scholarly journals Integrating MOOCs into traditional UK higher education: lessons learnt from MOOC-blend practitioners

Author(s):  
Karla K. De Lima Guedes

Tertiary teaching is going through transformations as a result of web affordances, open access, and online learning platforms, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Some academics are taking advantage of MOOCs by integrating them into their teaching practice. This study investigates why some UK lecturers are blending MOOCs into their Face-to-Face (F2F) lecture-based teaching, how they are using them, and what they have learnt from the experience. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six lecturers who had the experience of integrating MOOCs into their teaching. Data analysis shows that academics have a wide range of reasons for adopting this practice, with the most common reason being giving students a platform to engage in global communities and international conversations. Results generated both an understanding of why some academics are using MOOCs in their teaching practice, and a list of practical advice for MOOC-based blending novices.

Author(s):  
Enrique Mu

Until recently, there was no doubt about what constituted a university education and how it was carried out. Suddenly, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, and in a few weeks, not only education, but the entire world changed. In the new normal, post-pandemic world, it is possible that teaching face-to-face courses will be the exception, not the rule, in the U.S. and the Latin American and Caribbean regions. Furthermore, this virtual instruction will possibly be at massive levels with tens or hundreds of thousands of students at a time, modeled after massive open online courses (MOOCs).


Author(s):  
Si Fan ◽  
Quynh Lê ◽  
Yun Yue

As one of the key infrastructures within web-based learning, courseware is adopted by schools and universities to enable a systematic learning delivery and education management. Students in both traditional face-to-face learning and online courses can benefit from this technology. The wide range of courseware platforms are supporting course needs by offering great flexibility in information delivery, communication services, and collaboration. This chapter looks at the role of web-based courseware in tertiary education, using MyLO (My Learning Online) as an example. It reveals that courseware systems like MyLO have a great potential in facilitating collaborations and enhance interactions among lecturers and students. To achieve this, potential efforts from all perspective are required; including students, lecturers and faculties.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Chen ◽  
Jun Feng ◽  
Xia Sun ◽  
Nannan Wu ◽  
Zhengzheng Yang ◽  
...  

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have boomed in recent years because learners can arrange learning at their own pace. High dropout rate is a universal but unsolved problem in MOOCs. Dropout prediction has received much attention recently. A previous study reported the problem of learning behavior discrepancy leading to a wide range of fluctuation of prediction results. Besides, previous methods require iterative training which is time intensive. To address these problems, we propose DT-ELM, a novel hybrid algorithm combining decision tree and extreme learning machine (ELM), which requires no iterative training. The decision tree selects features with good classification ability. Further, it determines enhanced weights of the selected features to strengthen their classification ability. To achieve accurate prediction results, we optimize ELM structure by mapping the decision tree to ELM based on the entropy theory. Experimental results on the benchmark KDD 2015 dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of DT-ELM, which is 12.78%, 22.19%, and 6.87% higher than baseline algorithms in terms of accuracy, AUC, and F1-score, respectively.


Author(s):  
Khadija Naji ◽  
Abdelali Ibriz ◽  
Youssef Mourdi

The adoption of various forms of distance education, particularly MOOCs (an acronym for Massive Open Online Courses), by universities worldwide has continuously gained momentum over the past decade. This is due not only to the importance of maintaining a parallel educational model alongside face-to-face courses in order to complete students’ training, but also in response to the limits of academic infrastructure faced with an increasingly large mass of learners, typically in emerging countries. Universities view MOOCs as a remedy to this dilemma—one which promises reasonable development costs—especially taking into account the ubiquity of the internet and digital communication tools. In a country such as Morocco, whose university capacity has been stretched to 186%, the quest to dematerialize lectures can support universities in producing well-rounded professional profiles as well as improving institutional and academic services overall. In this paper, we present the feedback from Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University concerning its first scientific MOOC, launched within the framework of the MarocUniversitéNumérique (Morocco Digital University) or MUN project in collaboration with the France UniversitéNumérique (France Digital University) or FUN platform. The objectives of this paper are threefold: to assess the possibility of adopting further MOOCs in a Moroccan setting, to seek insight on the profiles of learners who have completed MOOCs and to draw lessons in order to improve future experiences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-38
Author(s):  
Michael Cowling ◽  
Sherre Roy ◽  
Lisa Bricknell ◽  
Robert Vanderburg

Like many other regional universities in Australia, the authors’ university is well equipped to deal with distance and technology (Chugh, Ledger & Shields, 2017), with staff distributed across more than 10 campuses, and many working from home on a regular basis in a non-COVID year. Yet despite this, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 presented challenges, as staff are not immune from the digital divide issues of bandwidth speed and stability, especially as the whole world moves to a video conferenced meeting solution. This presentation will discuss how our university handled this new triple headed challenge of a renewed focus on Scholarship of Learning & Teaching (SoLT) in relation to Australian government advice (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, 2020), along with a desire for upskilling in TEL, but simultaneously the limitations of technology in the pandemic, with a view to providing guidance for other institutions looking to mount this challenge. In tackling this issue in 2020, we were fortunate that our university already provided several avenues for staff to engage in and learn about SoLT. Among these, the Scholarship of Tertiary Teaching (SoTT) conference ran over two days via Zoom and offered several virtual concurrent sessions and topics allowing staff to share the results of their systematic evaluations into their teaching practice and student’s learning. Each session is recorded and made available via a YouTube channel, providing opportunity for conference participants to watch sessions they were unable to attend and this year we recognised the work of our presenters, abstract reviewers, and session facilitators with digital badges. Based on this successful model, we realized we had the essential tools already to move our other major training avenue, the Intro to SoLT workshops (previously delivered face-to-face), online. The aim of the workshops is to provide staff with a collegial environment to discuss and develop research ideas. The virtual environment makes this harder to achieve however the SOTT conference showed us that smaller sessions (four hours over four days), along with the use of breakout rooms could provide opportunity for small group discussion and that the value of Zoom Chat as a back channel for discussion was essential and should be encouraged amongst participants to provide an environment where we could maintain consistent support (Soon & Cowling, 2019). Attendance and feedback showed us that this worked. Over 50 staff attended the event over four days, and feedback was universally positive, and this led us to rethink how our L&T events should be offered. Specifically, the success of the changes suggests the development of a hyperflexible model of delivery, asynchronous but with guided support and local contacts (assisting to build campus networks), and the foundation knowledge of how to complete a systematic evaluation turned into an online module/micro-credential as a prerequisite for face-to-face and virtual workshops. The result being a L&T model that leverages the lessons learnt during the pandemic into a new blended model, bringing the best aspects of face-to-face and online delivery into a new academy of best L&T practice.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-56
Author(s):  
Joseph B. Quinto

Paradigm shifts in the field of education have been an issue in the Philippines since the COVID-19 pandemic struck. To fill this gap, this study sought to highlight the pedagogical practices and teaching experiences of award-winning educators in a State University. The qualitative data extracted from semi-structured interviews were analyzed following a thematic analysis based on descriptive phenomenology. One finding revealed that the educators’ years in service and educational attainments were helpful in their migration from face-to-face to distance education, even though the number of course preparations was a weight on their shoulders. Secondly, the educators conducted their classes through preparation and implementation via fifteen instructional methods, formative and summative assessments, and feedback. On another note, the educators determined six roadblocks in their teaching practice with explanations on how they overcame them. Amidst all these, they mentioned that it is imperative to uphold empathy in the conduct of their classes.


2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Fruhauf ◽  
Nancy A. Orel

This qualitative research examined the perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and experiences of grandchildren caregivers who ranged in age from 7 to 29 years. Thirty-four caregiving grandchildren participated in face to-face semi-structured interviews lasting approximately 35 to 90 minutes. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Analysis of the data revealed that caregiving grandchildren: a) experienced a wide range of emotions as providers of care to their grandparents; and b) developed specific coping strategies to deal with the stress of providing care. The intensity, type, and range of emotions experienced and the coping strategies used were a reflection of the developmental issues of the grandchildren. Although grandchildren caregivers experienced similar responsibilities, their developmental level and the context in which care was provided played a role on how they were best able to cope with caregiving responsibilities. Practitioners must consider grandchildren caregivers when developing programs and services for family caregivers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 336
Author(s):  
Riccardo Corrado ◽  
Erica Pretorius ◽  
Gert van der Westhuizen

Currently, some universities in Cambodia are exploring the usage of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which can support education by allowing cost-free independent learning for university students. For effective implementation, it is fundamental to understand the current Cambodian ecosystem, how universities implement MOOCs for teaching, and how students use them for learning. Due to a current gap in the literature on this matter, this research work aims to investigate students’ awareness of MOOCs, usage, and difficulties encountered with their adoption for learning. This research work is a case study of a university in Cambodia, and it adopts a mixed-mode approach involving a quantitative questionnaire, followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews. Currently, many students are not aware of MOOCs, and regarding those using them, they report a low level of organized effort, which points out to the fact that students are in general not very organized and systematic in the way they approach learning using MOOCs. Furthermore, a major issue still lies in the way these courses are implemented in the curriculum and the learning activities, underlined by the type of ICTs affordances currently exploited by the usage of MOOCs for learning.


Open Praxis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 287
Author(s):  
Ulf Olsson

Academics in higher education are used to having their research publications reviewed and openly scrutinized. Teaching in higher education has traditionally been an individual academic’s activity that has taken place in a closed classroom. However, the introduction of open education, particularly massive open online courses (MOOCs) has challenged this. In MOOCs, lectures are recorded and made public for thousands of course participants to view. This study investigates, via semi-structured interviews, how 20 lecturers of 10 MOOCs at six Swedish Universities have experienced this. All have joined the projects voluntarily, but a few have done so with some ambivalence. For them, standing in front of the camera, publishing material and, to some extent, losing control of the course content was scary at the beginning of the projects. Overall, the lecturers overcame this and thought that it was a good opportunity to reach many students, as well as a way to keep up with the changing requirements for teaching in higher education.


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