Speaker:

Don Norman

Title:

MOOCs and Online Education

Abstract:

It has long been known that traditional lecture-based courses are not good learning experiences. Problem-based learning has a long, successful history of effective instruction, but it has several deficits. It requires a new mode of thinking by instructors, most of whom know nothing of modern instructional methods (most faculty know nothing of education except what they themselves experienced). And it tends to require extensive instructional resources, meaning it doesn't scale well.

Technology is not the answer, but it can be part of the solution. MOOCs come in a wide variety of shapes and forms. Some are simply lectures, which therefore have all the disadvantages of lectures. Some are novel attempts to redefine the learning experience. All are experimental. Many MOOCs are being combined with classroom settings, often in what is called "inverted classrooms."

There are two major problems being faced by all these new approaches: first, should the classes be synchronized (the Coursera model) or continually available (the Udacity model)? Continually available is better for students but makes it difficult to have peer discussion groups, unless there are massive enrollments, whereas Synchronized is better for instructors and makes peer discussion groups much easier to handle. The second major problem is how to scale, especially with "soft subjects." It is easy to use computer grading for arithmetic problems. But it's more difficult to grade programming. And from there, the difficulty increases enormously. Solutions range from yet more automation and AI, crowdsourcing, to peer-review with training and certification of peers.

I'll review my experiences with the failed attempt of UNext to provide high-quality problem-based MBA courses. I champion the experiments, but I do not know the answers. I predict that they will lead to massive changes in today's education, probably differing from today's traditional classroom, but not like today's MOOCs. There is unlikely to be a single solution: we will need multiple solutions, ranging from the continuance of today's traditional universities to completely on-line experiences, with multiple variations in-between.

Bio:

Don Norman is a leader in the application of human-centered design. Business Week has listed him as one of the world’s 27 most influential designers. “All design,” says Norman, “whether of a product, a company, a service or an experience is ultimately aimed at satisfying human and societal needs.” This approach requires the application of knowledge of cognitive science, engineering, and business with the skills and knowledge of the design field, helping companies produce products and services that satisfy human and societal needs, both practical and emotional. Dr. Norman is cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an executive consulting firm that helps companies produce human-centered products and services. Norman serves as an IDEO Fellow and as advisor and board member to numerous companies and non-profit organizations in the area of policy and education, including the Board of Trustees at IIT’s Institute of Design in Chicago. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at KAIST, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, in the Department of Industrial Design and is professor emeritus at both the University of California, San Diego (in the departments of Cognitive science and Psychology) and Northwestern University (in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). As a consultant to industry, Dr. Norman brings a unique mix of the social sciences and engineering to bear on everyday products. He is cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an executive consulting firm that helps companies produce human-centered products and services. He has been Vice President of Apple in charge of the Advanced Technology Group and an executive at Hewlett Packard. He was President of the Learning Systems division of UNext, a distance education company. He is a fellow of numerous scientific societies. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of many organizations, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer & Cognitive Science from the Franklin Institute (Philadelphia), honorary degrees from the University of Padova (Italy) and the Technical University of Delft (the Netherlands), the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from SIGCHI, the professional organization for Computer-Human Interaction, the Mental Health award for contributions to Business from Psychology Today, and the Taylor Award for outstanding contribution to the field of Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology from the American Psychological Association.
He is well known for his books “The Design of Everyday Things” and “Emotional Design.” Business Week called The Invisible Computer “the bible of the “post PC thinking.” His book, “Living with Complexity,” argues that complexity is desirable: the role of the designer is to make complex things understandable. His latest book is an expanded and revised edition of Design of Everyday Things. The first edition lasted 25 years, which means that the revision should last until 2038. He lives in Silicon valley, but can always be found at www.jnd.org