What's Next for MOOCs?

By Anant Agarwal, CEO, edX
What's Next for MOOCs?

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are revolutionizing the education space, racking up students all over the world in the millions. They are also the great democratizer; with the advent of MOOCs, economics, social status, gender or geography no longer determine access to education or opportunity for success. However, as MOOCs grow in popularity and reach, there is still much work to be done to truly spread quality education all around the world, but the process has definitely begun. Two important developments in how MOOCs are leading the way to democratize education are the blended learning model and the unbundling of education. Below, we explore these approaches in more detail:

A Blended Learning Model

MOOCs won't replace universities, but rather enhance the quality of education by incorporating blended learning. In the future, education will either be blended or fully online. Purely face-to-face education will exist only in the history books.

So, when we say 'education technology', 'edtech', or 'online learning', it is not to say that teachers and in-person interactions are being replaced. Edtech takes many forms, but behind most advances lies a desire to help teachers improve, make teaching more impactful and efficient, to create new and better opportunities for students, and even to bring back joy and discovery to the classroom.
Blended learning is a trend we see in edtech. As professors and universities produce and run MOOCs on platforms like edX, they are also incorporating these online courses in their campus classrooms. In blended classrooms, the on-campus university course can leverage the power of MOOCs to free up classroom time for interactive collaboration & discussion, testing, and problem solving. This model will continue to rise in popularity. College campus coursework will combine in-person and online learning; a shift driven by student demand for the convenience and effectiveness of online learning.

Unbundling The Clock, The Curriculum & the Credential

As today's students are pushing for a broader, non-traditional (non-residential) education, many educators are now asking probing questions about traditional degree pathways. While there are substantial benefits to students coming to campus to work closely together with faculty, we should re-examine why four years on campus is considered to be a magic number for a college degree program. Why not imagine an alternative path of life-long continuous education, where students come into college after having taken the first year subjects through MOOCs or other advanced courses during high school or pre-university?

In searching for answers to these questions, we should consider an unbundled approach to education - unbundling the clock, the curriculum and the credential. Unbundling the clock might mean that a student takes the first year of college fully online, maybe even while in high school. This would be followed by a stint in the workforce to gain real-world skills. Finally, he or she would take MOOCs or other online courses as needed throughout their career, in place of the traditional final year.

In such a lifelong continuous education world, universities might also be able to unbundle the curriculum. Traditional three or four-year higher education institutions try to provide all types of content and degree programs to learners. While this is possible for some of the older institutions, newer colleges find it harder due to the challenges in attracting professors, building out curricula, and other aspects.

Unbundling the curriculum can address this challenge by focusing on what the university cares most about. For example, a broad liberal arts education, while allowing their students to take a program in computer science online from a third party provider or an online learning destinations such as edX.

Unbundling the credential will offer even more educational opportunities. This might mean that a student obtains a digital credential for a smaller amount of online work. For example, a Micro Masters credential for about six months - worth of online Master's level works. This credential can stand on its own, showing knowledge in a field, or can lead to an on campus program since it is backed by credit.

Blended learning and the unbundling of education are two new and innovative ways in which education is gradually becoming more and more democratized. The traditional one-size-fits-all model will gradually disappear and the doors will open to more and more students.