Are Micro Community Courses (MiCCs) the future of online education?

Online education 1.0 featured MOOCs, which were akin to banner ads in the early days of the internet - a clumsy attempt to bring the offline paradigm online. 1.0 was the Wild West - fragmented, scam-ridden, noisy, and uncredentialed. A much-cited MIT study highlighted MOOCs’ abysmal 4% completion rate.

- Self-paced nature - what many have been quick to discount (due to the high failure rates of MOOCs in the last decade), is actually an important benefit to the millions of citizens with some college credit and no degree.

Coursera, Udacity and edX sprang up nearly a decade ago as high-profile university experiments known as MOOCs, for massive open online courses. They were portrayed as tech-fueled insurgents destined to disrupt the antiquated ways of traditional higher education. But few people completed courses, grappling with the same challenges now facing student... See more