In the fall of 2012, Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries, teaching stream faculty members in the Department of Computer Science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, were the first at the University of Toronto to venture into the emerging world of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
Now, having reached more 338,000 learners over the past decade with their introduction to programming, Campbell and Gries reflect on the experience of developing a very different type of course, and the lessons they learned and brought to their own teaching.
The gears started turning in early 2012 when Andrew Ng, co-founder of MOOC platform Coursera, visited the department as part of its Distinguished Lecture Series and discussed Stanford University’s experience developing its first MOOCs.
That summer, U of T signed an agreement with Coursera, taking the lead among Canadian universities in exploring the MOOC arena. The new partnership opened opportunities to extend U of T’s excellence in teaching far beyond the traditional classroom setting.
Two offerings from CS faculty members would be the first MOOCs offered by U of T: Learn to Program: The Fundamentals by Campbell and Gries, and Neural Networks for Machine Learning by University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton.
When U of T approached computer science faculty members seeking interest in a MOOC pilot project, Campbell and Gries raised their hands and quickly got to work determining which existing course would be best suited to the MOOC modality. They settled on CSC108, Introduction to Computer Programming.
The MOOC development process involved two main parts, according to Campbell. First, the technical aspect: recording instructional videos was not a part of their typical teaching workload, and they needed to learn new pedagogy for the new medium. Second, they had to translate a course with three lecture hours per week into a collection of shorter videos and modules. That required them to determine what examples to use, how to sequence them and pair them with exercises, and what the student learning objectives should be for each module.
“We had to rethink how we were teaching the class,” Campbell said. In the end, she said, “it was a really valuable experience from a teaching perspective,” and “completely impacted how we teach CSC108.”
“Where I had a ton of learning was in how to keep the students engaged by asking effective questions as we go through the material,” said Gries. “And those sorts of frequent, intermittent interruptions to make sure the students are keeping up is one of the main reasons why this course was so effective in the long term.”
“Because we had all of these instructional videos and exercises, we were able to flip the course,” explained Campbell. “That was 10 years ago, and the course is still using those videos and many of those exercises.”
Their experience developing a MOOC also has had a ripple effect on other U of T computer science courses, said Campbell. Other courses have gone on to use similar models, or have integrated certain exercises or active learning techniques that she and Gries first employed in adapting CSC108 for Coursera.
When in-person instruction was interrupted by the COVID pandemic, Campbell, Gries, and other Department of Computer Science instructors could lean on some of the experience gleaned from MOOC development — developing online assessments, especially — to adapt to the new and challenging circumstances.
Reflecting on the role of MOOCs in computer science education, Gries and Campbell explained that much has changed in the past decade. In the early days, there was discussion of the threat that MOOCs posed to in-person undergraduate courses, but “we haven’t seen any hint that that’s actually going to come to fruition,” said Gries.
“For some of the post-secondary education sector, it was also seen as a way to expand access to education to those who may not have it, which I think to some degree, it did,” Campbell said. “But I think what was learned is that these courses are used as an online resource,” with people popping in and out as they explore specific topics, rather than completing the entire course from start to finish.
“I still get emails occasionally from people who say, ‘I took your course, and here's what I've gone on to do,’” Campbell said. “And they want to come back and share the impact that it had. Every single time I get one of those, it puts a smile on my face. It's kind of incredible that people are still finding it so useful, and that for some people, it really is having a significant impact on their career path.”