Open Courses

I choose to analyze an open course offered online through Yale University called Listening to Music.  I choose this particular course because I have an interest in music, but also because I assumed that it would contain contain not only text and visual instruction, but audio as well.  This particular course can be found at: http://oyc.yale.edu/music

The primary purpose of distance learning is “to provide a valuable learning experience to students who might not otherwise have access to learning” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2009, p. 162).  Open courses offer learners who may not have the financial ability to pay for a course the opportunity to learn as long as they are equipped with motivation and a computer (Russel, 2011).  From this perspective, the open course is distance learning as its finest.  

There are, however, several design aspects of this particular course that are not in line with best-practices.  Moller, Foshay, and Huett coined the term ‘craft approach’ when designing distance education courses.  This essentially means that the material used in a traditional course is used and made to fit into an online course (2009).  This particular course uses the ‘craft approach.’  It has a syllabus, a introduction to the professor, an explanation of the course set-up and the textbook to be used, and each lecture accessible in video, audio, or transcript form.  

Although each aspect of the course is easy to understand and of good quality, there appears to be little thought put into the needs of potential students or ways to keep students engaged and motivated.  This, however, may be due to the fact that the course if free and the university is not necessarily benefitting from offering the course.  It makes sense that they would not spend the time to make sure the course is designed with best-practices in mind.  

“Interaction is essential” (Simonson et al., 2009, p. 147).  Discussion posts, email between professor and students, blogs, and wikis.  These are all venues of interaction that enhance distance learning and active learning.  Without interaction, the learning is one-sided and doesn’t allow the student to work through the material and create schema.  This course does not include interaction for students choosing to partake in the course.  The only form of possible interaction would be through email correspondence to the professor who taught the course. 

On a positive note, this course does use all four media available: the textbook, audio files, video files, and the use of the computer (Simonson et al., 2009).  In addition, the professor is very animated during his lectures and had several musical guests perform on the lectures that I watched.  The animation of the professor raised my motivation level to watch the lectures.  

Resources

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 2: Higher education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66–70.

Russel, S. (2011).  101 Free open course classes to learn how to build anything.  Retrieved from: http://www.bestuniversities.com/blog/2009/101-free-open-course-classes-to-learn-how-to-build-anything/

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S. Albright, M. & Zvacek, S. (2009).  Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education.  Pearson Education, Inc: Boston, MA.