Teaching to the Masses

• Activity Number: 651
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 7, 2014 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel*+
• Companies: Duke University
• Keywords: MOOC ; education ; introductory statistics ; online ; coursera

Abstract

The emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has prompted challenging questions about whether or not and how people can successfully master topics traditionally taught for college credit in brick-and-mortar universities using a free online platform. Anecdotal evidence suggests excitement over this new platform, and high participation numbers demonstrate a general interest in the public for learning, even without a degree attached. However, this new platform is also heavily criticized as the freedom offered by the platform can make it difficult to assess whether the students meet the learning outcomes of the course. Differing learning goals between MOOC and traditional college students also complicate comparing mastery rates. In this talk we will highlight the MOOC titled Data Analysis and Statistical Inference which was designed to parallel the identically titled introductory statistics course offered at Duke University. We will share experiences from both development and delivery of the course as well as preliminary findings from quantitative and qualitative data collected from the enrolled students to answer questions relating to the above concerns.