Learning through engagement: MOOCs as an emergent form of provision
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Learning through engagement: MOOCs as an emergent form of provision. Presentation at ICDE World Conference, Sun City, South Africa, October 2015. Sukaina Walji, Laura Czerniewicz, Andrew Deacon, Janet Small
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Learning through engagement: MOOCs as an emergent form of provision
- 1. LEARNING THROUGH ENGAGEMENT: MOOCS AS AN EMERGENT FORM OF PROVISION Sukaina Walji Laura Czerniewicz, Andrew Deacon and Janet Small Centre for Innovation in Learning & Teaching, University of Cape Town Presentation at ICDE World Conference, Sun City, South Africa 14 October 2014 @sukainaw Sukaina.walji@uct.ac.za
- 2. OVERVIEW o MOOCs as a form of educational provision o Affordances of MOOCs o Rethinking engagement in a MOOC o Factors encourage MOOC participants to engage in ways that support learning o Lessons for learning design of MOOCs
- 3. UCT’S MOOCS PROJECT One of first major MOOC initiatives in Africa Partnership with FutureLearn and Coursera 12 MOOCS+ over 3 years Intention for OER outputs of MOOC materials Building capacity in online learning Medicine and the Arts: Humanising Healthcare What is a Mind? http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/cilt/moocs-uct
- 4. PUTTING MOOCS IN THEIR PLACE Institutional decision to develop MOOCs based on o Where MOOCs fit into the course provision landscape and thus how they can enhance what is already being done o How MOOCs differ from formal online courses and thus what additional support infrastructure is needed
- 5. Czerniewicz, L., Deacon, A., Small, J., & Walji, S. (2014). Developing world MOOCs: A curriculum view of the MOOC landscape. Journal of Global Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies, 2(3).
- 6. MOOCS AS A (DIFFERENT) FORM OF PROVISION o Institutions approach MOOCs differently – a range of goals o Learners approach differently – varying motivations for participation Ho et al (2015) analysed 86 MOOCs offered by MIT and Harvard on edX and found that 39% MOOC learners were other educators interested in learning how another educator taught a subject or to experience online course pedagogyImplications for how to view completion rates as measure of success.
- 7. Online course DIFFERENCE MOOC Fees Cost to user No fees for enrollment; maybe certificates &/or support Yes, as per all formal courses with pre-requisites Entrance requirements None, open enrollment, no prior requisites Limited. Capped by resources available for support & assessment Scale Hundreds and thousands No expectation of educator involvement with students Responsible for curriculum alignment, QA, support Educator role Flexible role re curriculum Limited/no individual support Distance education providers (but changing) Providers Traditional residential research universities partnered with private companies, although changing. No, not usually Analytics Yes, one of the promises Conventional Certification Non conventional and emergent Aligned with the usual formal courses QA processes Quality assurance As per non formal offerings
- 8. MOOCS OCCUPY “IN BETWEEN” SPACES An “in-between” space for engaging large numbers of people through social interactions Educational books, television MOOCs Traditional formal courses Expect high engagement, but small numbers reached Lower engagement; different measures of engagement (sales, views, attendees), with large numbers reached
- 9. THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MOOCS The particular affordances of MOOCs shaping learning environments comprise two aspects: o scale in terms of numbers of students o diversity in terms of the types of students Massiveness “not only something unprecedented in education, but also something of significant value to continued work in an educational domain that is becoming increasingly global in its capacity and reach” (Knox, 2014) “digital, participatory literacies could be an unintended consequence of the combination of massiveness and openness” (Stewart, 2013)
- 10. ANALYSING ENGAGEMENT Engagement as a lens to describe what MOOC learners do and what elements of design engages students Interested in how scale and diversity affects and shapes engagement from three pedagogical perspectives o teacher presence o social learning o peer learning Student engagement “is the investment of time, effort and other relevant resources by both students and their institutions intended to optimise the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students, and the performance and reputation of the institution” (Trowler, 2010)
- 11. CASE STUDY OF FIRST TWO MOOCS: METHODOLOGY FOR ANALYSIS Comments in discussion spaces Learner footprints in analytics Post-course survey Interviews with academics conveners Medicine and the Arts: Humanising Healthcare What is a Mind?
- 12. TEACHER PRESENCE - VIDEOS o Videos help establish educator presence o “Intimate” tutorial style videos “Very grateful for access to such a terrific course. Great to have Prof Solms' direct, enthusiastic robust/muscular teaching style and nuanced, humane approach. I did always feel as though he was addressing each of us individually” (Learner A)
- 13. TEACHER PRESENCE - BEHAVIOURS Strategies: o Course facilitators and mentors o Weekly emails o Feedback text from instructors e.g. end of quizzes o Picture icons of educators in platform and heading comments o Q&A recorded feedback – “Ask Mark” “The triumphant feature was the "Ask Mark" videos. The process of filtering and consolidating the questions for the instructor to reply to was far superior to various open line exchanges employed by other MOOC's. (Learner D)
- 14. SOCIAL LEARNING o Learners invited to interact with MOOC materials by posting comments, responding to others and sharing resources o FutureLearn platform reflects a social constructivist approach to learning and designed to encourage this Comments to steps example [add picture of comments?] Of learners who visited one or more steps about 40% posted a comment at least once “I've really enjoyed hearing about such a variety of topics but have actually found the comments made by other participants to be just as, if not more at time, interesting. On a more personal note having this interactive comment section at the bottom has been great (Learner F)
- 15. SOCIAL LEARNING Learners posting comments – driven strongly by weeks , with Monday largest number of postings driven by email reminder
- 16. SURVEY: MODE LEARNERS PREFER Learners report a high preference for video and reading material, while comparatively higher proportion dislike engaging with others in discussions
- 17. PEER LEARNING o Open enrollment results in learners with high level of expertise o Divergent contexts bring many opinions o Many students step into peer educator role On the Medicine & the Arts course 30% of participants were patients Response to student question from expert: “I was part of Prof Christiaan Barnard's first and second "Twin/Double" heart transplant teams. Those were heady days - and very important lessons for me. Given that experience - of what is possible - I believe it will be a stem-cell heart will be achieved; in a while! (Learner J)
- 18. PEER REVIEW o Peer review used extensively in both courses o Students read anothers’ assignments and gave comments according to a rubric o Pedagogical value in reviewing as well as receiving feedback “This was a very useful exercise in reviewing other peoples work. so many different creative points of veiw to take on board as well as sharpening the critical skills needed to evaluate the texts and content. I was slow in delivering my Text ,did anyone else find it a daunting task with so much to process in a (for me) short time?” (Learner O)
- 19. CONCLUSIONS o MOOCs facilitate many learning opportunities o Scale and diversity distinguish MOOC learning design o A simple MOOC interface is important but requires creative learning design around teacher presence, social learning and peer learning o Understanding opportunities for engagement within constraints of MOOC platforms o Understanding what this “in-between” provision space offers as a distinct learning experience.
- 20. REFERENCES Czerniewicz, L., Deacon, A., Small, J., & Walji, S. (2014). Developing world MOOCs: A curriculum view of the MOOC landscape. Journal of Global Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies, 2(3). Retreived from http://www.jogltep.com/index.php/JOGLTEP/article/view/23/10 Ho, A,. Chuang, I., Reich, J.,Coleman, C.,Whitehill, J., and Northcutt, C., Williams, J., Hansen, J., and Lopez, G., Petersen, R. (2015) HarvardX and MITx: Two Years of Open Online Courses Fall 2012-Summer 2014. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2586847 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2586847 Knox, J. (2014). Digital culture clash: “massive” education in the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC, Distance Education, 35:2, 164-177, DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2014.91770 Stewart,B (2013). Massiveness+openness=new literacies of participation? MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2), 228-238. Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol9no2/stewart_bonnie_0613.htm Trowler, V. (2010). Student engagement literature review. York: Higher Education Academy.
Editor's Notes
- Will add ROER4D logo to the front page
- First major MOOC programme in Africa Committed to 12 MOOCs + over 3 years Multi –platform approach Academic leads are committed in principle to producing their MOOCs as Open Educational Resources (OER), with the intention for most content to be released as a form of OER Opportunity to test impact of this open education initiative on educators’ practices Overlay this text on visual of the first two MOOCs (as on the CILT MOOC forthcoming MOOCs page)
- Learners approach MOOCs differently than if they are taking a formal registered course. As MOOCs are not formal online courses resulting in the award of credits, they require no upfront payment, nor do they have a requirement for prior learning or qualifications, and learners who enrol may have a very wide range of motivations for joining a course and their conception of what might constitute success for them will similarly vary. While for some learners completing the course in order to be eligible for a certificate may constitute success, for others it might be to sample materials for general interest or audit a course to learn one or two new things with no intention of completing the course (Liyanagunawardena et al., 2015). A recent study analysing 86 MOOCs offered by MIT and Harvard on the edX platform indicated that some 39% MOOC learners were in fact other educators who were interested in learning how another educator taught a subject or just to experience how to teach and design for an online environment (Ho et al., 2015). Given the variable motivation and starting out commitment of participants, it seems hardly surprising that completion rates are low. Participation in a MOOC competes with multiple other priorities, and in many cases, learners never intend to complete or complete over multiple runs of a course.
- It is this “in-between” space that MOOCs are helping explore whereby large numbers of people can become engaged through forms of social interaction. Adopting measures used with formal online courses to assess the outcomes of MOOCs is often not informative because the context and objectives are typically very different. Suggesting “successful learning” in MOOC should be measured as completion means all MOOCs perform poorly, which is not necessarily the case. MOOC designers and educators have sought other indicators and measures for what might constitute a successful MOOC. Book publishers, television producers and public lecture presenters would use sales, views and attendees in much the same way MOOCs used enrolment as a show of interest or engagement. Such indicators capture many possible motivations
- Scale is the many hundreds and thousands of students Diversity refers to participany heterogeneity The particular affordances of MOOCs shaping learning environments comprise two aspects: the scale (in terms of numbers of students) and the diversity (in terms of the types of students). These aspects constrain possible learning designs and shape how students might engage, but these aspects also provide opportunities that leverage the affordances of scale and diversity.
- We illustrate constraints and opportunities for effective learning design in MOOCs through three specific and connected design elements considered to be effective educational practices: teacher presence, social learning, and peer learning. Building on these perspectives, we are interested in exploring what it is that MOOCs could do well through design, that cannot easily be achieved in formal online courses. Teacher presence, social learning and peer learning are not new strategies in online learning design, but their manifestation or enactment in a MOOC format merits analysis and has generated new insights for us as designers in that attention to these can optimise student engagement and interactions through promoting a “sharing pedagogy” despite the limitations of the MOOC format. Student engagement is considered to be one of the “primary components of effective online teaching” (Dixson, 2010, p.1), is seen as important for retention (de Freitas et al., 2015) and enhances the quality of the overall student experience.
- In traditional online and distance learning, a number of models might be deployed to enable the presence of a teacher in synchronous and asynchronous modes such as virtual small tutor groups, virtual tutorials, call centres and discussion forums with teachers signalling presence through leaving comments on discussions, interacting with groups of students virtually, posting feedback as replies to student input. Students in formal online courses even though they may be in large classes have expectations that there will be a reasonable amount of instructor and tutor intervention, that it will personalised and that assessments and feedback will be made available that are individualised to the student. In MOOCs, learners do not expect direct interaction with the educator due to the large numbers of enrolled learners and the informal enrollment. This lack of direct instruction is often made explicit through course notices or emails indicating that it will not be possible for the instructor to communicate directly with learners on an individual basis. This lack of direct supported instruction is commonly cited as a limitation of MOOCs as high quality effective learning spaces and is seen as a contributor to non completion rates and drop-outs
- The FutureLearn platform reflects a social constructivist approach to learning and its design which is based on Laurillard’s conversational framework encourages a learning approach based on conversations between participants (Ferguson and Sharples, 2014), On MOOC platforms, there are opportunities to use social media which we also include here as it is used to engage with others outside the course.