Cohorts

Feature Description

Cohorts are Open edX’s way of dividing learners. Cohorts can be assigned different discussions, as well as different course content by using content groups. Cohort assignment can be automatic (round-robin) or manual, via CSV or typing email addresses. Without additional configuration, cohorts effectively do nothing - discussions must be set to partitioned between cohorts, and content must be assigned to a content group in order to care about a learner’s cohort. So in this comparison there will be a lot of overlap with the discussion feature (as it pertains to group discussions), the teams feature (as it… also pertains to group discussions), and the content groups feature, as these features are inextricably bound in their current implementation.

Learners are typically unaware that cohorts exist, as they will only see what is visible to their cohort.

For further details on learner grouping features as a whole, you may want to check out Learner Grouping Needs & Functionality , as that goes into further depth in this area. In these documents, we instead look at cohorts specifically as a means of grouping learners for administrative purposes, and their equivalent on other platforms.

Pedagogical Assessment

Is there research to support the need of this feature in delivering pedagogical value and impact?

The value of small group work is well-documented beyond what will be listed here, but typically in a traditionally academic context (as most things are). Coursera’s slides for their sessions feature, however, show a dramatic improvement in learner performance even in a less traditional MOOC context:

Open

While I’ve not conducted extensive research into this subject due to its ubiquity, I believe this is enough to say that cohorting learners into smaller groups is a conceptually worthwhile feature pedagogically.

Links:

• Collaborative learning in small groups in an online course – a case study | BMC Medical Education | Full Text

• Overview of Automated Cohorts (Sessions) on Coursera's New Platform

Subject-Matter Alignment

What types of courses/subjects does this feature support?

All subjects can benefit from learner cohorting, however, it could benefit subjects with more discussion inherent to the subject more than others - for example philosophy, creative writing, and social studies will typically get more discussion traffic than STEM courses, and cohorting can make that less intimidating and more manageable for both staff and learners.

Are Cohorts a Necessary Feature?

In short, cohorts seem like an absolutely necessary feature pedagogically. That being said, the Open edX implementation does not currently enable courses to have the same depth of grouping and utility that is possible on other platforms. Not to spoil criteria 3, but it appears currently as though this feature will need some serious upgrades to compete with the functionality available on other platforms. Coursera’s sessions are far more effective for self-paced, large-scale, eternally rolling MOOCs, while Moodle’s groups are far superior for instructor-led, time-bound academic courses. Canvas is weak in this area, but given Canvas’s use is primarily class-bound, cohorts become less inherently necessary as cohorting has already been handled at the school-level.

The one exception to this is Skilljar’s customer training use-case. Customer training regularly does not feature a huge amount of peer learning, as enterprise and corporate platforms are seldom manned by teaching staff who are able to monitor discussions, moderate discussions, and generally focus on isolated experiences. For this use-case, cohorts are mostly completely unnecessary. Where they compensate for this is in better meta-level learner grouping outside of courses, similar to the Course Access Groups community feature, which is entirely separate from Cohorts, but worth mentioning here as it pertains to learner grouping.