Plan stage

Goals and deliverables

This phase deals with team formation and defining the project and target audience. This phase will also result in a broad-stroked design, outlining roughly the general build-up of the course, including learning objectives and big questions. Furthermore, we try to get a better idea what kind of assets are needed to achieve the learning objectives and maintaining a flowing narrative. Getting to know the possibilities and limitations of the FutureLearn platform is also essential. This phase takes roughly 6 weeks to complete.

Explore the platform

Before starting to define a MOOC, it is wise to explore the MOOC platform, in our case FutureLearn, and how a MOOC looks like. We advise you to sign up to two or three courses and experience how learning happens. University of Groningen has developed over 25 highly successful MOOCs so far.

You can also choose to select one from experienced partners such as the Open University, University of Leeds, University of Reading, University of Sheffield or University of East Anglia.

What does a course look like?

Each course consists of weeks, activities within those weeks and several steps within each activity. Steps types include texts, videos, discussions, polls, quizzes, tests and peer reviews. Find out more in this short overview.

Deliverable 1: the course plan

The first deliverable we are going to work on is the course plan. This document will be our compas during the process as we move through the different phases of the development. It is also the document to share with anyone involved in our MOOC process. Please download the course plan template and add it to your project folder. Use the course plan help document to guide you. Below we will go through the plan step by step.

Course PlanTemplate.docx

Course plan template

Course Plan Help.pdf

Course plan help

Why are we doing this?

Before we turn to the target audience, it is wise to formulate your own motivation for doing this. What do we wish to achieve and when would we call this process a success? After filling in the first sections on general information, focus on what your aims are for this course and who the developers are.

Who are our target learners?

These stats are all based on University of Groningen course runs that ran from 1 January 2017 until now.
58 % of the learners have a full-time job, are in full-time education or are self-employed, so will do the MOOC on the side.
In general only around 20% of all learners are 18-25 years of age. Most are working adults (26-65 years).
In general, more women than men join MOOCs, but there is some difference based on topic.
In general MOOC learners have finished some form of higher education: 80% of all learners have at least a bachelor degree or more.

Why are our learners learning?

What do learners appreciate?

Source: FutureLearn

Formulating big questions

According to FutureLearn "Big Questions capture the essence of the course and help to focus the learning." Try to formulate one Big Question that the learner will try to answer while doing the course. This question can then be broken down into smaller Big Questions for each week, and in turn can be broken down into even smaller Big Questions for the units of learning within the weeks. "Well-written Big Questions and precise learning outcomes help to focus course design and keep learners’ minds on the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviours you want them to gain by the end of the course." Some example questions from FutureLearn courses are:

"Should we geo-engineer our climate?" (Climate Change)
"Why is the sun burning so slowly?" (Higgs Boson)
"Is your brain just like your desktop computer?" (Good Brain, Bad Brain)

Try and formulate a big question for your course and subquestions for each week and activity (group of steps) in each week to help you making your course more learner-oriented.

Formulating intended learning outcomes

Intended learning outcomes are learner-oriented and are the key aspects of an integrated course design. What is it that the student will be able to do once the course is finished and he or she has done all that was required? Basically this means that when formulating learning outcomes each of these should start with “At the end of the course, the learner is able to …” followed by a content and behavioral component. In the example below "describe in the correct order" is the behavioural component and "the 10 steps of a MOOC development process" is the content.

At the end of the MOOC, the participant is able to describe the 10 steps of a MOOC development process in the correct chronological order.

Drawing on the work of Adelman (2015), FutureLearn has introduced small numbers of verbs from a broader number of meta-categories than Bloom’s six:

Verbs describing student acquisition and preparation of tools, materials, and texts of various types (including digital and archival): collect
Verbs indicating what students do to certify information, materials, texts, etc.: record
Verbs indicating the modes of student characterization of the objects of knowledge or materials of production, performance, exhibit: classify, describe, identify,
Verbs describing what students do in processing data and allied information: calculate, solve
Verbs describing what students do in explaining a position, creation, set of observations, or a text: explain, interpret
Verbs falling under the cognitive activities we group under “analyse”: compare
Verbs describing what students do when they “inquire”: experiment, explore, investigate, model
Verbs describing what students do when they combine ideas, materials, observations: synthesise, summarise
Verbs that describe what students do in various forms of “making”: design, develop
Verbs that describe the various ways in which students utilize the materials of learning: apply, demonstrate, perform, produce
Verbs that describe various executive functions students perform: engage, lead
Verbs that describe forms of deliberative activity in which students engage: debate, justify
Verbs that indicate how students evaluate objects, experiences, texts, productions, etc.: assess, evaluate
Verbs that reference the types of communication in which we ask students to engage: report
Verbs, related to modes of communication, that indicate what students do in groups: collaborate, contribute, discuss
Verbs that describe what students do in rethinking or reconstructing – improve, modify, reflect

Week by week planner

Now that you have all the input, you also want to put some content in the mix as well and position some of the topics you want to cover in the weeks to get an idea of a natural flow. This may be realised by creating an actual storyline. Together with the learning outcomes, big questions and a clear idea of your target audience you should now have a firm basis to start designing your course. Well done, you have completed the first steps in developing a MOOC!

After approval from ESI's quality assurance officer, ESI will submit the course proposal on the FutureLearn platform.

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