Open Course Analysis
Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform with Professor Douglas W. Rae
http://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/capitalism-success-crisis-and-reform/
Before discussing the merits of this open course, I must note that the course is not being offered as an online class. It is there to provide access to lectures to students who missed classes, provide examples to instructors from other institutions or to prospective students, or provide information for self-learning. I will exam it from the perspective of self-learning.
Does the course appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment? How so?
I was not impressed with this open course offering. The course did not appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment for a self-learner The only available resources were video-taped lectures. While the lectures were offered in a variety of formats (transcript, audio, video), they did not follow good design principles. At first, you could not hear replies from the students. Shortly, the instructor did hand a microphone to the students, but the only view you had of the students were their backs. To me, this is an example of dumping a traditional class onto the Internet without any consideration for the learners.
Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction as listed in your course textbook?
The course does not follow the recommendations for online instruction as listed in the course textbook. There is no provision for communication between the student and the instructor or other students. There is no interactivity with the course materials. The course does not provide access to the assigned readings. The traditional classroom teaching was not retooled, just taped and put on the Internet. Research has shown that lecture is the least effective strategy for teaching online. The instructor does use visuals to illustrate the key concepts in the lectures. There was a syllabus, but it was very short and did not provide learning goals, objectives, or outcome. There are no activities for the online learner to complete except a survey to be completed at the end of the course. There is no opportunity for group work, so there is no social environment which has be proven to be an essential component of the online learning experience (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009, 127).
Since the university has no idea who will be accessing the course, there was no way for them to analyze the characteristics and abilities of the learners. Through the survey, they may be able to compose a more accurate picture of the types of students that are interested in the course. After reviewing this information, I hope the university will develop a learning environment that takes the needs of the learners into consideration (Simonson et. al., 2009, 129-130).
Did the course designer implement course activities that maximize active learning for the students?
The instructor did not alter the content at all. Extraneous information was not removed. More time should have been spent on determining the goals of the course and making sure that activities were developed to ensure that learning outcomes were achieved (Simonson et. al., 2009, 131). At this point in time, there are no activities that maximize active learning for the students. There is no collaboration between students, providing opportunities to discover other points of view and enhance the learning experiences (Simonson et. al., 2009, 130). The only learning activity is viewing twenty-four, fifty-minute lectures. There were no learning strategies or methods that are activity based. There was no opportunity to engage in dialogue with subject-matter experts or other learners (Simonson et. al., 2009, 148). Research has shown that online courses must provide interactive experiences that engage learners for the learning experience to be successful. This is not an example of a successful distance learning environment.
References
Open Yale Courses. (2009). Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform with Professor Dale W. Rae. Retrieved from http://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/capitalism-success-crisis-and-reform/.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
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