Dive Brief:
- The former director of enterprise services at the Virginia Community Colleges System, Matt Lawson, sees the potential for MOOCs to reach the large population of developmental learners on community college campuses.
- He writes for eCampus News that the low MOOC success rates of this population — community college students, adult learners, and those in need of developmental education — can be combated with proper supports.
- Lawson argues community college students who enroll in MOOCs through their campuses should get access to lab assistance, faculty office hours, academic advising, and feedback on their work, and institutions should use data analytics to monitor their engagement and provide targeted interventions, giving these students the chance to take advantage of a flexible, cost-effective option for their developmental work.
Dive Insight:
Massive open online courses were going to revolutionize higher education. That hasn’t happened, but more colleges and universities are considering how to incorporate them into their existing operations. Arizona State University offers the Global Freshman Academy, giving students a year’s worth of coursework in an edX MOOC format, and Georgia Tech now delivers a Master’s in Computer Science degree through Udacity’s MOOC platform.
Finding innovative ways to address developmental education needs is going to be critical to boost graduation rates at community colleges. When students have to waste time and money on courses that don’t count toward their degree they are much more likely to leave before finishing. Making MOOCs work for them could be an important tool.