Developing a MOOC Series: Pedagogical Considerations for Learning Designers

• In Event: Highlighting Promising Practices in MOOCs

Abstract

The MOOC series is rising in prominence, and learning designers must now attend to pedagogy at both the course and series level. Yet little guidance exists for designers of this new instructional form. This research examines 5 MOOC series to understand how instructional teams approached the design of a series to provide learning designers with guidelines for practice. We use the Assessing MOOC Pedagogies tool to characterize underlying pedagogies. We use hierarchical clustering methods to reveal insights about pedagogical approaches within and across series. Results suggest learning designers should attend to 1) objectives of series with respect to learners’ educational and professional goals, 2) course order within a series, including progressions that support learners in succeeding in higher order tasks.

Authors

• Rebecca M. Quintana, University of Michigan

• Yuanru Tan

• Stephanie R. Haley, University of Michigan

• Lyndsay Wing, University of Michigan

• Jonathan Sohn, University of Michigan