Abstract
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) appeared in the area of educational technologies in 2008. Until 2013, academic research into MOOCs focused mainly on their application to adults as well as students or graduates of tertiary education. However, since 2013, the rising number of K–12 students enrolled in higher education MOOCs made MOOCs a de facto reality in pretertiary education and triggered universities, governments, and MOOC providers to (a) develop MOOCs specifically designed for pretertiary education, and (b) research their potential and value in K–12 educational settings. This resulted in a notable number of K–12 MOOCs and pilot research works in the literature that focused on the potential of MOOCs in compulsory education settings, as well as on their ability to reshape and transform the current educational K–12 framework. This work seeks to (a) trace, analyze, and review the existing literature on K–12 MOOCs, (b) identify representative MOOC implementations, (c) classify and organize research trends and patterns, and (d) reveal MOOCs’ potential value and impact on K–12 settings. The research used a narrative literature review methodology in order to critically review and qualitatively analyze twenty-one research publications in a systematic manner. Analysis of relevant works demonstrated that MOOCs, under a set of prerequisites, can be effectively incorporated into and positively affect pretertiary education.
Highlights
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are online courses aiming for unlimited participation and open access to knowledge via the Web (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2016)
The proliferation and success of MOOCs in higher education have led to discussions about the potential of this modern learning tool in K–12 education
The unique digital advantages of MOOCs in conjunction with the rising number of K–12 students who enrolled in typical MOOCs for tertiary education leverage both MOOC providers and standalone researchers to develop MOOCs explicitly targeted at K–12 learning environments
Summary
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are online courses aiming for unlimited participation and open access to knowledge via the Web (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2016). Since 2012, which was called the year of the MOOC (Pappano, 2012), the growing popularity of MOOCs in higher education triggered discussions about their potential role in lower educational levels (Briggs & Crompton, 2016), but it was the rising number of K–12 students who enrolled in MOOCs designed for tertiary education that made them a reality in compulsory education (Atkeson, 2014; Guo & Reinecke, 2014; Stoltzfus, Scragg, & Tressler, 2015) This increment of K–12 students’ participation in MOOCs resulted in a concurrent increase in research interest on K–12 students’ perceptions of and experiences with this new, digitally advanced learning tool, as well as the benefits from MOOCs’ use in pretertiary education in general (Briggs & Crompton, 2016; Dermirci, 2014; Horn, 2014; Norris & Soloway, 2012). Najafi, Evans, and Federico (2014)
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