Open Courses Increasing Access to Education

Open Courses have emerged all over the Internet.  They reinforce the belief that education should be accessible to all.   Often provided by the top universities around the world, open courses are an opportunity to learn for free, and considering the price of a tertiary education these days, they are worth taking a good look at!

I have chosen to look at the open courses offered by Yale, known as Open Yale courses.  The courses range from Introduction to the Old Testament to Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics. .  Specifically, I am looking at a course entitled SOCY 151: Foundations of Modern Social Theory. The welcome message from the Founding Director and Principal Investigator, Diana E. E. Kleiner, expresses the goal of the initiative.  “We hope the lectures and other course materials, which reflect the values of a Yale liberal arts education, inspire your own critical thinking and creative imagination” (Open Yale Courses).

Excited about the potential of the initiative, I quickly got started.  The course consists of a course overview, a topical syllabus with lecture videos, assigned reading lists for each lecture, transcripts of each lecture and descriptions of the assessments used in the Yale for credit course. 

I teach the advent of communism in my IB History class so I was particularly intrigued by the videos on Marxism.  Each video is approximately one hour long and the first one I watched was incredibly interesting.  I viewed it with a copy of the transcript open and learned quite a bit in the process, which I plan to share with my students in the near future. 

Distance learning has opened the doors to many learners thirsty for knowledge but lacking access.  The potential for distance learning to revolutionize education everywhere is already being realized and much emphasis is being placed on how to improve learning through distance, online opportunities. 

Best practices in distance learning involve many of the same ideas as in traditional classroom teaching.  Planning is an essential component.  Understanding your learners and the learning context is the first step in the planning process.  The next step, creating good objectives and a specific plan or syllabus can then reflect the learners’ environment more accurately.  Designing instruction for specific learners enhances the learning experience and makes the process more efficient and effective.  The Yale Open courses are designed for those potential learners that have the interest to learn from the most respected lecturers in their field, with the hope that these lectures will inspire learners to improve their lives and the lives of others.  Although they are open to all with access to the Internet, they are not designed for someone that requires a specific skill or content understanding.  

Interactivity is an essential component of quality distance learning programs.  Although the Yale Open courses allow would-be learners to access professors and experts that would otherwise have no access due to financial restrictions, lack of admission to the university or/and distance, they allow for no interactivity with either the professors or the other learners.  Moderated interactivity is time consuming and costly and could not be offered free of cost. 

Assessment is important to learning in all types of settings.  Although the Yale Open courses list the types of assessments required by the credit earning, tuition paying students, neither the actual assessments nor the rubrics used to assess are shared.  That is a component I would of enjoyed using and missed from the course.  I understand that feedback would not be available in a free environment however I was ready to write about the issues, to reflect, to engage with the content. I was left wanting more.   But, as the goal of the courses is to “inspire…critical thinking and creative imagination”, my experience with Professor Ivan Szeleyni through the SOCY 151: Foundations of Modern Social Theory Yale Open course was a success. 

Donald Kirkpatrick offers a straightforward approach to evaluating learning programs (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2012, p. 349) (Clark, n.d.).   The first level deals with the reactions of the learners, “Did they like it?”.  I did enjoy reviewing the course and the one session I participated in.  The second level deals with learning, “Did they learn it?”.  In an attempt to evaluate the degree to which I “have advanced in skills, knowledge, or attitude” (Simonson, et al, 2012, p. 349), I realize I did get something more concrete than mere enjoyment out of the course.  I can speak on the subject and elaborate on the ideas discusses.  I am not certain whether this new knowledge will remain a part of my long-term memory, but at the moment it has inspired new thinking and the creation of differing perspectives than those previously held.    The third level deals with the transfer of knowledge, “Will they use it?”.  I have already incorporated one of Dr. Szeleyni’s ideas into my lesson on the origins of communism.  The fourth level, results, is more difficult to assess in this situation.  Obviously the impact of the course would have been more profound if the course offered interactivity and if the assessments and rubrics had been shared. 

I admit that as an adult learner with a profound interest in modern social theory, I am not the typical learner.  The for credit version of SOCY 151: Foundations of Modern Social Theory is designed for exceptionally talented, young adults, recent high school graduates not for a teacher with 22 years of experience.  Therefore, Dr. Szeleyni is not looking at learners like me as he speaks yet I felt connected in the experience.  Perhaps, this is because as Malcolm Knowles describes in his Andragogy theory, “[adults] should acquire the habit of looking at every experience as an opportunity to learn and should become skillful in learning from it” (Smith, 2002).   I think the Yale Open courses, and specifically the one I participated in, SOCY 151: Foundations of Modern Social Theory , is worthwhile for adults interested in the subject.

References

Clark, D. (n.d.). Kirkpatrick's four level evaluation model. Retrieved October 5, 2012,

            from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/isd/kirkpatrick.html

Open Yale courses. (2012). Retrieved October 5, 2012, from http://oyc.yale.edu/ 

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning

at a distance Foundations of distance education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Smith, M. K. (2002) 'Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and

andragogy', the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/et-knowl.htm.

SOCY 151: Foundations of Modern Social Theory. (2012). Retrieved from 

            http://oyc.yale.edu/sociology/ socy-151#overview