Interesting.

If we assess based on the acquisition of skills and the retention of content, we can do that using any format of “information delivery” and assessments (formative and summative).

And yes, I agree that it’s the assessment (of content and skills) that enforces the single point of view, and we see that everywhere.

Perhaps in a MOOC of any size and kind, the goals should never be the acquisition of content and skills, but something else, so the single-view assessment model just doesn’t apply. The difficulty is what replaces it.

If we don’t do it this way, what do we assess? In our little SMOOC, I feel like I’m assessing passion and productivity, the desire to explore and understand, activity in pursuit of wisdom, etc. To me that is much easier (and philosophically better) to assess than the kind of content and skills assessment I feel obligated to use with my history students. It’s also not closely related to the content in the same way as in my history classes.

I don’t think it’s right to just assess elements like “participation” or “conversation”, because it is possible to engage in discussion without any understanding of (or interest in) the topic. As you say, you want to bring people into the context instead. So if we instead assess reflections and artifacts of learning within the context (passion, productivity, exploration, understanding, activity), we may need to accept that these things are not only not content-based, but they may not be related to teaching or the course as causative.

It’s the same problem as giving an A to a top history student, who came in an A student and goes out of my class an A student. The class and my teaching didn’t cause his success, but rather just created an environment in which he could excel. I think we do that in MOOCs too. Which makes assessment more about marks we give for taking advantage of a learning opportunity than anything specifically they’ve “learned” as a result. Would we even call that assessment?