Abstract
Very little research has been conducted about what it is like to teach a MOOC. Given this, a mixed methods study, involving a survey of 186 MOOC instructors and 15 follow-up interviews, was conducted to explore the motivation, experiences, and perceptions of instructors who have taught massive open online courses. Findings indicate that instructors were motivated to teach MOOCs for three main reasons: (1) interest and passion, (2) publicity and marketing, or (3) benefits and incentives. Most instructors had little online teaching experience prior to teaching their first MOOC, but were satisfied with the experience. The majority believed their own MOOC provided a high quality learning experience but thought that MOOCs overall might not be as good as face-to-face courses. Concerns were raised about the future of MOOCs for online learning.
Highlights
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) emerged from a vision of free public access to education through the use of very large, open enrollment, online courses (Fergusen, Sharples, & Beale, 2015)
Scholars sometimes differentiate MOOCs as being cMOOCs, pMOOCs, or xMOOCs (Bonk, Lee, Reeves, & Reynolds, 2017). cMOOCs are grounded in the theory of connectivism (Siemens, 2005); cMOOCs place the instructor in a co-learner role with students actively constructing and contributing knowledge through an interconnected network of social media, blogs, wikis, and other online communication tools
The “x” in xMOOC stands for eXtended (Downes, 2013). xMOOCs position the instructor at the center of the learning experience with an emphasis on didactic instruction through content and videos (Adams, Yin, Madriz, & Mullen, 2014; Bonk et al, 2017)
Summary
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) emerged from a vision of free public access to education through the use of very large, open enrollment, online courses (Fergusen, Sharples, & Beale, 2015). Several reviews of MOOC literature have been conducted to identify developing trends and directions for further research (Deng, Benckendorff, & Gannaway, 2017; Ebben & Murphy, 2014; Gasevic, Kovanovic, Joksimovic, & Siemens, 2014; Veletsianos & Shepherdson, 2016) These reviews highlight the gap in the literature about the instructor experience teaching a MOOC. XMOOCs position the instructor at the center of the learning experience with an emphasis on didactic instruction through content and videos (Adams, Yin, Madriz, & Mullen, 2014; Bonk et al, 2017) These are not the only types of MOOCs discussed in the literature (e.g., Ballester, 2016; Kim, 2016), but they illustrate how the instructor role shifts depending on the underlying format of the course
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