Review of an Open Source Course

For my project this week, I reviewed ASTR 160 – Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics (Open Yale Courses). This undergraduate astronomy course, which is designed for nonscience majors, focuses on the study of three important topics in astronomy today: Extra-Solar Planets, Black Holes, and Dark Energy. 

Course: ASTR 160 – Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics (Open Yale Courses)

URL: http://oyc.yale.edu/astronomy/astr-160

Does the course appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment? How so?

               ASTR 160 – Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics (Open Yale Courses) is offered free of charge to anyone interested in taking it. Learners do not receive any course credit for taking this course. This course is not really designed to be a distance learning course at all. Rather, it provides a snapshot of the classroom course that was taught by Professor Charles Bailyn at Yale University, in 2007. The original classroom course, which was offered in Spring 2007, met twice per week for 50 minutes. This “online course” is simply a videotaping of Professor Bailyn’s lectures during that 2007 term. Included with the online offering are the following:

• video recordings of the Professor’s lectures (videos) – very good quality
• copies of his overhead slides written during the lectures (PDF files) – rather poor quality
• copies of the exams with solutions (PDF files)
• copies of the homework assignments with solutions (PDF files)

Watching the video lectures is fascinating, as it allows one to take a peek inside a Yale University astronomy classroom and listen to an entire course worth of lectures on fascinating and cutting edge topics. It’s very interesting viewing, if one has a keen interest in the topic, but it’s highly inadequate as distance education. There was absolutely no preplanning or design work performed to transform the classroom course into a distance learning course, but that was never the intention of Open Yale Courses.

Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction as listed in your course textbook?

               This course is not designed to be an online course. It is merely a snapshot of a synchronous, instructor-led classroom course that was been recorded and put online as-is – the worst method possible for putting a class online, as Dr. Michael Simonson describes in his media presentation Theory and Distance Learning (Laureate Education, n.d.). The purpose for putting this lecture class online is simply personal enrichment. The lectures were videorecorded and posted online, and copies of the exams and homework problems, along with the solutions, are provided, so that the students can test themselves and check their answers. This course has none of the features of what is considered to be good online learning: there is no interaction, no active learning, no mechanism for receiving feedback from the instructor, there is no connection with peers. In fact, I would argue that the design of this classroom course itself – which relies heavily upon classroom lecture – is not a good model for putting online. ASTR 160 is based upon a lecture series, a “sage on the stage” presentation of information – a method of passive instruction that is in increasing disfavor in education (Grove, 2012). Dr. George Piskurich, in his media presentation Planning and Designing Online Courses, addresses the undesirability of lecturing in online courses (Laureate Education, n.d.). While ASTR 160 does not use PowerPoint slides, it’s still a primarily lecture-based course that does not take advantage of technology to enrich the course. None of the recommendations and processes defined by Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2012) were put into practice when this course was placed online. But, that was never the intention of Open Yale Courses; their intention was never to develop and release a quality online course; rather, their intention was simply to give access to the content of a Yale classroom course to anyone who wanted it.

Did the course designer implement course activities that maximize active learning for the students?

               There is very little active learning in the course. It is expected that the student will passively listen to the lectures and self test, if they have the desire to do so. There is no personal accountability as part of this online course. There are homework problems, with solutions provided, so that students can work the problems themselves and check their solutions. But there is no textbook, which eliminates the possibility of active learning through reading. In fact there are no other assignments, other than viewing the recorded lectures. Simonson et al. (2012) provide a variety of suggestions for ways to build active learning into an online course. It would have been very easy to add elements of active learning to this online course, simply by providing a textbook or some type of reading assignments, and by offering links to open source astronomy videos that illustrate the course topics (these types of videos are plentifully available on YouTube). The simple addition of these types of components would have provided opportunities for students to engage in active learning. A discussion board could have been added to the course site, allowing students to post ideas and comments, and join in discussions, thereby allowing for some student-to-student interaction. Simonson et al. highlight the importance and value in offering opportunities for discussion in online courses, to promote active learning. This is not to say that the online course experience is poor. I found the lectures to be fascinating, as the topic is of great personal interest to me, but I understand that the experience is limited in what it can offer me as a distance learner.

References

Anderson, N. (2013, February 7). MOOCs take a step toward college credit - Washington Post. Featured Articles From The Washington Post. Retrieved February 11, 2013, from http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-07/local/36958661_1_moocs-coursera-college-credit

Antioch University Becomes First US Institution to Offer Credit for MOOC Learning Through Coursera | Antioch University Los Angeles. (2012, October 29). Antioch University Los Angeles. Retrieved February 11, 2013, from http://www.antiochla.edu/news-events/media-and-press-room/antioch-university-becomes-first-us-institution-offer-credit-mooc-l

Bailyn, C. (2007) ASTR 160 – Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, 2007.  (Yale University: Open Yale Courses), retrieved from http://oyc.yale.edu/astronomy/astr-160. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

Grove, J. (2012, July 12). Times Higher Education - Sage on the stage - your time is up. Times Higher Education - World University Rankings, education news and university jobs. Retrieved February 11, 2013, from http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=420556

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Planning and Designing Online Courses [DVD]. Baltimore, MD.  Dr. George Piskurich and Jacqueline Chauser.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.). Theory and Distance Learning [DVD]. Baltimore, MD.  Dr. Michael Simonson.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.