peer-to-peer MOOC

My two cents for the sustainability of MOOCs: “As in any new innovation, only products with efficacy and alluring power can survive.” Didactic-pedagogy-based MOOCs may be useful for some highly motivated students but may not be a magnet to attract ever-growing large audience. I am a strong believer that peer-to-peer interaction is a very effective learning tool (though may not be very effective in college entrance exam) and may keep the hype of MOOCs last much longer. Peer-to-peer discussion may actually save time and imprint the very few key and “eureka” concepts in your mind. In addition, peer-to-peer discussion is a perfect tool for social learning which is the part that we lag behind Westerners a lot. Online MOOCs actually can encourage this peer-to-peer interaction more effectively than in-classroom lectures. It can be done by, e.g., stopping the lectures intermittently by asking student questions followed by the “student-engaging time”. Any students’ online feedback can be evaluated by the peers (but not by the lecturers) by clicking a few buttons such as “like” “OK” “interesting” “Are you sure” “You are my hero” “More comments, please” etc. Again, the hype of MOOCs cannot just depend on the sheer volume, it needs some innovation too in order to be sustainable.