by Adam Conner-Simons, CSAIL
The rise of online education and massively open online courses (MOOCs) have prompted much naysaying on their effectiveness, with detractors citing single-digit completion rates and short-lived pilot programs. Amidst all the arguments about “flipped classrooms” and “hybrid learning,” however, few people have actually analyzed what makes MOOCs work (or fail): the content. Online learners spend most of their time watching videos — but are the videos any good? This year edX, the online learning platform co-run by MIT and Harvard University, gave researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) data on the second-by-second viewing habits of more than 100,000 learners perusing more than 6.9 million video sessions. In a paper published this spring, the CSAIL team outlined some key findings on what online learners want from videos.
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/what-69-million-clicks-tell-us-about-how-fix-online-education
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