COE Faculty Develop Massive Open Online Courses on Technology Tools for Teachers - Community Outreach - College of Education - University of Houston - University of Houston
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COE Faculty Develop Massive Open Online Courses on Technology Tools for Teachers

Digital Story Telling Sara McNeil and Bernard Robin, professors in the Learning, Design and Technology Program  in the College of Education have received a grant from the UH Office of Education, Innovation and Technology to design, develop and deliver MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) that explore innovative technology tools that K-16 teachers can use in their classrooms to support active student learning. Each MOOC will be five weeks long and will be delivered through Coursera. (http://coursera.org)

The University of Houston System recently launched its first three MOOCs on Coursera, offering unlimited participation and open access free of charge. 

Web 2.0 Tools

Usually MOOCs are created by teams of faculty, instructional designers and technologists, but the Learning, Design and Technology program's MOOCs are being designed and developed by a team of UH College of Education graduate students who are working with Dr. McNeil and Dr. Robin to create the first two MOOCs.

One MOOC focuses on the educational use of digital storytelling and was delivered in September 2014 (https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalstorytelling) and the other MOOC deals with the use of emerging technologies for instructional purposes and began in February 2015. Both MOOCs are primarily aimed at K-16 teachers who would like to incorporate more technology into their classroom instruction. However, both MOOCs should be of interest to anyone who wants to explore new ways of using computer-based tools and techniques to support teaching and learning across different grade levels and multiple content areas.

Sara McNeil
Sara McNeil, Professor Learning, Design & Technology at the UH College of Education

“In our first two MOOCs we had almost 40,000 students from around the world participate. It’s a wonderful chance to develop, implement and evaluate curriculum for diverse learners in over 183 countries, with 43% from emerging economies,” said McNeil. "We believe that offering MOOCS will help promote the programs and reputation of the College of Education and will enrich UH’s portfolio of public engagement offerings."

Bernard Robin
Dr. Bernard Robin Professor Learning, Design & Technology at the UH College of Education

Robin added, "MOOCs are a very important topic in education today and involving College of Education graduate students in the design and creation process has been a wonderful experience, both for us as educators and for the students as curriculum developers. Based on our work creating these first MOOCs, we have learned more about designing instructional content and pedagogy that we feel will help us with our campus-based courses as well as future online endeavors."

The MOOCs are much shorter versions of graduate courses that Dr. Robin and Dr. McNeil teach in the Learning, Design and Technology Program to University of Houston students. Compressing and converting the vast content covered in the 15-week course to a 5-week MOOC, while still ensuring that sufficient learning occurs, presented the first challenge for the student teams. Identifying and defining the course goal and decision making on the type and amount of content as well as suitable assignments were also critical issues the students dealt with. Secondly, the best methods for integrating peer assessment and online discussions into the course assignments were also considered. Finally, the decrease in student-teacher interaction because of the online format and the large numbers of participants, as well as the traditionally low completion rate in MOOCs, challenged the students to make informed decisions in the design and development process.

One of the students said, “Designing a MOOC was a unique learning experience for me. Trying to learn about something and simultaneously designing it can be demanding especially when most of us did not know much about MOOCs…I found it very interesting because every week we would learn new things with our professors or read an article that had just been released. I think that we learned a great deal about MOOCs by designing one and I can’t think of a better way of learning about an evolving field like MOOCs.”

The unique collaborative design and development process using authentic projects is a characteristic of the Learning, Design and Technology Program. Over the past decade, student teams have created many projects for community partners such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Childrens’ Museum of Houston, Houston Public Broadcasting, and UH’s Blaffer Gallery.

The collaborative design and development process involved sharing insights, solving problems and exploring new ideas through discussions that were helpful in formulating design strategies, redefining goals and redesigning the course content. The graduate students report that they have learned a great deal about the theories, frameworks and current issues related to MOOCs.

One of the students reflected about what she learned, “I believe my experience in the design and development of MOOCs has helped me gain fresh perspectives about online learning in general. In the future this experience will help me create better ubiquitous learning experiences in my course design for my learners.”

MOOCs are one more example of how educational technology is having a significant impact on teaching and learning. By helping design and create MOOCs, students in the Learning, Design and Technology Program are gaining firsthand experience developing technology tools and resources that can be used by teachers and students in Texas and beyond.