Improving College Students’ and Others’ Mental Health with Conversational Agents

Improving College Students’ and Others’ Mental Health with Conversational Agents

Mary Harrsch
Networks and Management Information Systems (Retired)
University of Oregon College of Education

This is a cross-post from the Information Age Education newsletter

Mental illness is common in the United States. About one in four adults suffers from some form of mental illness in a given year (Holmes, 1/14/2015).

This level of occurrence is even higher for college students—perhaps as high as one in two according to the article, Delivering Cognitive Behavior Therapy to Young Adults with Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety Using a Fully Automated Conversational Agent (Woebot): A Randomized Controlled Trial (Fitzpatrick, et al., April-June, 2017.) In a related article, Depression and College Students, Michael Kerr points out that financial worries due to high debt and poor employment prospects coupled with failed relationships, lack of sleep, poor eating habits, and not enough exercise frequently result in the development of depression (Kerr, 3/29/2012). There are also many life transitions and challenges to a student’s identity. Quoting from Margarita Tartakovsky’s article, Depression and Anxiety Among College Students (Tartakovsky, 7/17/2016):

…college calls for a significant transition, where “students experience many firsts, including new lifestyle, friends, roommates, exposure to new cultures and alternate ways of thinking,” observes Hilary Silver, M.S.W., a licensed clinical social worker and mental health expert for Campus Calm.
….
Adjusting to college also influences identity — a phenomenon Silver has termed Identity Disorientation. “When students head off to college, the familiar people are no longer there to reinforce the identity these students have created for themselves.” This can make students “disoriented and feel a loss of their sense of self,” contributing to symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Many of these college students do not seek mental health services. Referring again to the Fitzpatrick, et al., article (April-June, 2017):

…up to 75% of the college students that need them do not access clinical services. While the reasons for this are varied, the ubiquity of free or inexpensive mental health services on campuses suggests that service availability and cost are not primary barriers to care. Like non-college populations, stigma is considered the primary barrier to accessing psychological health services.

As described in this article, in their effort to overcome this fear of stigma Stanford researchers developed a virtual therapist, or conversational agent (often called a chatbot). The chatbot employs artificial intelligence and natural language processing to deliver cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to college students self-identified as suffering from significant depression and/or anxiety.

Stanford's virtual therapist is named Woebot. Like many chatbots, Woebot uses Natural Language Programming to process student responses to questions posed by the virtual therapist, then guides the conversation to an appropriate node of a decision tree to provide suggested actions.

The Original Chatbot

Chatbot software was originally based on the "Eliza" virtual therapist that was developed back in the early 60s by Professor Joseph Weizenbaum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Markoff, 3/23/2008). I studied "Eliza" in the late 90s and used it as a model for a virtual professor I developed when I worked at the University of Oregon. I was so excited to see that someone had finally recognized the potential of artificial intelligence to help people cope with life's challenges!

Dr. Weizenbaum's “Eliza” virtual therapist was initially designed to simply keep a conversation going between his chatbot and a human to see if the human could figure out they were talking to a computer and not a real person. However, Stanford's Woebot chatbot uses the scientific principles of cognitive behavior therapy to encourage its human "friends" to develop a positive mindset and overcome depression. Quoting again from the Woebot clinical trials report by Fitzpatrick, et al. (April-June, 2017):

• "Psychoeducational content was adapted from self-help for CBT. Aside from CBT content, the bot was created to include the following therapeutic process-oriented features:
• Empathic responses: The bot replied in an empathic way appropriate to the participants’ inputted mood. For example, in response to endorsed loneliness, it replied “I’m so sorry you’re feeling lonely. I guess we all feel a little lonely sometimes” or it showed excitement, “Yay, always good to hear that!”
• Tailoring: Specific content is sent to individuals depending on mood state. For example, a participant indicating that they feel anxious is offered in-vivo assistance with the anxious event.
• Goal setting: The conversational agent asked participants if they had a personal goal that they hoped to achieve over the 2-week period.

To engage the individual in daily monitoring, the bot sent one personalized message every day or every other day to initiate a conversation (ie, prompting). In addition, “emojis” and animated gifs with messages that provide positive reinforcement were used to encourage effort and completion of tasks.

A Chat with Woebot

Woebot is now freely available online (Woebot, n.d.). On the Woebot website, you can click on a link that connects you and Woebot to a private Facebook Messenger session that no one else can see. Then Woebot talks with you about how you are feeling and how you can keep a positive frame of mind using techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy. I've had talks with Woebot about those pesky "should" statements, discussions about self-defeating "all-or-nothing" viewpoints, the futility of trying to predict other people's reactions, and the importance of self-compassion. Sometimes the little bot even provides interesting short videos about behavioral research.

One that I found particularly interesting was Carol Dweck’s video about the problem of students who develop a fixed mindset when they are praised as "you're so smart" from a young age. I strongly recommend this excellent 10-minute video (Dweck, December, 2014).

After your initial session, Woebot then contacts you each day through Facebook Messenger and engages in a short friendly conversation. This can teach you how to identify your strengths, to mentally rework your own internal dialogue to develop a healthier opinion of yourself, and to recognize negative approaches in your relationships with others. If you wish to talk to Woebot about a specific problem, you can also initiate a conversation like you would with any of your friends on Facebook Messenger. Woebot is also available as a free smartphone app in the Apple or Google Play Stores.

Using Gamification to Combat Poor Adherence

In their article cited earlier, Fitzpatrick, et al., note that other psychologists have been experimenting with computerized CBT, but that motivating patients to continue interaction with computerized CBT tools has been challenging:

In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest and development of such services to either supplement existing mental health treatments or expand limited access to quality mental health services. This development is matched by great patient demand with about 70% showing interest in using mobile apps to self-monitor and self-manage their mental health. Internet interventions for anxiety and depression have empirical support with outcomes comparable to therapist-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Yet, despite demonstrated efficacy, they are characterized by relatively poor adoption and adherence.

To address these problems of adherence, Woebot's team of researchers adopted the "daily dose" model, since online learning studies have shown small doses of learning embedded in every day learning appears to be more effective than one lecture. They also introduced some game-like elements designed to the likelihood that people will come back the next day.

CBT for Seniors

I contacted the CEO of the Woebot project, Dr. Alison Darcy, and submitted a written interview to which she responded. In it I encouraged her to develop a Woebot to assist much older people with depression and loneliness. I pointed out that seniors' mental health needs differ significantly from those of college students, as the challenges of aging often involving chronic illnesses, deaths of loved ones, living alone, and feelings of irrelevance when no longer employed in the workplace.

I also pointed out that, although Medicare recognizes depression has a serious impact on quality of life and ensures that a senior's annual wellness visit includes questions about their emotional state, many seniors take friends or family members with them to the doctor. Thus, they may be embarrassed to admit to their physician that they are feeling depressed or even suicidal when their friends or family members are present—very much the same fear of stigma demonstrated by the college students. To make the problem even more difficult to address, many family physicians are not trained in dealing with mental health issues, and the best they may be able to do is refer the senior to a specialist. Appointments to visit such specialists are usually weeks away and often seniors on limited incomes cannot even afford the co-pay, a sad fact of life in the U.S. commercial health care model.

I also think the long-term caregivers may themselves need yet another type of Woebot, one that could help them to deal with their own feelings of frustration and even anger that may often crop up when dealing day-in and day-out with a patient or loved one with physical and emotional impairments.

CBT Delivery with Virtual Assistants

With the growing presence of voice-activated virtual assistants like Amazon's Alexa, I also expressed my support for porting Woebot to a voice-only interface to Darcy in my written interview with her. Many older adults are not as technology-savvy as college students and probably are not as comfortable on Facebook or a smartphone.

In their clinical analysis of their Woebot development project, Darcy and her fellow researchers apparently agreed with me in theory saying:

Theoretically, conversational interfaces may be better positioned than visually oriented mobile apps to deliver structured, manualized therapies because in addition to delivering therapeutic content, they can mirror therapeutic process. Conversational agents (such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa) may be a more natural medium through which individuals engage with technology. Humans respond and converse with nonhuman agents in ways that mirror emotional and social discourse dynamics when discussing behavioral health.

However, Darcy expressed reservations to me about eliminating the written aspects of therapy made possible by the messenger interface in Facebook or on a smartphone in my interview with her. Continuing to quote Darcy:

The core of what we do—the CBT skills that are triggered when someone is upset in the moment that they reach out to Woebot —is actually dependent on writing down negative automatic thoughts. This is true even in the therapist's office, because it seems to be central to externalizing the thoughts. That is, there is something in seeing your negative thoughts written down that allows you to process it in a different way, ultimately allowing it to be intervened upon (by rewriting).

I do hope she reconsiders, however. But for now, I think Woebot, even in its current iteration, could prove helpful to millions of people. I know I find confessing my deepest thoughts to a properly programmed computer application to be less troubling than revealing them to another human being, many of whom may have their own biases.

Summary and Final Remarks

The skyrocketing cost of higher education is adding to the mental toll that transition to higher education and adult life takes on modern college students. With studies that show one out of every four college students suffers from some form of mental illness, psychologists worldwide are now focused on providing mental health care to these young adults. But, the stigma that often accompanies mental health treatment remains an obstacle.

Clinical trials with computerized cognitive behavior therapy have demonstrated that CBT delivered anonymously in a computerized environment is as effective as person-to-person talk therapy in the relief of symptoms of depression and anxiety. Furthermore, because these therapy sessions are conducted without patient tracking, the fear of stigma can be eliminated. Tools, such as conversational agents like Woebot, in combination with gamification strategies, can be used to encourage students to adhere to a treatment program.

As artificially intelligent voice-activated interfaces become more widespread, computerized CBT may become part of students’ daily hygiene to help them to maintain the best outlook possible as they navigate higher education’s landscape.

References and Resources

Bickmore, T., Gruber, A., & Picard, R. (October, 2005). Establishing the computer-patient working alliance in automated health behavior change interventions. Patient Education Counseling. Abstract retrieved 4/19/2018 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7567340_Establishing_the_computer-patient_working_alliance_in_automated_health_behavior_change_interventions.

Burns, D. (1980). Feeling good: The new mood therapy. New York: Harper Collins.

Burns, D. (2006). When panic attacks. New York: Harmony.

Dweck, C. (December, 2014). The power of believing that you can improve. TED Talks. (Video, 10:20.) Retrieved 4/19/2018 from https://www.ted.com/speakers/carol_dweck.

Fitzpatrick, K.K., Darcy, A., & Vierhile, M. (April-June, 2017). Delivering cognitive behavior therapy to young adults with symptoms of depression and anxiety using a fully automated conversational agent (Woebot): A randomized controlled trial. JMIR Mental Health. Retrieved 4/19/2018 from http://mental.jmir.org/2017/2/e19/ DOI: 10.2196/mental.7785 PMID: 28588005 PMCID: 5478797.

Holmes, L. (1/14/2015). 19 statistics that prove mental illness is more prominent than you think. Wellness. Retrieved 4/19/2018 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/01/mental-illness-statistics_n_6193660.html.

Hunt, J., & Eisenberg, D. (January, 2010). Mental health problems and help-seeking behavior among college students. Journal of Adolescent Health.

Kerr, M. (3/29/2012). Depression in college students: Signs, causes, and statistics. Healthline. Retrieved 4/19/2018 from https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/college-students#1.

Kessler, R.C., et al. (July, 2007). Age of onset of mental disorders: a review of recent literature. Current Opinion in Psychiatry.

Markoff, J. (3/23/2008). Joseph Weizenbaum, famed programmer, is dead at 85. The New York Times. Retrieved 4/19/2018 from https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/world/europe/13weizenbaum.html.

Tartakovsky, M. (7/17/2016). Depression and anxiety among college students. PsychCentral. Retrieved 4/19/2018 from https://psychcentral.com/lib/depression-and-anxiety-among-college-students/.

Towery, J. (2016). The anti-depressant book: A practical guide for teens and young adults to overcome depression and stay healthy. Palo Alto, CA: Jacob Towery.

Woebot (n.d.). Woebot. Retrieved 4/15/2018 from https://www.woebot.io/.

Zivin, K., et al. (10/1/2009). Persistence of mental health problems and needs in a college student population. Journal of Affective Disorders.

MOOCs – Models for Learning in the 21st Century: Part 2

MOOCs – Models for Learning in the 21st Century:
Part 2

Mary Harrsch
Networks and Management Information Systems (Retired)
University of Oregon College of Education

This is a cross-post from the Information Age Education newsletter

In the previous newsletter, I described my experience as a learner in a MOOC hosted by FutureLearn, a UK distance education provider. MOOCs are now being used to teach both pre-college and higher education students. In this newsletter, we will explore the science behind MOOCs as evolving models for learning. 

Working Memory Capacity

Back in the 1960s, psychologists George Armitage Miller, Eugene Galanter, and Karl Pribram coined the term “working memory” to describe the human brain’s cognitive system used for temporarily holding information available for processing (Pribram, et al., 1960). Since each human being’s physical traits are determined by a unique combination of genes in their DNA sequence, each human brain has a unique capacity of working memory. However, some psychologists think genetics is only responsible for about half of this attribute. (Engelhardt, et al., 2016)

According to developmental psychologists, the developing brain’s working memory capacity (WMC) increases gradually over the course of childhood, reaches its mature level (unique to each individual) in their early twenties (American Psychological Association), then gradually decreases in old age (Salthouse, 1994).

Working memory capacity is most commonly tested by a dual-task paradigm invented by Daneman and Carpenter in 1980. (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) Subjects read a number of sentences (usually between two and six) and try to remember the last word of each sentence. At the end of the list of sentences, they repeat back the memorized words in their correct order.

In an academic setting, WMC has been shown to be an important predictor of learning, reasoning, and comprehension (Conway, et al., 2007). But, a human’s working memory, a finite resource, is cluttered with both task-related and unrelated information at any given time. If a student is juggling multiple commitments requiring executive thought processes—processes necessary for the cognitive control of behavior—a student's ability to absorb large amounts of new information may be compromised. The increasing cost of higher education has likely increased this probability. A large majority of college students are now dependent on employment to finance their education. Based on a report released by the Center on Education and the Workforce of Georgetown University, 70% of college students (including myself at the time!) now work while enrolled (Carnevale, et al., 2015). This certainly must have an impact on their ability to maintain focus in the classroom.

So, task performance, in this case learning, is dependent upon an individual’s executive-control ability to keep the learning material being presented mentally active and accessible enough to influence the individual’s behavior (Kane & McVay, 2012).

The Importance of Attention

Proponents of executive-attention theory claim that, although individuals with lower WMC appear to suffer more from distractions created by thoughts unrelated to the task at hand, termed mind wandering, goal achievement is ultimately a product of an individual’s attention control system (Engle & Kane, 2004).

So, what is the average attention span of an adult learner?

Current researchers argue that the average attention span of American adults has dropped and it is now limited to 20, 10, or even five minutes,” says award-winning instructional designer Art Kohn. “The late educator Neil Postman believed that modern technologies such as television and the Internet are actually reducing people’s attention span. He proposed that our frantic world has somehow rewired the human brain, making us less able to attend to things for long periods. In fact, there is precedent for such a view. For example, the human eyeball, which is a sensory outgrowth of the brain, actually changes shape because of early visual experience. For instance, if a child engages in close-up activities like reading or playing computer games for prolonged periods, the human eyeball develops into a more oval shape to better accommodate these close-up images. The downside of this reshaping, however, is that the children then become myopic (nearsighted) and have difficulty focusing on distant objects.

Researchers propose a similar process to explain the shortening of adults’ attention spans (and perhaps the epidemic of attention deficit disorders in children). The theory states that because of exposure to our frantic world with its persistent thrills, challenges, and competition, a person’s brain somehow rewires itself to better accommodate this rapid pace. The downside is that same brain has difficulty focusing on the more mundane experiences of everyday life (Kohn, 2014).

Kohn also points to a new theory that claims learners, especially Millennials, have become accustomed to seeking information on an as-needed basis and are unwilling to attend to material that is not perceived as being immediately interesting and valuable. Quoting again from Kohn, “The advent of instant information has made people impatient with traditional spoon-fed training. Instead, they want to guzzle knowledge when, but only when, they need it.”

How MOOCs Address Learning Challenges

I am hardly a Millennial and not even technically a digital native. However, I think these psychological factors clearly explain my own inability to stay focused for an hour of passive listening in a traditional classroom, and also the apparent inattention of many of my much younger classmates. Like 65% of all adults, I am predominantly a visual learner. So, a lecture that has few visual components would not be presenting information in a format that I would assimilate easily.

However, FutureLearn and other organizations are now using the model of interleaved lessons, often rich with graphics and video clips, coupled with discussion forums and computerized assessment tools that provide immediate feedback. I find this format meets my needs. In addition, students can easily pause or replay segments of recorded information to review and reinforce their understanding of the information presented.

Furthermore, the chunking of information into learning experiences that incorporate a variety of activities requiring about 15 - 20 minutes of concentration per exercise, like those I encountered in my FutureLearn course, also more closely approximates the average adult attention span. In addition, the discussion questions and interactions with classmate responses provide an opportunity to reflect on the information provided and correlate it with previous learning and experiences.

Smallwood and Schooler have asserted that tasks requiring controlled processing are less likely to support mind-wandering. The rationale behind this assertion is that the scarcity of executive resources makes it hard for a person to divert actions to task-unrelated thoughts. Hence, tasks requiring a maximum degree of cognitive control are less prone to mind-wandering than those requiring minimal cognitive control (James, 2018).

The peer-to-peer discussion forums surrounding open essay-type answers used with humanities courses also provide much quicker feedback than you would get from an instructor, even one assisted by three to five teaching assistants. Daphne Kohler, co-founder of U.S.-based MOOC provider Coursera, reports that in their courses, the median response to a question posted in a lesson's global discussion forum was 22 minutes (coursera, 2018). She attributes this to the worldwide nature of student enrollments. She pointed out that, regardless what time of the day you were working on a class unit, someone somewhere else in the world was often working on that same class unit at the same time. So, students often help each other much more quickly than the faculty facilitators (Kohler, 2012).

Anant Agarwhal is another U.S.-based MOOC developer, founder of EdX, and a MOOC instructor. He agrees with Kohler, pointing out that the first peer answer may not be totally correct but, as more and more students join the discussion, a correct answer usually surfaces. Agarwhal also agrees with an MIT colleague who says timely feedback turns teachable moments into positive learning outcomes (Agarwhal, 2013).

The 5-stage Process of Learning

In fact, the process of reflection and discussion is so important to refine a learner's understanding of new material that it is included in Taylor and Hamdy's proposed 5-stage process of learning as outlined in their paper, Adult Learning Theories: Implications for Learning and Teaching in Medical Education. The quote below and the following diagram come from this article (Taylor & Hamdy, June, 2013). Notice the centrality of feedback in the diagram.

[A] discussion between individuals will increase the amount of practical knowledge, and that some things remain a mystery until we talk to someone else with a different range of knowledge or understanding. It follows that the more diverse a learning group's membership is, the more likely the individuals within the group are to learn.

Taylor and Hamdy argue that the feedback phase, where students reflect on new information, compare it to their existing knowledge and, through discussion, with the knowledge of other students, is arguably the most crucial phase. Continuing to quote from Taylor & Handy:

…it is where the learner articulates their newly acquired knowledge and tests it against what their peers and teachers believe. The feedback will either reinforce their schema, or oblige the learner to reconsider it in the light of new information.

I believe that choosing a MOOC that supports a dynamic environment for discussion and feedback with course peers is essential to gaining the most out of the learning experience.

My first MOOC was the FutureLearn course, Superpowers of the Ancient World. I have since taken seven other MOOC courses from FutureLearn and one online course from ArcGIS, a software firm that develops mapping applications for geographic information systems. The ArcGIS class was taught by software developers rather than by academic faculty and included only a single discussion pool not related to specific course exercises. I learned the material because I am particularly adept at learning to use software and also had twenty years of database design experience. But, the course itself offered little opportunity to learn from others with different backgrounds or ideas. I sorely missed the exchange of ideas and inspiration I received in the FutureLearn environment.

Summary and Final Remarks

The importance of in-depth mental processing to learning retention was recognized as far back as 1972 by psychologists Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart in their foundational paper, Levels of Processing: A Framework for Memory Research, published in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). Their research found that information with strong visual images or many associations with existing knowledge would be processed at a deeper level and would therefore be retained much longer.

They also acknowledged that retention is further aided by recirculating information to extend attention on the new material coupled with analysis. comparisons, and elaboration. They emphasized that these processes are really necessary for students to understand and remember content.

The traditional lecture model, used for centuries in higher education as the primary teaching format, simply does not provide these opportunities. First, the length of the information presentation, usually 45 minutes to an hour, exceeds the average adult’s attention span. In addition, non-course related urgent tasks like employment or family responsibilities that are a factor for more than 70% of modern students often can compete with the learning task for a student’s attention. Craik and Lockhart point out that studies of selective attention and sensory storage have shown that non-attended verbal material is lost within a few seconds.

An effective model developed for MOOCs, on the other hand, can offer an alternative experience that addresses the restrictions of a human brain’s limited working memory capacity and individual differences in ability to sustain executive control in a distracted state. Since all participants are equipped with a computer, key concepts can easily be illustrated with multimedia, increasing the visual content for visual learners (65% of all adult learners). The computer connectives can provide forums where course material can be analyzed and compared with the existing knowledge of both the individual student, and of large numbers of classmates with vastly different life experiences.

Critics of MOOCs point to the huge number of enrollees who fail to complete their courses. But, Anant Agarwhal, founder of EdX and a MOOC instructor, explained in his June, 2013, TED Talk that even though only a little more than 7,000 out of 150,000 students who signed up for one of his classes completed it, he would have had to have taught 40 years in a traditional classroom to reach those 7,000 students (Agarwal, June, 2013). 

References and Resources

Agarwal, A. (June, 2013). Why massive open online courses (still) matter. TED Talks. (Video file.) Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/anant_agarwal_why_massively_open_online_courses_
still_matter.

American Psychological Association (n.d.). Memory and aging. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/pi/aging/memory-and-aging.pdf.

Baddeley, A. (October, 2003). Working memory: Looking back and looking forward. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 4 (10): 29-39. Commercially available online from doi:10.1038/nrn1201. PMID 14523382.

Carnevale, A., Smith, N., Melton, M., & Price, E. (2015). Learning while earning: The new normal. Retrieved from https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/workinglearners/.

Conway, A.R., Kane M.J., & Engle, R.W. (December, 2003). Working memory capacity and its relation to general intelligence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 7 (12): 547-552. Commercially available online from doi:10.1016/j.tics.2003.10.005. PMID 14643371.

coursera (2018). Take the world's best courses, online. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/.

Craik, F.I.M., & Lockhart, R.S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 11: 671-684.

Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P.A. (August ,1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 19 (4): 450-466. Commercially available online from doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(80)90312-6.

Engelhardt, L.E., Mann, F.D., Briley, D.A., Church, J.A, Harden, K.P., & Tucker-Drob, E.M.  (September, 2016). Strong genetic overlap between executive functions and intelligence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 145 (9): 1141-1159. Commercially available online from http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxge0000195.

Engle, R.W,, & Kane, M.J. (2004). Executive attention, working memory capacity, and a two-factor theory of cognitive control. In B. Ross (ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation. New York: Academic.

James, H.J. (n.d.). Attention span in adults. Academia.edu. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/8749503/Attention_Span_in_Adults.

Kane, M, & McVay, J. (2012). What mind wandering reveals about executive-control abilities and failures. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 21 (5): 348-354. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.uoregon.edu/stable/44318607.

Kohn, A. (2014). Brain science: focus – Can you pay attention? Learning Solutions. Retrieved from https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1440/brain-science-focuscan-you-pay-attention.

Koller, D. (June, 2012). What we're learning from online education. TED Talks. [Video file.] Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_
education.

Pribram, K.H., Miller, G.A., & Galanter, E. (1960). Plans and the structure of behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Salthouse, T.A. (1994). The aging of working memory. Neuropsychology. 8 (4):535-543. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232504870_The_Aging_of_Working_
Memory.

Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. (2006). The restless mind. Psychological Bulletin. 132: 946-958. Retrieved from https://themindwanders.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/mind-wandering1.pdf.

Taylor, D.C., & Hamdy, H. (September 4, 2013). Adult learning theories: Implications for learning and teaching in medical education. AMEE Guide No. 83. Med Teacher. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/0142159X.2013.828153?scroll=top&needAccess=true. 

MOOCs – Models for Learning in the 21st Century: Part 1

MOOCs – Models for Learning in the 21st Century:
Part 1

Mary Harrsch
Networks and Management Information Systems (Retired)
University of Oregon College of Education

This is a cross-post from the Information Age Education newsletter

Introduction to MOOCs

Reading and writing were developed about 5,200 years ago (History World, n.d.). With these new cognitive tools, information could be stored over time and transported over distances. Moreover, these were powerful aids to helping one’s brain solve complex problems. This technology changed our world.

In addition, reading and writing changed education. Prior to that time, education was essentially an apprenticeship activity, learning by doing and by imitating others who were doing. The development of reading and writing led to the development of schools in which a group of students came together to be taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and local history.

The traditional school model of learning in which groups of students were taught by recognized scholars remained only modestly changed for over 5,000 years.

Then, information storage and processing was revolutionized by the invention of the computer, followed by networks of computers, artificial intelligence, and the World Wide Web. These world-changing and education-changing technologies have upended the time-honored traditional school model.

Many courses based on this modern technology are called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The first really large enrollment MOOC was run by Stanford University in 2011 (Moursund, 12/30/2015). In this and the next IAE Newsletter, I will present my MOOC experiences and some of the insights I have gained into this new mode of teaching and learning.

The Sage on the Stage

Much of my learning in higher education was obtained after I became an adult. Family responsibilities required most of my attention during my early adult life, so my enrollment in higher education courses occurred sporadically over a number of years. However, I still remember how eagerly I anticipated one of my first learning experiences in a mid-sized university classroom. I have been passionately interested in archaeology since I was a young girl, so I was confident I would find the content fascinating and hoped to learn a great deal. I walked into the lecture hall and found myself in the midst of hundreds of students, most much younger than I was, who had also enrolled in the course. I found a seat close enough to hear the instructor well and to be able to see any examples he might augment with audio-visual materials.

I knew nothing about my other classmates, and really nothing much about the instructor except that his research was focused on stone-age tribes in the South Pacific. The professor entered and began a lecture that lasted for almost an hour. Whenever the instructor paused and posed a question, hardly anyone except me even raised their hand to respond. After almost an hour of this, I became increasingly hesitant to participate because I did not want to appear to be dominating the discussion. Then it became a challenge to even stay awake.

Sadly, my experience was not unusual, as I found it repeated in other courses I took with other instructors. Passively listening to a "sage on the stage" was not my cup of tea. I succeeded because I was a conscientious student who did all of my homework and knew how to cram for mid-terms and finals. But, I'm not sure I retained much of the information provided, and I certainly found the experience less than optimal. However, eventually I did manage to become an education technologist, although my career path was far from conventional.

Developing My Career in Education Technology

I saw my first personal computer at a trade show in the early 1980s. It was produced by a budding new company founded just a few years earlier by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. The first computer I purchased was an Apple IIe. I opted for extra memory when I purchased it so it had a total of 128K (notice I said K not MB!). I also bought a selection of basic software including a word processor, an early spreadsheet application, database software, and a financial accounting package. I paid the rather hefty sum of over $6,000 in total. My husband and I were running a large agribusiness operation, though, and the computer made it possible for me to more easily evaluate different crop planting and marketing scenarios.

There were no classes available to learn how to use the PC or its software, so I spent hours with the manuals learning each software package and how the personal computer itself worked. I was able to find a book on the BASIC programming language and studied it as well.

The next three paragraphs summarize my computer technology career path. Notice how rapidly the field was changing during this time.

I was hired by a multi-state restaurant franchise that used MS-DOS-based PCs. There I made the transition to the new operating system and was able to develop one of the first point-of-sale inventory management systems for them. I also developed an immigration compliance tracking system and a program to analyze employee turnover and retention. Later, I implemented an in-house market research program using software I had found in my analysis of emerging technologies. This program eliminated the need for outside contractors that had cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.

My next position was as a fiscal manager with the College of Education at the University of Oregon. In addition to managing a budget of more than $20 million dollars annually in academic funds and overseeing the expenditure of millions more in research grants, the Dean explained he wanted me to computerize the college’s accounting functions and, when that was completed, implement a local area network for the entire college.

I accomplished the Dean’s goals within a year, and also integrated the College of Education’s network into the University’s rapidly expanding Wide Area Network. After that came the transition to computers with a graphical interface, the introduction of the World Wide Web, the implementation of streaming services, and limited development of distance education resources. I also evaluated emerging technologies for educational use, including voice recognition and artificial intelligence, developing a prototype for a virtual professor that I hoped would eventually help faculty manage their office hours’ responsibilities (Harrsch, 2005). I have been surprised that it took almost fifteen more years before artificial intelligence finally began to be introduced into the mainstream. 

MOOC Learning in My “Second Act”

I retired in 2008, after twenty years of managing the College’s networks and management information systems. I realized I finally had the time to seek out learning experiences in ancient history, a subject I had been passionately interested in since a child, rather than continue to focus on courses that could advance my career. This time, however, with a comfortable home office and a high-speed internet connection, I chose to enroll in online MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). I found this experience to be much more intellectually invigorating than my initial introduction to higher education.

My first MOOC course was Superpowers of the Ancient World: The Near East. It was presented by a team of faculty members at the University of Liverpool through the UK's online FutureLearn program.

FutureLearn is a private company owned by The Open University, an institution of higher education with more than forty years of experience in distance learning and online education (Open University, 2018). FutureLearn launched their first courses in September, 2013, and has served more than seven million people since then.

Other companies offering MOOC courses include Coursera and EdX. Coursera is a U.S.-based online organization offering courses developed by 161 universities and corporate partners in the U.S. and around the world. EdX is an organization founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012, and now works with 90 global partners.

All of these MOOC providers offer free online classes. A certificate for proof of your successful completion of a course (that requires minimum scores on quizzes and tests) is available for a charge of $50 - $60. I have always purchased a certificate and posted the digital document to my LinkedIn profile. This not only compels me to treat the course as a serious learning endeavor, but also provides evidence that I am a serious scholar. I have published a number of papers on various aspects of ancient culture, particularly Roman civilization, and I wanted my readers to have some assurance that my work is authoritative. I also think it is important that we support these institutions in developing such innovative MOOC learning models. 

Why FutureLearn?

Why did I choose FutureLearn instead of one of the U.S.-based organizations? Well, first of all, FutureLearn offered courses exploring ancient history and civilizations that were not offered by the U.S. companies. In addition, there are definite differences in their course structure.

Although I have never personally taken a course from either Coursera or EdX, I found an article in Forbes written by a student of multiple Coursera courses (Shah (12/5/2013). She describes video lectures of 20-to-30 minutes, each accompanied by quizzes and problem sets. She mentions a general student forum where students are encouraged to seek help, mostly from other students.

To me, this sounded like watching non-interactive episodes of The Great Coursesfollowed by a graded test (The Great Courses, n.d.). This did not seem to be much different from a typical college classroom, replacing the “sage on the stage” with a recorded talking head and little to no student interaction. I currently own many Great Courses and have learned a great deal from them by independent study, but I was looking for an experience where I could interact with other students and faculty who would be as passionate about the subject as I am.

Ronny De Winter, a TA for courses on Coursera, states in a Quora post (DeWinter, 12/15/2013):

Extremely diverse starting points for students create a chaotic forum experience [on Coursera]. The scale of enrollment can create huge noise and a very low SNR (signal to noise ratio).

Winter points out that course discussions monitored by diligent teaching assistants are more focused. They can improve clarity by introducing thread titles and bringing attention to particular discussion topics. Off-topic discussions can be deleted.

In contrast, the discussion forums on FutureLearn are keyed to individual course exercises and focus the discussion on a specific topic, eliminating much of the noise created by funneling all questions for all exercises in an entire course into one cacophonous pool.

The FutureLearn Experience

When you enroll in a FutureLearn course, you are encouraged to introduce yourself in a welcome forum, explain your background, and tell why you are interested in the subject. If you find other students particularly interesting, you can "follow" them so their responses to questions posed during the course can easily be isolated and read.

In the first course I took, Superpowers of the Ancient World: The Near East, Dr. Glen Godenho provided a video introduction to himself and the course, then introduced his graduate faculty facilitators who would be actively participating in class discussions. Dr. Godenho also participated in class discussions when time permitted. Most of the faculty facilitators in the UK assisting a professor with a course are graduate students working on their PhDs in a field related to the subject, very similar to Graduate Teaching Fellows in the U.S. Sometimes, a professor may also be assisted by other full professors. In Superpowers of the Ancient World: The Near East we had a segment on ancient music and a full professor of musicology facilitated that segment along with Dr. Godenho.

As I began the course, I found that each course was composed of about 20 exercises per week that chunked information into activities requiring about 20 minutes each for completion. (Being an extrovert, I probably spent more time in discussion with other students than the average, though!) I also spent time exploring suggested optional supplemental content. The total amount of work per week expected on the part of students roughly equates to that in a traditional 3-credit graduate course in which students are expected to work three hours outside of class for each hour in class, for a total of four hours a week per credit.

Exercises included reading components as well as maps, timelines, and short videos or audio interviews with other content experts. Online applications were also included to practice such tasks as deciphering hieroglyphs or cuneiform inscriptions. Some of the exercises also tasked students with identifying modern events or practices that may offer insight into ancient thinking.

Learning from Fellow StudentsWhat I liked best about the class was the online interaction with other students and with faculty facilitators. Each exercise included questions that each student was required to answer based on their understanding of material provided and their individual perceptions or experiences. These answers appeared in an exercise discussion thread similar to the format used with social media applications like Facebook. The FutureLearn system limited responses to 1,200 characters. At first I found this a little frustrating, but eventually realized that it helped me to rethink my answer in my attempt to be as concise as possible.

Students were encouraged to read at least one page of responses from their classmates and to "Like" and/or "Reply" to student passages to express why they agreed or disagreed with them. Because MOOCs often involve thousands of students per class, yielding pages and pages of discussion, you could choose to filter the discussion to view only the comments of people you were following.

The FutureLearn course management system had an internal notification system that constantly notified you of anyone who either "Liked" or “Replied” to any comments you made in your course profile. In addition, you could opt to receive e-mail digests.

The number of likes an answer received also helped instructors to pinpoint the answers most readily accepted as correct by the students. If an answer cluster demonstrated a shared misconception, the instructor could clarify the correct response and explain why the apparent accepted response was inaccurate. The instructor could then decide to supplement the exercise with additional materials and/or to change the exercise content to make the concept more easily understood for future students. This level of community engagement was not described by the previously mentioned Coursera student and, for me, it had a significant impact on my learning and maintaining my interest level.

Dr. Godenho also set up a course Facebook page so we could share information we found outside of class about the ancient Near East that was not directly related to a particular exercise. Some other courses I have taken have used Twitter with a specified hashtag for this, but I find a Facebook group discussion can more easily be followed and is without a character limit.

The Importance of a Class Cohort

Students are told they may progress at their own pace. But the course is designed to be completed over a defined period of weeks. If you complete the course in the defined period, you are assured to have interaction with faculty facilitators and a core group of students, usually those who are comfortable with scheduling their class participation into their daily lives. If you decide to study the material over a longer period of time, you will definitely miss out on the faculty feedback and on most if not all of the more productive peer-to-peer discussions.

I was very fortunate that my "class cohort" was very comfortable with using both the discussion forum and the Facebook group, so we had many lively discussions. The course Facebook group is ongoing, and even though I took the class two years ago I still post items of interest to it.

Overall, I found this type of learning experience to be far superior for me than the passive lecture hall presentations of a traditional higher education setting. But why?

In the next newsletter we will examine psychological factors that influence a student’s learning capacity and attentiveness, and how MOOCs can be designed to optimize the learning experience.

References and Resources

DeWinter, R. (12/15/2013). What are the downsides of Coursera’s discussion forums? Quora. Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-downsides-of-Courseras-discussion-forums.

Harrsch, M. (2005). Extending the learning environment: Virtual professors in education. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/35660080/Extending_the_Learning_Environment_
Virtual_Professors_in_Education.

History World (n.d.) History of writing. Retrieved from http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab33.

Moursund, D. (12/30/2015). MOOC enrollment continues to grow. IAE Blog. Retrieved from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/entry/mooc-enrollment-continues-to-grow.html.

Open University (2018). Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University.

Shah, M. (12/5/2013). What is it like to take a Coursera course? Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/12/05/what-is-it-like-to-take-a-coursera-course/#3ef3844b29a1.

The Great Courses (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.thegreatcourses.com/.