Abstract:

The entry into the highly paid occupations of blockchain, crypto currencies, social media, data science, quantum computing, and super-computing is narrow, as these emergent technologies are taught in the most exclusive of colleges and universities, which are notorious for their low admission rates and high tuitions, and further in their respective industries. Discoveries in these emergent technologies then trickle down into the less expensive forms of education. The accelerating speed of the technology discoveries in these fields means that those who master these topics first get the wealth that comes from the technology. In addition, their knowledge and first-hand experiences of the technology allows them to have more educated perspectives on whether the technology is useful or harmful to individuals and communities, and further are wealthy enough to opt out of technologies that are often folded into daily life, such as majority-online education; what results is inequity between those who are able to enter into these narrow fields, and the global majority who are not. This narrow entry further results in an increasing gap in the professionals available to teach these STEM-founded subjects, making the education more scarce and thus more difficult to access. The path to equity involves compressing the education process for those professionals and developing better solutions for Massive Open Online Course platforms using intelligent agents to customize the learning experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic fueled the growth of technology courses online, and the communities of interest that were built around their topics means intra- and inter-community boldness is necessary to succeed. Instead of asking a designated teacher their question, students direct questions to the common community, using knowledge-sharing social skills of reciprocity, kindness and respect. Despite the popularity of online communities, there is a scarcity of the needed courage for learning engagement: in Reddit online learning communities, such as r/programming, 98.1\% of users are lurkers who never comment or post; males between 18-29 years old are 15\% of the users.

Can the engaging learning experience, similar to joy in the in-person instruction, be simulated with auto-tutors made economically available to the masses? Yes, if they include the interventions already found to help minority populations have greater confidence and outcomes as a part of the pedagogy design. When students pause to reflect on the values that matter most to them in their lives, such as family, friends, and cherishing nature, tests taken subsequent to the exercise deliver higher scores, proving the power of these connections to their inner selves.

Keywords:

MOOC, STEM, Communities of Interest, Online education, Equality of Online Education, Intelligent agents.