Learning at Scale

Large scale learning environments are places with many learners and few experts to guide them. They include Massive Open Online Courses, adaptive learning systems, and interest-driven online communities. Learning at scale is poised to play a greater role in K-12 education, teacher preparation, and lifelong learning.

Large-scale learning environments are places with many learners and few experts to guide them. As learning extends across the lifespan, and as more traditional educational environments embrace hybrid and online learning, learning at scale stands to expand in importance.

Computational Measures of Engagement Across Different -- In this study, we are developing computational measures that allow instructors to evaluate the degree to which online students use discussion forums to engage in conversation with peers who hold different political beliefs. These measures will build upon previous work examining open classroom climate, but differ in that our measures will draw upon event logs from online platforms rather than survey self-reports. We will develop and test these measures in edX courses that explore politically controversial content. After surveying students to evaluate their political beliefs, we will use the extremely granular data collected by open online courses to examine the degree to which students in forums respond directly to students with differing opinions versus forming separate conversational siloes of like-minded students. Conducted with Dustin Tingley at Harvard University and Brandon Stewart at Princeton University

MOOCs: The Lived Experience -- While online learning environments provide incredible rich tracking log data about student learning experiences, online platforms cannot track all of the learning experiences that happen beyond those platforms. The Lived Experience project is based on interviews with over 100 MOOC students, to better understand their learning experience at their workstation, online but off platform, and in their lives beyond the courses.