closed off as an option for me, but I'd like to apply for a master's in statistics. So MOOCs are the only way for me to learn statistics, calculus, probability, linear algebra, etc. - all the prereqs schools look for - in a structured and demonstrable format.

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  7. Hello Prof. Adhikari,

    Your Statistics course is the best MOOC I did so far on any subject on one side. It has the perfect timing, good explanation, and it's very well structured and organized for us, students, to understand.

    On the other side, I took Statistics in University and for my MA and another MOOC and never quite got the hang of it. I had decided I am just not a numbers girl so let it go. With your course, I clarified concepts I already use but didn't understand the thinking behind and understood things that were not clear to me yet.

    Thank you again, can't wait for following classes,
    Andreea

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    1. Same here, Andreea. I took at least 3 courses in statistics in my undergraduate and graduate studies and this being the fourth is by far the most comprehensive. For the first time my knowledge from this course is being retained, and that's because it's explained in the common-sense style... Not a "memorize-this-formula-and-use-it-without-context" style... And that's exactly what I need for my daily work in my job as a data analyst. Can't wait for the Probability and especially the Inference classes.

      Thank you, Professor Ani. Your knowledge is priceless.
      Maggie

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  8. HI
    Invaluable course. I can finally get rid of the article Statistics anxiety by Onwuegbuzie (2004). This course has been invaluable, allowing me the time to watch, listen learn and do it all over again, something I could never do in a OC setting! I hope you find the energy to engage again.
    C

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    1. I didn't know about that paper; thanks for the pointer. And thanks for not succumbing to the horrors described therein! Cheers,
      Prof. A.

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  9. Great job wit 2.1x. I appreciate how accessible you have made stats and also your dedication to engaging with the forums. I am looking forward to 2.2x.

    Thanks.

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  10. Just small note about 'how to hand off a MOOC to an instructor who's not the author'.

    Yes I know that Berkley already has very good courses on that way. I attended CS188.1x Artificial Intelligence by Dan Klain, where dr. Klain was only lector, but not participated in any discussions. This course has many strong sides. Real university lections preformed in edx format, the army of TA headed by dr. P. Abbeel, simply the great AI lab tasks and so on.
    And I believe your course must not loose nor quality neither attractiveness when you'll delegate discussion responsibility to your TA. But I just glad, that I take this course just in time, while you are answering our silly questions personally :) It's a priceless.

    Thank you.

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  11. Thanks; you're right that it's crucial to still retain the friendly atmosphere of the course, no matter who the instructor is.

    Most of the forum posts aren't silly – yours certainly aren't – but I have to say that sometimes it takes a lot of self-control for me to be patient. Still, on the whole the students are an absolute delight, and I know I'll miss them. Best,

    Prof. A.

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  12. Just to add another voice to the crowd. I think the course has been excellent - and I have already signed up and paid for the next April course.
    I have greatly enjoyed how the classes build on each other. Anyway I see some people posting that they would like the course run slower. I disagree - I think the pace is perfect.
    thanks so much

    mike

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    1. Thanks, glad you like it. If I've located you correctly on the web, you know a great deal about online courses!

      2.1X students are so varied in their backgrounds that I don't think it's possible to run it at a pace that will work for everyone. That's why the course will be archived, apart from tests, for people to go through at their own pace for free. What they won't have is a cohort of fellow students, or an instructor, though they will be able to read everything in our current forum. And they won't get a certificate. Still, it's a model that might work for some people. Best,

      Prof. A.

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  13. Hi Prof Ani,
    Thank you very much for taking this course and making it highly interesting - I used to look forward to learning and doing the exercises and the exams every week. It was a pleasure learning statistics through edx, and I am looking forward to the next 2 courses from you. The way you took pains to answer almost all the questions in the discussion forum was amazing. There is a lot to learn from you as a tutor. Thanks again !

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  14. Hello!! Thank you, thank you so much for this great course. You are an incredibly talented professor, the way you transmit knowledge is inspiring and has helped me a lot. I have to admit I've always sucked at math and anything that had to do with it, in college having to take statistics was a huge challenge and the truth is I never really understood, I passed and that was it. I took this course as sort of a last resource to try to understand, at least a little bit better, the statistic part in a paper (i've relayed in others to explain me) and what I've learned is way more than I expected. I had a hard time with the exercises and tests, but to me what really matters at the end is that I learned a lot and although there is more I need to learn about this subject, I was really happy to be able to read a paper and really understand by myself what it was being said. Thank you again.
    Greetings from México :)

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  15. I'm another 2.1x-er, and another very grateful person. As with Mr Lau above, MOOCS are really the only sensible way for me to get background knowledge that I need for work - apart from everything else, my extant work commitments mean that I'm generally viewing the lectures and doing the exercises at roughly the same kind of times that you found you were composing them!

    But your MOOC has been about far more than acquiring requisite knowledge at a convenient time. I've learned so much about pedagogy from the way you approach things - whether that's the brilliantly clear lectures, the equally clear exercises and exams, your interventions in the discussions forum or the blog explaining the logic behind your teaching methods. When I tell people about the way you run the course, they are stunned by your commitment and the extraordinary opportunity that you are offering EdX students. It's the full package that makes the course and distinguishes it from just reading a textbook - and your participation as a very present instructor is essential to that.

    I'd guess, too, that that's one reason why your MOOC has had (and I hope will have again) such a high completion rate. Certainly for myself, I felt invested in a relationship: you had given so much of yourself that I wanted to do well not only out of a desire to grasp the material and be able to demonstrate the fact but also out of respect for you and all that you had given.

    Which is a long way of seconding what I think you are saying - that a MOOC isn't just about creating materials that can have an indefinite and autonomous existence. Like all good things, it's ultimately relational. Thank you for all that you've given to the relationship with all of us. It's much appreciated!

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