An international collaboration in the design experience of a MOOC series. MOOCs for Teachers, the partnership and the design choices made by the team, involving international experts

1. Paola Corti
Politecnico di Milano - METID

2. SERVIZIO METID @Politecnico di Milano
In the last years, METID developed a
special interest and experience in the
co-creation and sharing of knowledge
in the society, pursuing the Third
Mission of the University and
encouraging the enhancement and use
of learning to contribute to social and
cultural development.
Polimi Open Knowledge is the MOOC
platform of the University.
METID is the University Centre of
Politecnico di Milano devoted to the
design, development and delivery
of e-Learning and e-Collaboration
methodologies and services, at both
national and international level.

3. The main Question
This presentation tries to give an answer the question:
MOOCs may represent a chance to foster collaboration between teachers and instructional designers, coming
from different countries and different cultures. At academic level MOOCs are considered an innovation in
teaching and learning practices by themselves.
It is about the design of a series of MOOCs, and the first two MOOCs in it
The series is named “MOOCs For Teachers”

4. MOOC For Teachers series
MOOCs For Teachers series represents an example of effective international collaboration during the design
phase. This series is based on four “sprint” MOOCs:
To Flip Or Not To Flip: discover
the Flipped Classroom Methodology
Using Open Educational
Resources In Teaching
Active Learning
Formative Assessment
Already online
under development
(coming soon - 2017)
1.
2.
3.
4.
The MOOCs of the series are connected to each other: flipped classroom methodology, in fact, works perfectly
with OERs to be studied before class, Active teaching methodologies to be adopted during classtime,
and assessment to be performed in order to measure learning outcomes.

5. Actors and Strategies
The MOOCs in the series are thus built in collaborative way, counting on the contribution of experts
and experimenters coming from alla over the world.
to sign a Memorandum of Understanding
POLIMI and UNIT reached the following expected results:
to define a common strategy
to design in parallel different parts of the MOOCs sections
to share a pedagogical perspective

6. Pedagogical approach: Kolb’s Learning Cycle

7. Project Development
2015 - A small group of Teachers from POLIMI took part
in a focus group
The design team proposed a set of of objectives for the series:
1. to have different possible paths available – a choice
between a quick, informative path and a more active
approach
2. to address criticalities specific to each group of possible
target users
The preference goes to letting the user free to choose his/her
own path: participants can shift from one path to the other
whenever they want.
(At that moment in time, METID and UNIT have already been working together for 3 months,
with at least 6 people involved.)
… all this keeping MOOCs short and quick, in order to be
affordable for busy teachers.

8. To Flip Or Not To Flip MOOC
The first MOOC of the series, «To Flip Or Not To Flip», is about flipped classroom methodology,
was firstly released in January 2016. The fourth edition is online at the present time (March 2017)
General objective:
to define specific learning objectives
to suggest specific activities
This scheme was built collaboratively and updated each time the design team focused on a specific section
of the course and added something.
Constructive alignment

9. To Flip Or Not To Flip MOOC : testimonials
Research of international testimonials:
online benchmarking activity looking for relevant experiences in which the flipped classroom
methodology was applied, at university level and on STEM subjects. (This phase took around 2 months).
To guide the narration we wrote:
2. some tips for videorecording
Sent to invited testimonials in order to allow them to record
their videos by themselves, when possible, or with our support.
1. a set of questions for each
step of the Kolb’s learning cycle

10. To Flip Or Not To Flip MOOC: the videos
We received videos from:
• Penn State University (USA)
• École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lusanne (CH)
• Leiden University (N)
• University of Zurich (CH)
• École des Ponts ParisTech (F)
We had the chance to start collaborating with
Ariane Dumont
(Professor – Responsable of Pedagogical Service,
Conseil d’Aministration International de
l’Association International e de Pédagogie
Universitarie and General Secretary at Swiss
Faculty Development Network)
Post-production made by METID

11. To Flip Or Not To Flip MOOC : some data
To publish the MOOC:
• 6 months of work
• 8 people involved
First edition numbers:
• Around 2000 partecipants
• 31% rate of completion
Suggestion from the final questionnaire: to have six experiences narrated along the MOOC in parallel, question
by question, may have been heavy to be followed step by step, and some users might have preferred to view
each interview as a whole. So, we implemented a new module with the interviews presented as a whole.

12. Using OERs In Teaching MOOC
Focus on testimonies, but mantaining experiences under
the spotlight.
New guests shared:
1. their direct experiences
2. the challenges they encountered
3. the chances they offered to innovative didactic
…resulting in inspiring videos about the concept of OERs
and their history.
Objective: rise the awareness of partecipants about OERs and convince them to use OERs, through the
voice of relevant professionals in the sector, while giving the chance to try them out directly.

13. Anant Agarwal • Jane-Frances Agbu • Ariane Dumont • Cable Green • Rory McGreal • António M. Teixeira
Joseph Pickett • Susanna Sancassani • Robert Schuwer • Katsusuke Shigeta • Andrea Zanni • Martin Ebner
Using OERs In Teaching MOOC: our guests
Collaboration with international experts was so important for us that we went through the programme of OE
Global 2016 and searched for more information about all the presentations that might be more relevant for our
objectives, contacted the presenters before the event, set appointments there and interviewed them directly.
We met some of them in between the Congress and started recording video contributions on-site, thanks to the
kind hospitality of AGH University of Science and Technology.
The other recordings were made in our studio or directly online.

14. Using OERs In Teaching MOOC: data
To publish the MOOC:
• 7 months of work
• 8 people involved
First edition numbers:
• 463 participants
• 24% rate of completion

15. Conclusions
The collaborative approach adopted at international level in the MOOCs For Teachers series is here described
in order to be shared and, with due adaptations, to be reused in other academic contexts, if suitable.
For Politecnico di Milano it is an ongoing meaningful experience to work together and to reciprocally enhance
the chances to learn on-the-job.
MOOCs are, from this perspective, a concrete «educational resource»
also for the design team in itself; they foster teachers
and instructional designers to rethink
1. their role in this specific context
2. their contribution to the design activities
3. their ability to learn from each other
while reaching a better-shared result.
The one described here is not only a shared design experience: it becomes a reciprocal teaching experience
and an enlarged international collaboration experience.
…You’re all welcome to join us!!!!

16. …THANK YOU!
Cape Town – OE Global 2017
Paola Corti
paola.corti@polimi.it