#1293 overall
Learning Creative Learning
MIT Media Lab
1 recommender · 1 thread · recommended in 1 year, 2013 · score 0.7
Learning Creative Learning is an MIT Media Lab course that ran online alongside an on-campus class, combining live campus video, readings, online discussion, and shared assignments. It focuses on how to design and support creative learning experiences.
One commenter contrasts it with a Coursera course, calling it much more vibrant and engaging because of its live video, readings, discussion, and shared activities.
Recommendations by year
20062026
I took a class on Coursera. In that particular instance, I found no value in the online discussions (which seemed often pretty off-topic), and mainly I just watched the videos. I don't know how common this is for Coursera classes, but it left me with the impression that they might not need to be "classes" at all: just make educational television programs (or YouTube videos, or DVDs, or whatever).
This spring I am participating in the MIT Media Lab class on Learning Creative Learning, which is running online in parallel with an on-campus class. Between the combination of live videos from campus, readings, relevant online discussions, and assigned activities that we share with others in the class, to me, this class feels much more vibrant and engaging than my Coursera experience.
If future of MOOCs is more like this Media Lab class, then I'm looking forward to it. If it's more like Coursera, then I'd just as soon read a book in many cases.
But do either of these topple the existing world of academia? Coursera, sadly, might be a fine replacement for huge standard classes in which students are lectured at, and a Media Lab-style class could probably be a good replacement for many other classes.
I think though that the students need to take the classes more seriously for it to really work out. It seems to me that students are more likely to make a reasonable attempt at learning if they are paying tuition and risking getting bad grades on their record at a physical school than they are in a free online class which offers no particular negative response if they just totally blow it off. While we see huge numbers of people registering for MOOCs, it appears that a much smaller number of people actually complete the classes in any meaningful way.