Abstract
Abstract Research reveals a rapid expansion of Open Educational Resources (OER) supporting global access to higher education for continued professional development (CPD) for in-service teachers. This offers interactive opportunities for participation and reflection to support the development of teacher cognition through a globally-oriented online community. This paper will indicate whether the OER MOOCs designed for CPD of in-service English language teachers (ELT) have a role in developing teacher cognition. It also examines the in-service teacher experience of MOOC participants and proposes that teacher cognition and evaluation of cognitive change remain central to understanding teachers’ experience of learning on MOOCs. Brookfield’s (1995) critical incident questionnaire (CIQ) captured the weekly experience of six in-service ELTs undertaking a CPD MOOC over four weeks. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics were applied to CIQ data to examine changes in participant cognition. Teachers reflected on how MOOC developed their own knowledge, their learners’ knowledge, and to a lesser extent, their colleagues’ knowledge. The findings cast new light on the influence of MOOC which primarily shows that in terms of their own knowledge, teachers have a strong tendency to view MOOC participation as a pathway to their own development.
Highlights
Dillahunt, Wang, and Teasley (2014) argued that if access to a new generation of digital learning (e.g., Massive Open Online Courses: MOOCs) is available internationally, a greater level of educational opportunity for continued professional development (CPD) will exist for in-service teachers
Some novice teachers tend to look at the MOOC in terms of how it can develop them as language teachers
Overall, linking back to Borg’s adapted frame work, the findings suggest that MOOC as a professional coursework has an impact on the in-service teacher cognition about language learning and teaching, though the nature of this impact varies among different teachers
Summary
Dillahunt, Wang, and Teasley (2014) argued that if access to a new generation of digital learning (e.g., Massive Open Online Courses: MOOCs) is available internationally, a greater level of educational opportunity for CPD will exist for in-service teachers (i.e., current classroom teachers). Kiss (2012) argues, that teacher learning in teacher education courses is complex, non-linear, dependent on antecedent conditions, unpredictable and chaotic; MOOCs can provide supplementary opportunities which address these that traditional learning alone may miss. There is a difference in an in-service teacher’s cognition on MOOC (the knowledge, belief, and idea that in-service teachers have in teaching), based on being a novice or experienced teacher (Borg, 2003; p.81). A focus on how effective interaction within MOOCs can be achieved to develop teacher cognition is explored
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