Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ What are the key themes associated with the positive learning experience in MOOCs? An empirical investigation of learners’ ratings and reviews

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This paper is really smart on a number of levels. It endorses a "students as co-creators" approach to course design, making their responses part of the design process. It uses a third-party site to collect reviews because several MOOC platforms don't support student feedback. It uses Leximancer, "a data-mining tool which extracts key concepts from collections of textual documents." It surveys a large number of varied responses - 8475 ratings and reviews submitted for 1794 MOOCs. It recognizes "there are underlying differences between MOOCs and credit-bearing university courses, and learning outcomes valued in traditional HEIs (e.g. achievement, persistence) may not be the best indicators to represent MOOC learning outcomes." And it produces a useful list of six propositions for promoting the learning experience in MOOCs, which I would summarize as follows::

  • provide realistic learning contexts and instructional conditions
  • design for mental challenge and stimulation
  • design the course content, materials, and communications to generate interest
  • create high-quality video lectures
  • employ video lectures to simplify complex, difficult concepts
  • address learners' queries.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 09, 2024 12:59 p.m.

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