Design and Facilitation Choices at Large Scale: An attempt at backward design in a (M)OOC

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Please join us for the third Science Education Supper Series event of the 2016/2017 academic year. Come meet your peers, share your thoughts, enjoy a light meal and refreshments, and hear about the exciting progress our science community is making in learning and teaching.

What’s an instructor to do when designing her first on-line course which happens to be a MOOC? First, get help. Second, use the same design principles that apply to face-to-face courses. Third, embrace the richness of experience present in the participant group. In this Science Supper Series event, we will discuss design and facilitation choices made and revised over 6 offerings of “Climate Change: The Science”, a free, open, online course offered on UBCx/edX. Fundamental principles of backward design guided the course structure. Based on what we thought participants should be able to do after completing the course, we designed assessments and activities in support of those goals.  Assessments included timely low-stakes practice with automated feedback, high-stakes tests aligned with learning goals, and peer-assessed essays structured to be personalized.  A map-based system for sharing these essays enriched everyone’s experience learning about climate change far beyond what an instructor could provide.  Individual activities made extensive use of existing resources created by others, with an attempt to include a variety of formats (reading, video, interactive simulations). Discussion forums evolved over the offerings from an open-ended free-for-all to seeded topical threads, which resulted in higher participation rates and better integration of the forums with other course components.  Join us for a discussion of design choices and facilitation strategies in this setting, with a little bit of data thrown in.

Hosted by the Science Dean’s Office and Science Centre for Learning and Teaching (Skylight), the Science Education Supper Series started in Fall 2001 and provides a place for science faculty to participate in interactive seminars on teaching and learning issues presented by their colleagues. This popular series will continue to provide a lively forum for discussion for the 2016/2017 season.