MOOC certificate can change the job market?

Editor's note: This article comes from the Nutshell MOOC College product manager Huang. Huang long-term attention to the Internet education, has been in the watercress to establish a "public class classroom" station, after the public class NetEase, now the shell Nets Mooc College as product manager.

The biggest difference between MOOC and public class is that it sets up a completely web-based assessment system, and it is based on this assessment system to empower learners to pass proof, and the MOOC profit model is now based on MOOC certificate value-added services. In this way, MOOC positioning is very dependent on the MOOC certificate positioning.

In the early days, the MOOC certificate was positioned to lower American higher education fees and even to subvert American higher education. But at several major U.S. state legislatures, MOOC's bill, which has been recognised as a college credit, has not been passed, and the MOOC certificate's campaign to offset college credits has stalled, turning into a more moderate " Flip the Classroom "mode: Mooc as a part of the content of the course, to join the offline discussion, and finally through the offline test to certify the school credits.

So, as a subversive concept that aims to break the barriers of higher education, how can other Mooc "Flip class" be positioned? What is the value of a certificate for Chinese MOOC users? As the product manager of Mooc College of Shell Nets, I think the industry and learners need to have a realistic understanding of the MOOC certificate.

Is it reasonable to rely on MOOC certificate to enter Google?

If you think an ordinary school graduate can successfully enter a world-class company such as Microsoft or Google after a few months of MOOC study, then the Ivy League principals should have resigned altogether. But the media is naturally like this "cock silk reverse attack" The moving story, as long as MOOC this field does not appear in the slums of the millionaire, Mooc has no influence, can only be high-end people hype new concept, can not effectively change the existing market pattern.

This idea of either/or is wrong. MOOC's early rapid growth does bear this expectation, but the unrealistic expectation is that MOOC is a web-based learning where everyone can participate without any threshold, and you can't expect a person who knows nothing about computers to become an expert in this field just through months of MOOC learning, In fact, these people are interested in the "Introductory Introduction to Computer" course, as are the introductory courses in other areas. But the world's best fresh graduates are competing for jobs in Microsoft and Google, where smart people have trained for thousands of hours in their field, so it is unrealistic to expect MOOC to directly change the highest level of workplace competition. In other words, if true, whether the magic is called MOOC or anything else, will its pay certificate be worth only 49 dollars?

Five realms of knowledge learning-when we are learning MOOC, what are we learning?

If a person is less likely to enter the best company through a MOOC certificate, what is the value of obtaining a MOOC certificate for a person? My definition is that a MOOC certificate can prove a person's "relatively standardized, moderate degree of self-study" in a field. What do you mean by "moderate degree of self-study"? We use the theory of "learning curve" to explain that without considering individual talent and learning methods, we assume that the most basic learning theory is that the mastery of a domain knowledge is proportional to the amount of time you spend in this field. We only use the variable "invest time", which means that other conditions are replaced by averages, then an average person learning a field of knowledge of the learning curve should be like this:

Note: The image is adapted from the English version of Wikipedia "learning curve"

The horizontal axis represents the time a person invests, the longitudinal axis represents mastery, and the unit time on the horizontal axis is an hour.

When you know a field from a tweet or news story, you spend a few minutes on the left side of the entire axis, but not 0. You know the most basic definitions and concepts in this field, and this process is called "knowing."

When you continue to search by keyword to see Wikipedia and some extended bibliography and papers, you can spend a few hours, you start a little, know some of the framework of the explanation, but a lot of details are not clear. This process is called "understanding."

When you learn a MOOC, you will probably take 7.63 weeks, an average of 4.63 to 6.88 hours a week (data from all courses in MOOC College) to take a course, and with a lot of homework and exercises to complete, your knowledge of the field will probably be able to understand the level of detail. This process is called "familiarity."

When you are studying in an undergraduate major, you will spend a few years, through several courses and practice to learn a field, and finally through the thesis or graduation project. Of course, you really put into the time, eating and sleeping entertainment does not count, if you strictly training, you probably have to spend thousands of hours, can achieve the use of knowledge to solve some problems. This process is called "mastery" (This is also Coursera launched "special certification" to achieve the purpose).

Finally, when you are in a field of 10,000 hours of dedicated investment, then you will enter the "expert" level, you can not only skillfully solve most of the problems in this area, but also creative play, to varying degrees to increase the amount of knowledge in this field (reference 10,000 hour law).

Obviously, the MOOC certificate can prove that you have completed the middle level of learning, and most of the cases should be self-study. Therefore, the certificate proves that this "secondary level of self-study ability." Why is it relative standardization? Because in the field of self-study, there are too many different degrees of people, some brush micro Bo also called self-study, and some turned over the book also called themselves self-study, and some see the public class also called themselves self-study, but also have spent a few years to study from the scholar, their level of difference is too large, across the entire learning curve, and uneven distribution. This will not be able to form a relatively unified social consensus on this group of people, and can not make rapid judgments of individuals in this group, and each time to give a single individual to do a level test is very inefficient. MOOC Certificate At least ensures that all learners devote time on an average, this is actually all diplomas, the general purpose of the certificate, as far as possible to put people on the learning curve of a standard line, and maintain the standard line of the assessment is credible and effective.

What is the value of a MOOC certificate for the job market?

First, through the above analysis, we come up with an important information, MOOC itself and all other nature of education, training, the most important thing is to prove a person's learning ability, and in the present MOOC teaching methods and the length of time, can only prove a moderate level of self-study ability. It is characterized by a wider range of users of quality education than in pure offline education, which is more standardized than books and public classes with a broader coverage.

Second, MOOC can help a newcomer understand the basics of a particular unprofessional field. This is one of the reasons employers like MOOC because it allows a novice to get into a normal workflow at a lower cost, especially for a large-scale novice training. But this is easily confused with other vocational training, and if the new training, then it shows that the talent screening, the requirements of the new people will be closely combined with the needs of the enterprise, the general value of the certificate is not so big.

Third, MOOC can help those who are not very good "talent" to expose the horns, that is, the minimum probability of discovering talent opportunities, this is the media preference. Indeed, because there is no entry threshold, many talented people in remote areas have the opportunity to show their own, but this probability is too small, and often only to prove that a person has the possibility of becoming a genius, that is, by the top university entrance, rather than directly into the workplace.

Of these three points, the 1th is the core, that is, the MOOC certificate proves a relatively standardized medium level self-study ability in one field. So who needs proof? Who can accept such proof? With this in mind, MOOC can clearly define their market size and market value. This is the next article I will talk about, in the job market, MOOC how to position? Who should we recommend to MOOC?