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last.updated 6.9.14

MOOCs

Purpose

At the beginning of the decade, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) became quite popular as a way for institutions to market their brand of education. Although MOOCs, especially because of the "massive" characteristic, and writing pedagogy go together like oil and water, several institutions, with the support of the Gates Foundation have experimented with this combination. In today's class, we will examine MOOC's infrastructure and discuss their efficacy for the teaching of writing.

Instructional Tool Review

Laurie, Daniel, and Suzanne will be collaboratively present their respective instructional tool reviews and fielding questions.

Freewrite–Inconceivable!

Based upon the readings and what you know about MOOCs, what value do you think they have for the teaching of writing. You will have ten minutes to write on this.

Discussion–Mostly Dead?

We will discuss the following questions about the readings:

• What questions, comments, or concerns do you have about the readings?
• Do you think, as Brooks does, that education is in danger of going the way of the print newspaper?
• According to Daniel and Porter, what concerns should we have about MOOCs? How do you see these concerns playing out in the context in which you teach?
• Based upon the studies that Porter and Halasek et al share, what findings surprised you? Why?
• What can we learn about the teaching of writing, in general or "typical" online settings from MOOCs?

Group Activity–As You Wishhhhhhh

For today's class we will work in Adobe Connect in the following groups.

Each group, working at a fictitious university has been recruited by your dean as a committee to develop a Writing MOOC. Your dean is familiar with the success of Mary Washington's Digital Storytelling MOOC, and wants to create a course that is equally appealing (or shall we say "sexy"). Your department chair, understanding that this will be primarily a writing course, wants you to comply with the "CCCC Position Statement of Principles and Example Effective Practices for Online Writing Instruction." You and your group will have 45 minutes to outline the design of this course. Use the course readings and what you and your group members have read for your blogs to inform your decisions.