How Students Engage with a Remedial English Writing MOOC: A Case Study in Learning Analytics with Big Data

Insufficient academic preparation is a major barrier to student success in higher education in the United States; one nationwide study found that 75% of students entering community colleges need remedial education in at least one subject to meet prerequisites for college credit courses. 1 The cost of preparing these students for college-level work is extremely high, both to the educational institutions delivering the instruction and to the students themselves, with $4.6 billion in federal Pell grants going to students enrolled in at least one remedial course in 2011–12. 2 Further, a large percentage of students who require remedial education become mired in courses that are taught using the same deficit-based pedagogy that contributed to their failure to master the curriculum in high school. 3