The Impact of Open Source

I decided to review the MIT Open Courseware for this assignment.  The URL is http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/.  More specifically, I took a look at the Linear Algebra unit from the Mathematics section located at http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-spring-2010/.  The Linear Algebra unit was offered in Spring 2010, and contains helpful resources that students may also find available in a traditional brick-and-mortal university setting.  Some of these resources are lecture notes, assignments and corresponding solutions, and study groups.  Additionally, because of my familiarity with the subject I wanted to see how technology, multimedia, and instructional strategies where incorporated into instruction so that maybe I can integrate similar approaches in my lessons as well.  I was terribly disappointed on that regard.

The courseware seems designed to supplement face-to-face instruction instead of a distance education setting.  Even though I felt mesmerized by Professor Strang 40 minute lecture on the geometry of linear equations, I doubt that many other distance learners would share my opinion or my prefer learning style.  The course seems to be a perfect example of Zemsky and Massy’s cycle 1 of their e-learning adoption cycles.  In this cycle, faculty introduce basic-level technologies into their course, such as e-mail, web resources, and PowerPoint slides, without fundamentally altering their instructional strategies (Zemsky, & Massy, 2004), cited by Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek.

The courseware web site is well organized in terms of user-friendliness, and navigability.  For example, items such as syllabus, calendar, exams, tools, related resources, course materials, and video lectures are easily and strategically located within the web page.  The tools and related resources areas offer flash animations and demonstrations which help visualize complex concepts, links to other resourceful websites (e. g. http://www.mathworks.com/products/demos/), and additional supplementary documents.  However, these resources would have served a more effective instructional purpose had they been incorporated into each video lecture.  These interactive resources could have been embedded directly into segmented video lectures so as to effectively illustrate the content.  Better planning by course designers in the use of media to deliver the instructional message could have resulted in an enjoyable distance education learning experience.

The course appears also to lack other essential elements necessary for a successful distance learning experience.  For example, the course does not take into consideration learners’ needs in terms of cognitive abilities and learning styles.  The instructor can present complex cognitive context in ways that give learners various tags for understanding the fundamental concepts, and thereby reach a wider range of individuals (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009).  Also, the course lacks specific teaching strategies so as to engage the learners in active learning.  To avoid the “talking head” approach, the instructor needs to de-emphasize the informative part of the instruction for more discovery of information, (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009).  In conclusion, the MIT course seems to be a perfect example of “dumping “ a face-to-face course onto the web; little regard appears to be given to planning and designing a distance education course by the institution or the course designers.

Reference:

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and Learning at a Distance. Pearson,4^th ed., Boston, MA.