{"id":14415,"date":"2013-05-21t07:00:28","date_gmt":"2013-05-21t12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=14415"},"modified":"2013-05-16t12:13:19","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16t17:13:19","slug":"experiments-in-moocs-and-open-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2013\/05\/experiments-in-moocs-and-open-education\/","title":{"rendered":"experiments in open education and active learning: a report from the celebration of teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"
by derek bruff, cft director, and sarah collier, <\/em>2013 teaching certificate recipient and 2012-13 sotl scholar<\/em><\/p>\n <\/a>colleges and universities across north america focus a significant amount of attention on the student-to-instructor ratios in their classrooms, often touting low ratios as reasons to enroll. in recent months, however, it has been fashionable to announce incredibly high student-to-instructor ratios, as much as 100,000:1, thanks to the advent of massive open online courses, or moocs. what can one instructor do to foster learning in a course with tens of thousands of students? that was just one of the questions addressed by panelists david owens and doug fisher during a session titled \u201copen education: new students, new communities, new roles for faculty<\/strong>\u201d at the cft\u2019s celebration in teaching<\/a> on friday, may 3rd.<\/p>\n david owens, professor of the practice of management and innovation, described his experience as the instructor of one of vanderbilt\u2019s first moocs, \u201cleading strategic innovation in organizations<\/a>,\u201d the first mooc on the coursera platform to successfully implement course-long team projects.\u00a0 with 50,000 students, he couldn\u2019t interact with each of them individually.\u00a0 he could, however, try to foster an online environment where peer-to-peer learning takes place<\/strong>.\u00a0 weekly discussion questions helped to shape the conversations on the course\u2019s discussion forums, and peer-graded assignments provided a structure for students to provide feedback on each other\u2019s work.\u00a0 some of his students opted for his \u201cstudio mastery\u201d track, which involved course-long team projects.\u00a0 see, for instance, the following final presentation from a team that tackled a local bicycle parking problem:<\/p>\n