Abstract
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are becoming a popular educational tool in different disciplines. Urban planning education is no exception and new MOOCs are being released every year. Despite this, it is still not clear how this new learning experience is being developed, delivered, and impacting upon planning education. This article sheds light on this issue using the case of the Rethink the City MOOC organised by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft. The course received the AESOP Excellence on Teaching award in 2017 and serves as an example of how planning education is facing the change towards online education. The article briefly introduces the course and develops on the challenges and results of it. Based on the course team experience of preparing and delivering the course, the article contributes to the debate about online education and supports fellow academics involved with the creation of new MOOCs.
Highlights
Learning About the Global SouthThe world has become predominantly urban in the last decade (UN, 2015)
Based on the course team experience of preparing and delivering the course, the article contributes to the debate about online education and supports fellow academics involved with the creation of new Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)
The development of TU Delft courses is supported by the pedagogical model called Online Learning Experience (OLE), which strives to increase quality
Summary
The world has become predominantly urban in the last decade (UN, 2015). this change is not being led by traditional urban centres in Europe and Northern America, but by the extremely accelerated urbanisation processes within the emerging economies of the Global South. The aim was to generate a platform to connect the frontline on-going research within TU Delft with people working in Africa, Asia, and Latin America This first idea developed into a proposal to create an open online course, aiming to connect researchers in TU Delft and (prospective) planners in the Global South. This bottom-up structure with young PhDs presenting their research made it possible to have a stronger connection between participants and lecturers. In this sense, it was easier for the participants to debate the urban challenges of China when the lecture and discussion was led by a young Chinese researcher working in TU Delft. The paper finishes with a discussion of the results regarding critical thinking, theory and practice integration, student engagement, and the challenges to overcome
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