Dive Summary:
- NovoEd, a new massive open online course (MOOC) startup created by Stanford professors, launched seven courses on Monday.
- NovoEd seeks to bring social and peer-to-peer learning, which once seemed inseparable from the traditional brick-and-mortar education model, to the online world of MOOCs; NovoEd wants to meet students' needs to develop group learning, leadership and critical thinking skills, which, until now, MOOCs have not provided.
- One drawback to MOOCs is their low completion rate (10%) but NovoEd claims the more collaborative and interactive approach they employ has resulted in a completion rate around 13%.
From the article:
"... In those classes, it’s not just about watching a video of professor and then doing the work alone, he said, 'It’s about peer learning, social learning – it’s collaborative and experiential. In the transition from brick and mortar to online, you shouldn’t strip away these aspects, you can use the social web to amplify them.'
Over four weekends, Saberi said he and a student came up with an approach that brings social networking techniques to online learning. When students first join the course, they’re automatically assigned to small groups (of less than 10) based on their experiences and locations. As the group works together, each team member is asked to rate their peers, which informs each person’s 'Team Rank' score. Later in the course, students are asked to form groups organically and those scores can help students recruit and build teams. ..."