Modern & Contemporary American Poetry MOOC – my learner experience (Sept 7 th – Nov 15 th 2013)

Explanatory Notes:
1.
Learner perception of design. Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (ModPo) is a very popular Coursera MOOC. It is now running for the second time and this year (2013) has attracted circa 36000 participants. In terms of the creative tension between openness and structure my perception is that the designers want the course to be safe but challenging, but to be controlled in the main from the Coursera platform and strongly steered by Al Filreis (Professor for the course). The way openness and structure is realized in practice is through the videos of close readings of the poems. There is a strong emphasis on modeling, demonstrations, collaborative analysis, open discussion and trust. The course has been designed with the expectation that participants will develop their capability to read and understand poetry on their own terms and that this will be sweetly emergent. Participants are expected to engage in the discussion forums and initiate and create new contacts and networks. Most interaction is through writing in the discussion forums and for those choosing to be assessed, assignment writing and peer review.
2.
Learner Experience Week 1. My learner experience was not very different from my perception of what the course design intended. Because poetry is a new subject area for me the structure of the course in terms of liminal space and unpredictable outcomes were more challenging than perhaps they had designed for, but my experience with cMOOCs meant that I felt safe and comfortable, able to self-organise and for the most part in the sweet emergent zone. I knew that the course was not as open as a cMOOC and centred on Al Filreis and his TAs and I recognized that whilst there was a great emphasis on interaction, and there

was plenty of space for co-evolution, there wasn’t a lot of room for negotiated outcomes or adaptation of the environment.
Despite the activity in the forums, I made space for solitude and contemplation by not interacting there. The syllabus is very full. I found the first week exciting and ‘mind-opening’ without being over challenging.
3.
Learner Experience end of Week 2. I found Week 2 unsettling and felt quite cross with the whole thing. The first assignment had to be submitted and having no background in reading or studying poetry I was pushed out of my comfort zone. I also resented what I perceived to be unnecessary constraints (and wrote a blog post about it – assessment requirement to post to discussion forums, assessment criteria not made available in advance of peer review, naming and shaming of a student for plagiarism in a public forum). I felt disappointed with some aspects of pedagogy, which I found ‘wanting’ and certainly not true to cMOOC principles, and was increasingly irritated with what I perceived to be a ‘groupee’ culture around Al Filreis and the unnecessary ‘noise’ in the forums. Webcasts seem to start with a ‘We all love ModPo/Al’ mantra and the number of threads in the forums is completely over the top. So, agency and presence/writing felt very inhibited for me in Week 2 and I was near jacking the whole thing in! I was though, very aware that many participants were/are loving all this. And I should say that these feelings of being out of my comfort zone, not part of the community etc. were exacerbated by my own decision to not do the 500 word assignment as requested, but to submit the assessment in a different form and only 250 words – so I put myself out on a limb!
4.
Learner experience – Mid Week 4. This footprint shows the learning to be more in the sweet emergent zone. I am feeling more settled in the course and more accepting of the course format. I still recognize the control that is being exercised by the ‘sage on the stage’ model that is being used to present the course and the fact that the course is for the most part on the Coursera platform
(although there is a Facebook group and a Twitter stream and some evidence of participants meeting up f2f to form study groups). This control is evident in the aspects of the footprint that are in the prescriptive zone. But where I have been able to take control of my own learning I have done so. I have made the decision not to attempt to participate in the forums, but to engage with the course on my blog. This means that I forfeit the chance of getting a certificate, which is not really a big deal but does, strangely have a demotivating effect. I have also realized that there are lots of surprises for me in studying poetry – but they are to do with what poetry can tell me about teaching and learning, rather than a passion for poetry itself. So I have accepted that I will not be a member of the ModPo community of passionate poets, but that nevertheless will likely learn a lot in this course. I think it could have a significant impact on some aspects of my thinking, but I will reserve judgement until the end of the course.
5.
Learner experience – End of Week 7
Open/Structure - The MOOC has now settled into a rhythm and there is little risk, since the pattern of the week is well established.
There are still opportunities for personal growth (liminal space) and some unpredictable outcomes, e.g. I still get ‘Ah –Ha’ moments when I see a connection that I can write about on my blog. The course remains open to several simultaneous meanings and remains challenging. I think this is due to the nature of the subject matter, but there is ongoing centralized control from the
Coursera site, Al Filreis and the TAs and if you want to be involved in the course you need to follow the determined pathway.
Interactive environment - Diversity remains in the sweet emergent zone. There are still lots of people posting and one of the TAs started a forum thread – Excellent Websites for Poetry Resources – but since it hasn’t been given a special location it has got lost

in the hundreds of forum threads. So - much less diversity in terms of resources and I am reminded of Stephen Downes’ comment which I wrote about on my blog: ‘in cMOOC terms diversity is more than broadcasting the same message to thousands of people, i.e. the model of a centralized network. It involves diversity of approach and resources, i.e. participants are involved in determining the
approach and creating the resources’. The course is experiential in the sense that a key feature is to learn how to do a close reading of a poem and there are opportunities for mutual adaptation and growth in the forums and through the peer review of assignments – but the environment is not adaptive and the course definitely takes place in a bounded learning space. I don’t think
Trust is as high as the tutors would like – there has been at least one example of ‘flaming’ in the forums, e.g. in the ‘Really upset over evaluation process vs. Assignment’ forum thread
( https://class.coursera.org/modernpoetry002/forum/thread?thread_id=4838 )
Re Theory of Mind, I think there is some expectation that we will try and anticipate what others are thinking – particularly the actual poets – but not in the sense of making the next chess move.
Agency
The course feels increasingly prescriptive to me. The only reason I can develop my capability on my own terms is by keeping my distance from the course and engaging with it from my blog. The course does not allow for multi-modal engagement, e.g. It is not possible to include images or videos in an assignment (the functionality of Coursera is constraining), I can’t see any evidence of negotiated outcomes and the opportunity to develop your own roles in the course are limited. My perception is that you can only develop your own role by keeping your distance from the course.
Presence/Writing
The course is overloaded with content. To watch the videos, do close readings of the poems, engage in the discussion forums and complete the assignments would take far longer than the guidance given. For me there is far too much content – too many poems to study, too many videos to watch. I don’t have time to think in any depth. I can get to the end of a week having rushed through the videos and poems and scarcely remember what it’s all about. It feels like knocking off a ‘to do’ list. There are so many discussion forums that I couldn’t contemplate engaging with any. The whole thing is just too much and whilst the tutors say that they encourage all types of interaction and writing, it doesn’t come across like that to me.
For me ModPo is a ‘purple in the nose’ community. (A story from Etienne Wenger). I have tasted the wine and know there is a lot to know about the wine, but I don’t feel part of the wine-tasting community, I don’t understand their language (purple in the nose) and I don’t think I want/need to become a member of this community. I am content to remain at the boundaries of the community.
6.
Learner experience – End of Week 10
ModPo has been a bit of a roller coaster ride for me. I have lurched from being thrilled by it, to feeling excessively irritated, from marveling at the open minds of the poets to whom we have been introduced, to feeling that I do not have the competence to understand them, from being disappointed in aspects of the MOOC pedagogy to being really impressed with the way in which the
MOOC has been run. This is reflected in the footprints I have drawn at various stages of the course.

Reflecting on my experience of the last week of the course, I find that my perception of the balance between emergent and prescriptive learning in this MOOC has once again shifted more into the ‘sweet’ emergent learning zone (the pale white zone on the footprint. The darker central zone is the prescriptive learning zone. The outer darker zone is the challenging zone, moving towards the edge of chaos).
The footprint I have drawn shows that there are a number of factors that remain in the prescriptive zone. There isn’t a lot of ‘Risk’ in the ModPo environment, or opportunities for the course to be self-correcting or adaptive. There is limited variance in the learning pathways and not really any possibility that I could see of negotiating outcomes. My perception is that these constraints on emergent learning are a result of the design of the Coursera platform.
I also imposed constraints on myself by choosing not to engage in the forums and towards the end of the course I stopped watching the webcasts. For myself I had to balance engagement with the heavy load of poetry we were required to read and engage with, with the demands of engaging in the overloaded forums. I chose the former and instead to engage with the MOOC from my blog. I have blogged each week of the course.
The result has been a mostly sweetly emergent learning experience. I do not feel part of the ModPo community (as I mentioned above – it has been a ‘purple in the nose’ experience, but I have found the introduction to poets and their experiments highly stimulating and relevant to my work in education.