MOOC as a Learning Environment and its Educational Values

Abeer Watted and Miri Barakabeerw@tx.technion.ac.il

bmiriam@tx.technion.ac.il

Lecture Outline

I. Brief BackgroundII. MOOC surveyIII. 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.