ID's Blog

Today I finished the HarvardX Justice MOOC on edX with the final exam. There was no time limit for the test, however, after the first half, I got timed-out and had to log in again and continue, which was irritating as I didn’t know what would happen once I had left the web form. In the end, the result was very successful and I am looking forward to getting my certificate after July 15th.

The course felt like a long time period (12 weeks) – I actually prefer MOOCs with about 4-6 weeks. However, the incentive of the course certificate was very strong for me – and certificate in context of this course meant doing the final exam. In order to do that, it was necessary to engage with the content of 24 lectures (each about 25 minutes), at least that’s what I thought and prepared to do accordingly. The topic „What’s the right thing to do“ was very interesting up to the end of the course and the 24 self tests and 5 graded quizzes during the course were very helpful. I really liked the course structure with 2 poll questions every week and the subsequent challenges – you got a live feeling and it helped to trigger short forum entries discussing pros and cons. I’ve scrolled through many forum posts and was reminded once again, that the (cultural) diversity of the participants is always a big factor in MOOCs. You don’t get that in closed environments. And moral reasonings and questions about political theory naturally differ a lot between different countries and cultures.
In this course I got a better understanding of distributive justice and indeed, it influenced my way of thinking: „Once the familiar turns strange, once we begin to reflect our circumstances, it’s never quite the same again“. It would have been nice to have a live session with Prof. Sandel, but that was apparently limited to the first run of the MOOC last year.

It’s my second MOOC which I officially completed, and it was very different from the cMOOC „Moodle MOOC on WizIQ“ in June 2013. The Moodle MOOC focussed on letting the participants produce digital artifacts, discussing and sharing (accompanied by many live sessions with learning experts) whereas the Justice MOOC was about learning a lot of predefined content (video lectures) and reflecting about theories. In my opinion, both didactical concepts were very good and fitting for the particular purpose.

I have taken many, many MOOCs in the last years, obviously only a small part of them with the official stamp of completion. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t like some of the other ones or that I failed there. On the contrary, I learned a lot by attending live sessions, reading some of the literature and taking part in discussions. Certificates may be a nice incentive, but if you don’t need a certificate, why should you go the extra way? I think the aspect of the MOOC completion rate as a general success factor is heavily overrated – eventually MOOCs are open for everyone and shouldn’t come with too many restrictions (you have to do this and you have to do that until [date] otherwise you get drawbacks etc.). I also think we should appreciate the „quiet“ MOOC participants who learn their own way and don’t like to express themselves like some others do in many, many forum posts (for me, the term „lurkers“ is a very disrespectful one).
In conclusion, it is very important to define in advance what a MOOC is about, the workload, expectations and the paths (and level of participation) a learner might take. A short survey at the beginning (including the option „just checking out this MOOC“) and a short midterm survey won’t hurt.

(Update 21.7.14)

And that’s my certificate:

It has been some time since I enrolled in the Justice MOOC and it is still going well for me. I have learned a lot about utilitarianism and libertarianism – in a way which is relevant for today’s life. Two evenings a week (that’s about 3hours/week) I spend with the topics of moral and political philosophy offered in the course. It is something I actually look forward to and has become a certain routine: Watching the two lectures, writing down the main ideas for me, taking the polls and the self-tests, reading parts of the discussion. I already did 3 of the 5 graded quizzes – I am curious, if I stand a chance in the final exam (coming up June 24). The lectures are quite fascinating: in terms one can understand, with many examples from literature and legal cases, issues of our time and often in discussion with the students. There are many different ways to record lectures, and this one where you get to see the audience a lot, not only transfers the atmosphere but is an important part of the content.
As I am very satisfied with the course, in the mid-course survey I could „strongly agree“ (in a positive meaning) with questions regarding workload, learning activities, support, segmentation and the degree of difficulty of the course.
What happens next? Lecture 15 „John Rawls: The case for equality“ is coming up on Tuesday

Last year, I took many MOOCs on different platforms, MOOCs with very different didactical approaches and I had a short look at the first Justice MOOC on edX when it was already finished. At the time, I was more interested in looking at the structure of edX courses, however I was very impressed with the topic and lecturer. When the famous Harvard course started again as a MOOC in April 2014, I decided to really engage with it. I had to catch up this week with lectures 1 to 4, but maybe this is a good thing because I got deep into the topic.
The pre-course survey asked about English skills and I think, this is a very good aspect because I realized that my combination of being „not at all familiar“ with moral reasoning and not being a native speaker was challenging when answering the self-tests and graded quiz questions. In other MOOCs it wasn’t necessary to weigh every word and meaning in order to differentiate between options. As for philosophy, Sandel said „once the familiar turns strange, it’s never quite the same again“. I like the course concept / structure very much: starting with the video lectures, answering the polls and rethinking the answers when an additional factor appears in the setting. For me, the recording conveys the atmosphere in the Sanders Theatre and that is exactly what a MOOC provider could wish for.
There are many benefits in being an e-learning professional, one of them is you get to know many different people, cultures and topics – and this time a glance at „What’s the right thing to do?“.