I have recently begun my first MOOC course, offered through Coursera. For those unfamiliar MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. These are courses offered online either for free or at a very low cost. Over the last five years, as education increasingly migrates to the online realm, multiple MOOC operators have opened up shop. Coursera, EdX, and Udacity are some of the biggest names in the business.
MOOC's are unique in that there are no entry requirements and students from around the world can join. Classes can be as small as 1 student or contain over 10,000 students. These courses are offered in almost any field imaginable, from astrophysics to social media marketing to teaching. It is this latter category that as a teacher I am most interested in. I am currently taking the course, "Shaping the Way We Teach English, 1: The Landscape of English Language Teaching." I must say that I am most impressed by the course thus far. The course is administered through Coursera, but is a project of the University of Oregon. A typical week involves several videos, video quiz questions, a reading assignment, a discussion in the online forum, and a cumulative quiz. The content has two main thrusts: the use of realia in the classroom and the implementation of project-based learning. The emphasis is on reducing Teacher Talk Time in the classroom and increasing the engagement of the students, especially their affective engagement with the subject matter. In the past week of the course (Week 2), the workload intensified somewhat. In addition to the regular weekly tasks as detailed above, we had to design a lesson plan and related materials that incorporated the use of realia in the classroom. We had to upload our files to Coursera by the deadline. Week 3 (the current week) has subsequently involved evaluating our classmates' lesson plans. This has the dual benefit of not only providing our fellow students with critical feedback, but also giving me great ideas and activities for future lessons. I must say that I am quite happy with the course thus far. The readings, videos, and other assignments are helping to give me new ideas in the classroom, and providing me greater impetus to construct new and exciting lessons. It is amazing how far online learning has come, and certainly is providing tangible benefits to me, and by extension my students.
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AuthorCliff is an adjunct professor at Yonsei University, Wonju campus. Archives
December 2019
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