" Winners never quit and quitters never win , " at least grant to legendaryfootballcoach Vince Lombardi . Does this aphorism hold true in the realm of on-line learnedness ? That ’s the question many experts are asking about the wildly democratic and controversial MOOCs ( massive open on-line courses ) being offered by top - flight school across the state .
Although MOOCs often have vast enrollments , sometimes as high as 160,000 registered scholar , dropout pace can be equally impressive at around 90 percent [ germ : Webley ] . depreciator have gone so far as to suggest that MOOCs are most in effect at teach advanced educatee and fail to provide the individualized attention and affirm undergraduate and others may need to do well . What some have called rotatory may be just unable , especially if only around 10 per centum of student complete the coursework [ source : Leef ] .
In response , MOOC jock claim completing a class is n’t always important , moot this case of instruction an cheap tutorial tending , or a supplementary reference resource for students enrolled in conventional point programs . If MOOCs are approved as for - credit entry grade in the hereafter , this will likely change , though , and could have a big shock on reducing division size and better completion rate .
There ’s more : In 2013,MITstudied one of its own MOOCs , Mechanics Review , and find out something interesting . Enrollment far surpassed the numbers of people successfully completing the free refresher class , with 17,000 registering and only 1,000 earn certificates . The surprising matter was n’t the dropout rate , though . It was that educatee who completed the course bear witness improvement regardless of their tested level of proficiency before instruction began . This included high shoal alumnus through master ’s candidates [ informant : Anderson ] .
Although more study is necessary , this small sampling suggests MOOCs can be in force at teaching big numbers of students with diverse academic background . If straight , naysayers claiming face - to - face Education Department is best could be left with dwindle class sizes as MOOCs become more pop in the futurity .
