What do MOOCs contribute to the debate on learning design of online courses?

TY - JOUR

T1 - What do MOOCs contribute to the debate on learning design of online courses?

AU - Hatzipanagos, Stylianos

PY - 2015/6

Y1 - 2015/6

N2 - Learning design in MOOCs seems to follow particular approaches, as the claim is that the MOOC target audience, a ‘massive’ student body, will require different learning designs from those that work for small student numbers. For instance, ‘traditional’ online courses have a small in size target audience, whereas the MOOC is usually free, offers no accreditation and targets large (massive) audiences. Because, anyone with an Internet connection can enrol, academic staff cannot possibly offer personalised, one - to- one support to students. Consequently, learning design to support self-regulated learning is a significant consideration. To address these issues, MOOC platform developers have looked at how the learning design of the format could scaffold learning in the MOOC space and encourage network formation between more participants to support each other. To achieve this some of the MOOC platforms dictate a more or less rigid template of a learning design, whereas other providers leave the design of the courses up to the individual customer institutions, within broad guidelines. Wherever the MOOC ‘experiment’ takes us, there is still an optimism that results will leave behind a digital trail of good practice to (a) show more clearly what a truly self-regulated learning environment might look like and (b) benefitother forms of formal and/or informal forms of instruction in higher education.The paper explores the learning design characteristics of MOOCs, and particularlythose elements that are essential for independent learning and student support. It assesses whether these are implicit or explicit in the design of MOOCs, and how they are embedded in the MOOC platform. It then explores the value of design patterns as an approach to solving the particular design challenges raised in the paper. Overall, it seems that the premise that guides several debates on how MOOCs work is that we should be spending more time when we design MOOCs to enhance those features that support the self-regulated learner.

AB - Learning design in MOOCs seems to follow particular approaches, as the claim is that the MOOC target audience, a ‘massive’ student body, will require different learning designs from those that work for small student numbers. For instance, ‘traditional’ online courses have a small in size target audience, whereas the MOOC is usually free, offers no accreditation and targets large (massive) audiences. Because, anyone with an Internet connection can enrol, academic staff cannot possibly offer personalised, one - to- one support to students. Consequently, learning design to support self-regulated learning is a significant consideration. To address these issues, MOOC platform developers have looked at how the learning design of the format could scaffold learning in the MOOC space and encourage network formation between more participants to support each other. To achieve this some of the MOOC platforms dictate a more or less rigid template of a learning design, whereas other providers leave the design of the courses up to the individual customer institutions, within broad guidelines. Wherever the MOOC ‘experiment’ takes us, there is still an optimism that results will leave behind a digital trail of good practice to (a) show more clearly what a truly self-regulated learning environment might look like and (b) benefitother forms of formal and/or informal forms of instruction in higher education.The paper explores the learning design characteristics of MOOCs, and particularlythose elements that are essential for independent learning and student support. It assesses whether these are implicit or explicit in the design of MOOCs, and how they are embedded in the MOOC platform. It then explores the value of design patterns as an approach to solving the particular design challenges raised in the paper. Overall, it seems that the premise that guides several debates on how MOOCs work is that we should be spending more time when we design MOOCs to enhance those features that support the self-regulated learner.

KW - MOOC

KW - learning design

KW - design patterns

M3 - Article

SN - 1887-1542

JO - eLearning Papers

JF - eLearning Papers

IS - 42

ER -