Friday 8 April 2016

Personalised/adaptive learning
How can student goal setting inform MOOC design?

There exists incredible diversity amongst participants enrolling in MOOCs in terms of their personal goals, motivation, existing knowledge, and available time. With such diversity, why is the value or success of a MOOC judged against the notion of pass/fail, or completion of an entire curriculum? This was the premise that drove the development of the three iterations of the UNSW Australia Coursera MOOC ‘Learning to Teach Online’ (LTTO) coursera.org/course/ltto. This presentation discusses the ideal vision of a personalised learning experience incorporating goal setting as a key element, and explores the challenges of trying to implement and improve this design within current MOOC technology over three successive iterations of the course. Data collected about the goals and participant activity within the course have begun to reveal the difficulty in devising a truly dynamic, adaptive, personal goal driven learning environment in the MOOC space, within the confines of current technical and analytic frameworks. The lessons learned about obtaining and making meaningful response to participant goals will also be discussed.

Simon McIntyre is the Director of Learning and Innovation at UNSW | Art & Design, and an Apple Distinguished Educator. After developing and teaching online courses in art and design for several years, he has helped many other academics design and teach online through designing and convening a range of award winning academic development programs. He is recognised internationally for his pioneering learning and teaching approaches for fully online and blended education across several disciplines.

Simon’s research is on the development of new online pedagogies to evolve education into a globally networked practice. His recent work explores the potential of mobile technologies and open learning both on and off-campus. He has led the design and creation of a range of open education resources such as numerous educational videos, iTunes U content, and an award winning interactive iBook, which is currently featured as an exemplar on Apple Education’s US website.

Event details

• When:

  Friday 8 April 2016
  12.00pm - 1.00pm

• Where:

  Room 218, Level 2 South, Fisher Library F04

• Cost:

  Free

registrations closed