Are MOOCs impacting on-campus students? Jul. 2014 | Seite 33

WHAT WAS THE IMPACT OF BLENDED LEARNING USING MOOCS?
For this instance, it was the first time of running the MOOC and a lot of care and
attention was applied to the course design so that it was a supportive and very
responsive environment for learning. Frequently, McFarland mentions adjustments
made to suit the participants, both the MOOC learners and the campus students.
It appears that again, the adjustment to new learning techniques was not particularly
well received and this could be alleviated by re-educating how the lessons are run
right at the very beginning (campus inductions for example).
The impact here was the introduction of new ideas and methods of teaching, along
with much more interactive and supportive environments. It could also be said that
there was a higher level of engagement, continuously throughout the course.

5.3 CASE STUDY 3
Academic: Scott Rixner, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Electrical
and Computer Engineering
Institution: Rice University
MOOC: Introduction to Interactive Programming with Python with Coursera

CONTEXT
This course was an existing course at Rice and they used Coursera as an excuse to
review and redesign their programme, making it more interactive. Thus the impact
was that the technology acted as a Trojan horse for course design. They used
Video games to entice participation with the Introduction to Computer Game
Creation, which was a course that had been running for 5 years but because of their
participation with the MOOC they completely redesigned the course.

COURSE DESIGN

MSc Digital Education

University of Edinburgh, 2014

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