The online course partnership between San Jose State
University and Udacity hit a bump when pass rates of 23.8% to 50/5% from classes offered in the spring were posted
for the first three courses. The program,
called SJSU Plus, was put on hiatus through the fall so the university could
evaluate the project.
The next set of results for courses offered in the summer session were much better with more than
two-thirds of the 1,380 students who completed the online courses received
passing grades of C or higher. In addition, students in three of the offered
courses posted higher pass rates than their on-campus counterparts when compared
to an average of the last six semesters.
The pass rate for college algebra rose from 25.4% in
the spring of 2013 to 72.6% in the summer, while elementary statistics went
from 50.5% to 72.6%. Entry-level math saw an increase in pass rates but still
lagged far behind the other courses, going from a 23.8% pass rate in the spring
to 29.8% in the summer.
“To all those people who declared our experiment a
failure, you have to understand how innovation works,” wrote Udacity CEO
Sebastian Thrun in a blog post.
“Few ideas work on the first try. Iteration is key to innovation. We are seeing
significant improvement outcomes and student engagement. And we know from our
data that there is much more to be done.”
The number of at-risk students taking SUSJ Plus courses
in the spring is one factor school officials point to as a possible reason for
the low pass rates. Officials also suggest that a more diverse student enrollment
in the summer, when 71% of the students were from outside the state of
California, may be part of the reason for a higher pass rate.
SJSU and Udacity also made improvements to the pilots
between sessions and added more tools to gauge student performance. However,
the SJSU Plus will remain on hold through the fall.
“There is no disruption,” SJSU Provost Ellen Junn wrote
in a statement.
“The main reason is we wanted to take time to review all the data, to debrief
with the faculty, to make sure that we’re following all the procedures on
campus and just taking due diligence.”
