MOOCs have been around since 2012 and are offered on platforms such as Coursera and edX. In April 2013 there were 1,300 free online courses of offer! Here are five tips for how you can use MOOCs to support your teaching and your students’ learning.
1. Find out how the brain works
Enrol in Learning How to Learn, the most popular MOOC of all time with over 1.2 million people enrolled. This engaging and refreshingly short four-week course lifts the lid on what happens between the ears while learning. This course uses neuroscience to help you understand how to present information more effectively and how to encourage more effective learning behaviours. The course covers topics such as: the focused and diffuse modes of learning, chunking information, illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in mastering tough subjects.
2. See how others are teaching your subject
Do a search in Coursera and edX for MOOCs that are in your subject area. It’s free to enrol in MOOCs, so you can check out how other academics and designers have gone about teaching your subject. You might get some ideas for how you could approach your teaching.
3. Flip your course with some MOOC content
If you find a relevant MOOC that is available in your teaching period, audit the course to find some content that you could use to augment your teaching or even flip your classes. For example, if you find some video lectures that do a good job of presenting content that you were planning to deliver, you can direct your students to enrol in the MOOC and do that specific part of the course. This could free up your teaching time for more tutorial type tasks. Don’t forget to check any restrictions on content use. Many MOOC providers don’t allow their content to be used as part of others’ courses, so if that’s the case, check out open resources instead.
4. Make a list of useful MOOCs for your students
Most students do not know about MOOCs and how they can be used to augment their current study or help them develop new skills in specific areas. Here’s a quick list that I came up with: Writing in English at University (Lund University, Coursera); How to Write an Essay (Berkeley, edX); Working in Teams: A Practical Guide (University of Queensland, edX); English at Work in Asia: Job Applications, CVs and Cover Letters (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, edX); Introduction to Mathematical Thinking (Stanford, Coursera); Foundations of Data Analysis – Part 1: Statistics Using R (University of Austin in Texax, edX).
5. Indulge your secret passion!
Sometimes the best thing you can do as a teacher is to remind yourself what it is like to learn something new. Enrol in a MOOC and learn something just for the fun of it. Here are a few MOOCs that look like fun: Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (Harvard, edx); Jazz Appreciation (The University of Austin in Texas, edX); Music’s Big Bang: The Genesis of Rock ‘n’ Roll (University of Florida, Coursera); Script Writing: Write a Pilot Episode for a TV or Web Series (Michigan State University, Coursera); The Art of Poetry (Boston University, edx) and Analytics for the Classroom Teacher (Curtin University, edx)… yes I know that one’s a bit work related, but still might be fun!
Interested in learning more about MOOCs? Stay tuned for announcements about an upcoming MOOC event at the learning.futures Academic Hub!