While
the initial burst of enthusiasm over massive open online courses (MOOCs) may
have expired, a wrapup report on a MOOC tied to a TV show about zombies reveals
there may still be some life in the format.
As
previously recounted on The CITE, Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from
AMC’s The Walking Dead was offered
last fall at no charge on Instructure’s Canvas Network platform, taught by a
multidisciplinary panel of professors from the University of California at
Irvine with some involvement from the show’s cast and crew.
Some
65,000 people worldwide signed up for the eight-week course. One of its chief
aims was to determine whether more students would persist to completion if instructors
applied the scientific concepts to an apocalypic survival scenario, albeit a
fictional one. According to Instructure’s new report, that goal was achieved.
Instructure
doesn’t say how many students remained at the end, but about 12,000 filled out
an exit survey, suggesting a much higher percentage finished than in the usual
MOOC. About 59% had never taken any type of online course before and 83.6% had
never taken a MOOC. But, 83% said they spent at least an hour a week on course
assignments, not including watching that week’s new episode.
Not
all of the enrollees were fans of the show, some indicating instead they were intrigued
by the multidisciplinary approach and its application. More than half of the
survey respondents said they’d be more apt to take another MOOC with
multidisciplinary content than a single-topic course.
And
that may reveal the real key to student success in MOOCs and any other
educational format: When the course content and course materials are brought to
life in an interesting way, more students remain engaged in the topic and make
it through the course.
