Educational Technology

July 19, 2012

What’s a MOOC you ask…

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

by Matthew Livengood-Clouse, eLearning at Missouri

Much confusion surrounds the ominous sounding MOOC. At its heart, it is simply a Massive Open Online Course. Is it a “course” leading to a certificate or a degree? Most often, no. Are MOOCs set to replace lower-level residential courses, especially large enrollment undergraduate course? Don’t think so. Will MOOCs replace faculty or undermine shared governance? No and quite to the contrary, MOOCs typically trade on the academic stature of the scholars responsible for their creation. A key consideration here is modality: the format and manner in which we offer courses. Each of the primary modalities in which we work (lecture, seminar, online, self-paced) have a place and serve a purpose in higher education. Are they interchangeable? Not typically. For example, the benefits and challenges of a large lecture course are known but it remains a successful modality for knowledge-rich, foundational courses. Are there thing we can learn from a MOOC to improve retention, performance, and learning? Of course. Most notably, the design approaches used in a “flipped” classroom (a topic we’ve discussed in past blog entries such as this as well as an e-Mentor net-cast featuring Dr. Jason Aubrey).

http://elearning.missouri.edu/whats-a-mooc-you-ask/

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