7/10/2014 Wiki - Learning Goals | Coursera

https://class.coursera.org/massiveteaching-001/wiki/Learning_goals 1/2

HelpLearning Goals

Learning goalsThe overaching goal of this course is to encourage participants to thinkcarefully and reflect on a variety of issues:

pedagogicaltechnicallegalbusinesssocietal

In other words, I want to push students to look past the reductive "freeeducation for all" mantra to:

understand at a high level how quality can be increased (how to teach?what technology would enable better teaching?)assess if/how these goals can be achieved sustainablybe mindful of legal constraints that are already present and likely to pop upquestion if this education really is free, looking carefully at who is sponsoringit, what their goals might be, etctry to anticipate further evolutions in response to current disruption

These are clearly broad goals. Because the field is so new and fast evolving,there is no absolute answer to any of these questions.

At the same time, in a MOOC setting, I have to be very mindful of the variouslevels of involvement to expect from the different students, and also of theirvery different backgrounds and interests (something I often summarise as "takewhat you want/can").

For these reasons ("no absolute answer", "variety of needs/wants"), mystrategy in this course is to deliver content in different modes, to reach each ofthose different audiences. Mostly in this course it boils down to:

quick videos for those who want to consume rapidly and not get engaged

7/10/2014 Wiki - Learning Goals | Coursera

https://class.coursera.org/massiveteaching-001/wiki/Learning_goals 2/2

Created Tue 24 Jun 2014 5:32 PM EDT

Last Modified Thu 3 Jul 2014 12:32 PM EDT

much furthersome surrounding links/text for those who want to engage deeper in thematerialbe very active on the forums, challenging students here and there to reflectmoreperform experiments with the most engaged studentsreshare the work of students who are engaged more with a wider audience

In short, the goal is not just to relate the present situation, but equip courseparticipants so they can better deal with future situations.