Blurts

This is a simple productivity tip my wife showed me (after expressing disbelief that I was unaware of this approach). I scan many sources for info. Often I do nothing with this information immediately, but I think I will use the sources at a later time. 

The work I have read on the flipped classroom sometimes works in the concept of mastery learning. For those who find the concept of mastery learning intriguing, it seems to be you should go beyond the shallow descriptions offered in present work. A great deal of depth can be explored elsewhere. I would recommend a couple of books from the 70s edited by James Block.

Mastery Learning: Theory and practice (1971)
Schools, society and mastery learning (1974)

Issues such as learner responsibility in self-directed mastery learning have been explored before.

TechCrunch indicates that a large proportion of the profs who offer a MOOC do not feel the experience should be worth college credit. This is an interesting, but not surprising position for those who offer content to take. I think that learning for credit comes with different expectations than what I have sometimes called “hobby learning”. My commitment to a hobby can be very intense, but based on my own interests and priorities. I invest time and money in the parts of a topic that interest me and the skills I acquire may not meet someone else’s expectations for being skilled. This is fine until we get to the issue of whether what I have learned deserves credit.

The MOOCs I have explored are topical and mostly not main stream – they are well suited to what I call hobby learning. There are mechanisms available to acquire credit in many typical introductory content areas. CLEP exams are available for many traditional content areas. My institution honors CLEP exams. I am surprised more students do not take an iTunes U course and then attempt to pass a CLEP exam.