Open University, July 2015

Reflections on

teaching &

information

behaviour in a

Futurelearn MOOC

Sheila Webber

Information School,

University of Sheffield

• Using three frameworks to reflect on my experience

as an educator on the MOOC "Exploring Play: The

Importance of Play in Everyday Life“

• Implications of the Play MOOC characteristics for

the information behaviour and information literacy of

the learners

Sheila Webber, 2015

Using 3 frameworks to reflect on the

MOOC vs non-MOOC experience

• Teaching-Learning Environment (Entwistle et al,

2004)

• Conole’s (2014) 12 MOOC dimensions

• Sharpe et al.’s (2006) 8 dimensions of blended

learning

Sheila Webber, 2015

MOOC

• Massive i.e many learners (often, thousands)

• Open i.e. (freely) available to anyone (although

many MOOCs only accessible to those who

register): also open-access issue

• Online

• Course i.e. some aim and structure to the learning

Sheila Webber, 2015

Exploring Play MOOC, Sep-Nov 14

• Cross faculty team: I led week 6 of 7 on “virtual play”

• Each week has steps; with videos, articles, comment-

based discussion and a quiz

• Each step has a comment thread

• Use of a few tools outside the platform, but mostly

interactions inside

• Learners asked to remember, reflect, carry out

observations and playful activities

Sheila Webber, 2015

17,000 learners registered, 8,954 did at

least one step, 1,391 completed;

70,000 comments

Sheila Webber, 2015

Demographics • No demographics for total populations: profile is

short and no obligation to give age, gender, location

Sheila Webber, 2015

My profile and my avatar tweets a toy selfie

• Primarily on campus teaching

• iSchool Director of L&T, Programme

coordinator

• Early adopter of technology in

learning, would say I take a

blended approach

• Espouse an inquiry based &

conceptual change approach

to teaching

My own background

Sheila Webber, 2015

MOOC demographics

• 5,515 respondents to pre-course questionnaire

• 93% female; 61% aged 26-45; 54% from UK

• 75% working either full or part time

• 78% first degree or above

• 60% wished to add a fresh perspective to current

work

Sheila Webber, 2015

Contrasting example of non-MOOC

module

• 15 credit core module in MA Librarianship

• “Information Literacy” (IL): 18 students 2014/5

• 3 hour f2f weeks 1-11

• Assignments: (1) Bibliography + reflection on IL;

(2) Reflection on intervention teaching IL

Sheila Webber, 2015

The

Teaching-

Learning

Environment

Entwistle et

al. (2004: 3) These elements still apply with MOOCs, with potentially great diversity in student characteristics and expectations

Sheila Webber, 2015

The Teaching-Learning Environment Entwistle et al. (2004: 3)

A further key influence in specifying design & quality is the MOOC platform provider and the MOOC platform itself

Sheila Webber, 2015

These elements more influential in f2f setting

“The most surprising insight that emerged from the

interview accounts was just how significant a role the

FutureLearn platform played in the course

development process. Firstly, the platformʼs available

activity formats largely dictated design..... Secondly,

FutureLearn exercised tight control over course

content and communications ... A rigorous ʻquality

assuranceʼ process described by the technical

developer involved editing of course content and

emails to learners.”

Colhoun (2014: 54, 56)

Sheila Webber, 2015

Conole’s (2014) MOOC dimensions (to be rated as low, medium and high)

• (How) Open

• (How) Massive

• Diversity (of participants)

• Use of (varied) multimedia

• Degree of (forms of) communication

• Degree of collaboration

• Amount of reflection

• (Nature of) Learning pathway

• (Form of) Quality assurance

• Certification

• (Link to) Formal Learning

• (Degree of learner) Autonomy Sheila Webber, 2015

Sharpe et al’s (2006) Dimensions of

blended learning

• Delivery: different modes (face-to-face and distance education)

• Technology: mixtures of (web based) technologies

• Chronology: synchronous and a-synchronous interventions

• Locus: practice-based vs. class-room based learning

• Roles: multi-disciplinary or professional groupings

• Pedagogy: different pedagogical approaches

• Focus: acknowledging different aims

• Direction: instructor-directed vs. autonomous or learner-directed learning.

Sheila Webber, 2015

Differences MOOC/non-MOOC?

• Delivery: MOOC - could be just online; non-MOOC required blended approach; both involved interactions outside “class” time

• Technology: Both mixed technologies; different emphases

• Chronology: MOOC a-synchronous, non-M strong emphasis (value?) on synchronous

• Locus: for both, class-room based learning but with strong link to life/practice (both non-M assignments involved practice)

• Roles: Wider range of people involved in MOOC design (learning technologists, film production, central MOOC team)

• Pedagogy: Perhaps more difficult for those in non-M to “avoid” the teacher’s pedagogic approach (e.g. class activities, assessment requirements)

• Focus: MOOC acknowledging wider range of aims?

• Direction: more autonomy required of MOOC learner

Sheila Webber, 2015

Teaching via my Second Life avatar • Reactions to SL

– detached from reality ... escapism ... struggle to see the appeal

... lost ... don’t get it ... don’t see the relevance ... a sad depraved

place ...

– challenging ... out of my comfort zone ...

– though also ... interested ... intrigued ... fascinating ... beautiful ...

• Some people talked about my avatar as being cold, having

odd lip movements, commented

on my appearance etc. (in next iteration

will discuss some of this upfront)

• Draws attention to the identity

and position of the educator Sheila Webber, 2015

Reflections on my pedagogic

development • MOOC teaching had notable differences

in terms of my role and responsibilities: both constraining (feared) & liberating (unexpected)

• In a mainly on-campus-course environment, still challenging to integrate MOOC course design and delivery into mainstream (e.g. Work Allocation Framework)

• Contrast of MOOC-work with introduction of new distance learning Masters programme

• Finding it useful to interrogate module design with the Sharpe et al and Conole frameworks: differences MOOC/non-MOOC stimulating reflection

• Interesting to bring some MOOC-discourse back to on-campus courses (e.g. impact (in REF sense), learner motivation)

Sheila Webber, 2015

Still find this model useful, to step back and reflect

learners - diverse in what ways?

what does “quality” mean in MOOC learning?

what do I (as an educator) have control over?

what do we look at when we revise a MOOC? who decides?

Profiling and targetting: from “designing for the unknown learner”

to “increasingly designing MOOCs for outreach, rather than just

making MOOCs that individual faculty might like to provide”

(Macleod et al., 2015) Does “motivation” become an increasing responsibility for educators – and is this necessary?

“our findings suggest that the range of pedagogic practices currently used in

MOOCs tends toward an objectivist-individualist approach” (Toven-Lindsey et

al., 2015) – faculty pedgagogy & market orientation of universities mentioned

“these findings indicate that the instructional design quality of MOOCs is

low” (Margaryan et al ., 2015) using Merrill’s principles of instruction Sheila Webber, 2015

A quick glance at information behaviour

Sheila Webber, 2015

“Information Behavior is the totality of

human behavior in relation to sources

and channels of information, including

both active and passive information

seeking, and information use.” Wilson (2000) 49.

Sources may be – people, their bodies, the environment, the media, books, photos, web page etc etc. You may actively seek, bump into or browse information.

Sheila Webber, 2015

MOOC demographics

• 5,515 respondents to pre-course questionnaire

• 93% female; 61% aged 26-45; 54% from UK

• 75% working either full or part time

• 78% first degree or above

• 60% wished to add a fresh perspective to current

work

Sheila Webber, 2015

So could say that

• Majority in work; from comments evident many

working professionally with children

• Age profile (and comments) indicate many have

families

• Thus likely to have developed work and family

networks

• In contrast platform does not enable forming of

groups, and is an enormous cohort, so links less

likely to develop

Sheila Webber, 2015

Veletsianos et al, 2015

• Interviews with 13 MOOC learners (from several countries), analysed using constant comparative method

• Asked to describe day to day MOOC activities: 3 key themes:

– Interactions in social networks outside the MOOC platform (friends, family, fellow learners)

– Notetaking (from videos)

– Content consumption

• Honeychurch and Draper (2015) describe patterns of electronic interaction outside the MOOC (Twitter, Google docs etc.) in the #rhizo14 MOOC

Sheila Webber, 2015

Exercise on information behaviour

• Exercise during my week of the Play MOOC, on virtual play

• A short video, presented by my Second Life avatar, described information behaviour, and gave examples of acquiring information inside and outside SL

• 673 comments

• Following are impressions from an initial scan through comments, not a formal analysis

• MOOC running again in November, will do more formal analysis

Sheila Webber, 2015

• Now, think about how you discovered any information you needed for this course and post a comment below.

• Did you stay inside the course? For example scanning the videos to find what you wanted, reading the educators’ articles, asking questions in discussion threads.

• Did you search for material outside the course? If so, what did you do - for example did you search Google, ask friends and family, use books, journals or magazines?

• Did you tend to go searching for information, browse round for it (e.g. reading through a lot of discussion posts) or bump into information by chance?

• Do you think you’ve learnt things through play that you’ve used in other parts of your life? Sheila mentioned things such as learning leadership or teamwork skills, through using games like World of Warcraft, but you needn’t restrict the discussion to computer games

My introductory questions for the discussion in comments

Reported Information behaviour • Information in course: videos; core articles, links;

comments from learners; additional reading & links

• Information outside the course: – Non-human: Internet (Google, websites, Youtube) mentioned

most; also learner’s own books, TV, radio, educational magazines, museum

– Human: family, friends, work colleagues, gamers; including some examples of friends taking MOOC at same time; some mention getting contrasting perspectives

• Information from self: Memories (prompted by discussion or MOOC); Observation; Experience; Info/understanding from current or previous courses/education /training “I used the course material and my own experiences”

Sheila Webber, 2015

• Saving and managing information for later use

• A lot of sharing information – mostly face to face but

also digitally e.g. via Facebook as well as in the

MOOC

• Creating information, inside and outside MOOC

• Applying information and understanding in work, at

home; to educate others, in own practice, as self-

development

Sheila Webber, 2015

Implications for information literacy support

• Literature has focus on academic information literacy (searching for information, evaluating sources) e.g. Wright (2013), Gore (2014)

• Also focus on web sources or formal print sources

• Supporting sharing, managing and using information might be as, or more, valuable (depending on the MOOC)

– Inside and outside MOOC

– acknowledging interaction of self/inside-MOOC/Outside-MOOC information

Sheila Webber, 2015

Sheila Webber

s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk

http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber

Twitter: @sheilayoshikawa

SL: Sheila Yoshikawa

Orcid ID 0000-0002-2280-9519

Pictures by Sheila Webber, taken in Second Life

References • Colhoun, N. (2014). Learning from learning analytics: can data analysis of a

futurelearn mooc usefully inform design for learning? MSc Dissertation. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.

• Conole, G. (2014). A 12-Dimensional classification schema for MOOCs. http://e4innovation.com/?p=799

• Entwistle, N., Nisbet, J. and Bromage, A. (2004). Teaching-learning environments and student learning in electronic engineering: paper presented at Third Workshop of the European Network on Powerful Learning Environments, in Brugge, September 30 – October 2, 2004. http://www.ed.ac.uk/etl/docs/Brugge2004.pdf

• Gore, H. (2014). Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their impact on academic library services: exploring the issues and challenges. New review of academic librarianship, 20 (1), 4-28.

• Honeychurch, S. and Draper, S. (2015). MOOC research about peer interaction. (ppt) https://www.academia.edu/10089074/MOOC_research_about_peer_interaction

• Macleod, H., Haywood, J. and Woodgate, A. (2015) Emerging patterns in MOOCs: learners, course design and directions. TechTrends, 59 (1), 56-63.

Sheila Webber, 2015

References • Margaryan, A., Bianco, M. and Littlejohn, A. (2015) Instructional quality of

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Computers & education, 80, 77-83.

• Sharpe, R. et al. (2006). The undergraduate experience of blended e-learning: a review of UK literature and practice. York: HEA.

• Toven-Lindsey, B. , Rhoads, R. and Lozano, J. (2015) Virtually unlimited classrooms: pedagogical practices in massive open online courses. Internet and higher education, 24, 1-12.

• Veletsianos, G., Collier, A. and Schneider, E. (2015) Digging deeper into learners’ experiences of MOOCs: participation in social networks outside of MOOCs, notetaking and contexts surrounding context consumption. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(3), 570-587.

• Webber, S. (2013) "Blended information behaviour in Second Life." Journal of information science, 39(1), 85–100

• Wright, F. (2013) What do librarians need to know about MOOCs? D-Lib magazine, 19 (3/4) http://dlib.org/dlib/march13/wright/03wright.html

Sheila Webber, 2015