Sunrise Semester" to Present-Day Moocs
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2016 Centralized, Decentralized, Distributed: Disruptive Technology in Distance Education from "Sunrise Semester" to Present-Day MOOCs Rosanna Flouty Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1361 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] CENTRALIZED, DECENTRALIZED, DISTRIBUTED: DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY IN DISTANCE EDUCATION, FROM SUNRISE SEMESTER TO PRESENT-DAY MOOCS by ROSANNA NOELLE FLOUTY A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Urban Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2016 © 2016 ROSANNA NOELLE FLOUTY All Rights Reserved ii CENTRALIZED, DECENTRALIZED, DISTRIBUTED: DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY IN DISTANCE EDUCATION, FROM SUNRISE SEMESTER TO PRESENT-DAY MOOCS by Rosanna Noelle Flouty This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Urban Education in satisfaction of the dissertation requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy. The Graduate Center, City University of New York April 13, 2016 _______________________ _______________________________ Date Dr. Nicholas Michelli Chair of Examining Committee _______________________ _______________________________ Date Dr. Anthony Picciano Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Dr. Nick Michelli Dr. Terrie Epstein Dr. Lev Manovich THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT CENTRALIZED, DECENTRALIZED, DISTRIBUTED: DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY IN DISTANCE EDUCATION, FROM SUNRISE SEMESTER TO PRESENT-DAY MOOCS By Rosanna Flouty Advisor: Dr. Nicholas Michelli Lessons from early academic television courses from the 1950s guide an assessment of current disruptive technologies that shape Massive Open Online Courses (known as MOOCs) and other informal online learning opportunities today. This dissertation explores some of the unique contributing factors that led to the creation of Sunrise Semester (1957-1982), a popular network television program co-produced by New York University and CBS that offered college credit to viewers. Despite the fact that the show aired at dawn and rarely included one-on-one interactions with professors, Sunrise Semester aired for nearly twenty-five years and attracted a devoted viewership of over two million daily viewers at its peak. The show’s earliest fans were largely female and revealed their identities as housewives, homemakers or “hausfraus” in fan letters written to their pre-dawn professors. Now housed in the NYU Archives, their letters reveal many of the complex contradictions between nascent feminism, television, and power in post-World War II era America. As present day practitioners look to utilize MOOCs as an outreach strategy to bring educational access to scale, innovations from the “golden age” of television offer crucial lessons in how to attract and maintain non-traditional audiences. Keywords: education, technology, online learning, MOOCs, Sunrise Semester iv Acknowledgements Dissertations are labors of love, but mainly they are just labor. This dissertation is lovingly dedicated to my husband Jason, who was one of my first readers from the earliest proposal stage to the final draft. I am indebted to you for supporting me without reservation throughout this process. In a school as big as CUNY, it is challenging to know how to recognize when one needs help with one’s research, let alone know how to ask for it. Sincere words of gratitude have been reserved for Sharon and Audra in the Urban Education program, who, under the longtime guidance of Dr. Nick Michelli, convened a weekly group now known in circles (mainly mine) as The Finishers Group. In the subsequent vacuum left in the wake of Dr. Jean Anyon’s death, we used this weekly gathering as a place and a structure to support our progress. Not knowing how functional we would be, I was one of the first to join and now I am one of the last to finish. Without their support, feedback and friendship, this journey would have been stoic, solitary and far less fun. I would like to acknowledge my brilliant and encouraging committee chair, Dr. Nick Michelli, who unwittingly pointed me to the phenomenon of Sunrise Semester as a cultural oddity in fall 2012, never imagining that I would maybe launch into its study as a full blown dissertation topic. Thank you to my supportive dissertation committee, Dr. Lev Manovich and Dr. Terrie Epstein, who provided candid insight during the proposal process that productively shaped the final paper. I would like to acknowledge my parents George and Claire Flouty, who helped in ways that are too numerous to mention. Their encouragement has meant the world to me. All three of my brothers helped me along the way, including insightful edits by Trevor Flouty and tireless encouragement from Steven Flouty. The coincidence in beginning my “education about education” in the same year that Nicholas Flouty began his own self-learner journey has guided me in ways I am only just now beginning to understand. Thank you also to some of my earliest and unsuspecting audiences in Yeongwol, South Korea, as well as in Dallas, Texas, Minneapolis, Minnesota and New York City. And finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my son, Jasper George Walton, and the little one on the way. v Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................................ V LIST OF FIGURES...........................................................................................................................IX LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................................. X CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 Background...................................................................................................................................... 3 Opportunities for Study ................................................................................................................... 4 Research breakthroughs.............................................................................................................. 6 Five Lines of Inquiry: Contextualization, Historicization, Excavation, Feminization and Motivation...................................................................................................................................... 11 Contextualization....................................................................................................................... 12 Historicization. .......................................................................................................................... 13 Excavation. ................................................................................................................................ 14 Feminization. ............................................................................................................................. 16 Motivation.................................................................................................................................. 19 Limitations for this study............................................................................................................... 20 Statement of the Problem .............................................................................................................. 25 Questions Guiding This Research ................................................................................................. 27 Rationale for Study........................................................................................................................ 28 Working Definitions...................................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................................................... 34 Adult education defined............................................................................................................. 35 Naming the Field: Adult Learning ................................................................................................ 36 Definition of Distance Education .................................................................................................. 40 The History of Distance Learning: Earliest Beginnings................................................................ 41 The Chautauqua Institute. ......................................................................................................... 43 Correspondence Schools in the Industrial Era.......................................................................... 45 The Rise of Radio in Education. ................................................................................................ 47 The Rise of Television in Education. ......................................................................................... 50 Television schools: Continental Classroom and learning by air. ............................................. 52 Advent of the Telecourse and the birth