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Lecture Outline
I. Brief Background
II. MOOC survey
III. Conclusions
What is a MOOC?
A web-based course designed to support a large number of participants.
Recent development in the area of online
distance education Providing free, credit-less
and accessible high-quality education to the masses
(Pappano, 2012; Cormier & Siemens, 2010).
Who participate in MOOCs?
http://moocmoocher.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/ihts-addendum-some-answers-to-who-studies-a-mooc/
Level of Education
http://moocmoocher.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/ihts-addendum-some-answers-to-who-studies-a-mooc/
The different MOOC platforms
http://www.diygenius.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-moocs/
Massive Open Online Courses
http://www.online-phd-programs.org/mooc/
110
Subject Distribution
https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-12-22-moocs-in-2013-breaking-down-the-numbers
What Does a MOOC consist of?
Short lecture videos
Learning tasks for individually or group work. Quizzes Peer-graded assignments
Discussion forums
MOOC Survey
Participated in three weeks study Answered quizzes, Posted
responses in forums, Communication with others Provided an evaluation
49 gifted undergraduate students who study at Al-Qasemi college.
Selected a MOOC according to their preferences The course The university The URLIntroduction to Astronomy
Duke University https://www.coursera.org/course/introastro
Virology I: How Viruses Work.
Columbia University
https://www.coursera.org/course/virology
Introduction to Engineering Mechanics
Georgia Institute of Technology
https://www.coursera.org/course/statics1
Automata Stanford University
https://www.coursera.org/course/automata
Methods and Instruments
The qualitative methodology was used in this study (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003).
An online survey.
Semi-structured interviews.
Both tools were administered at the end of the activity and were used to establish data triangulation (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003).
Educational goals
58 educational goals were indicated
Between two to three goals per MOOC.
Promoting knowledge
33%
Enhancing conceptual understanding
35%
Implementing the learning material
19%
Analyzing and evaluating skills
10%
Developing high order thinking skills
3%
Chart Title
Course structure and Teaching methods
MOOCs span between 5 -15 weeks
Two to eleven lecture videos each weak.
81% of the lectures span 8 to 20 minutes 71% integrated quiz questions 76% included power point
presentations The lecturer used visualizations and animations
Course structure and Teaching methods
In all the MOOCs, many forums were
administrated. They were divided by
subjects In 71% of the courses the lecturer was very active in
the forums All the analyzed MOOCs
displayed recommended sources for reading such as Wikibooks.
Only one MOOC included e-book.
Course Requirements
Quizzes included:weekly quizzes, integrated quiz in the lecturer videos, mid-term exams, final exams, homework assignments.
Peer graded assignments included :final Project and reflection
Quizzes81%
Discussion forums
12%
Peer graded as-signments
7%
48 assignments were pointed out, (2-3) assignments per MOOC
The role of the lecturer in the MOOC
All the lecturers in the analyzed MOOCs provided oral presentations of the learning materials.
The lecturers' roles included: Answering questions solving problems sending messages to encourage students to participate in forums leading the students to recommended sources for
reading sending e-mails and announcements related to the
course
Students' views about the educational values of MOOCs
96% will recommend MOOCs to their friend .
90% will repeat this experience.
More than 88% were contributed from the MOOCs.
Only six students asserted that they were not contributed from the courses
Interesting and a good way to ac-quire new
knowledge 72%
Acquiring new skills
relevant to their daily
life14%
Expanding the knowl-edge pro-
vided in sim-ilar courses in their col-
lage.14%
Linguistic competence in English"It was great, the course was rich, I think my good English helped me to understand the new subjects, and to communicate with other people from different countries in the world."
Prior knowledge in the subject matterI took a MOOC in biology about viruses; biology was the subject which I chose to study in high school, this helped me to understand the subject matter and encouraged me to study other MOOCs in the same discipline”
Broad-mindedness"Learning via MOOC gave me an opportunity to meet different people from different religions and cultures. This made me think in a different way… sometimes religion makes us afraid somehow to ask sensitive questions, but the group helped me... they taught me that in order to be a special person, you have to make special deeds. Furthermore; people from different backgrounds, brought with them new ideas that we could share. This enabled us to develop more valuable outcomes."
Self-regulation and self-efficacy Communication skills
Students competencies
The Effective MOOC
Clarity of explanations "The course was designed in high quality, the videos were attractive; you can watch them as many times as you want. The presentations were very obvious and clear. Although it was in English, it was very simple and clear”
Visualization of abstract concepts: "The course was very organized and the videos were rich, the lecturer wrote many rules of physics on the board, he used many 3D visualizations, pictures, and animations in order to make us feel like astronauts".
Support and communication: "Learning via MOOC was a worthwhile experience. At the beginning, it was very difficult for me to understand some issues, but when I participated in the forums, peers helped me quite a lot… they answered my questions and also directed me to some books. By the way, we also had a Facebook group in which we discussed some issues related to the course materials"
Variety of assignments: "I think the evaluation tools were fair, they included diverse assignments, which included some challenges. That's what I like about them and the grading percentage was divided carefully."
Conclusions
MOOCs have a great potential to change the learning strategies and environments in higher education.
Students' learning competencies and course design features are important factors in determining the educational values of a MOOC.
The results of this study may enhance students' continuity in MOOCs and may help educators develop constructivist MOOCs.
