In this paper, the authors discuss the effectiveness of MOOCs as part of a pedagogical strategy aimed at supporting Physics' preliminary undergraduate students in large-size lectures. Our study is based on an experimental activity based on a blended course, which integrated a parallel MOOC delivered through the POK (PoliMi Open Knowledge, http://www.pok.polimi.it), the Politecnico di Milano's MOOC portal. The blended model also delivered face-to-face activities that included intensive technology enhanced learning, like feedback based on clickers. Specifically, we introduce the several elements of the approach (the tutors' pedagogy, the adoption of clickers, the diversity amongst learning groups) and its process of implementation. The findings in this study highlight that the integrated model is effective in terms' of students' learning both for small and large size lectures. More importantly, it was found that the students in large size lectures demonstrated similar or even better performance than students in a small size group.Moreover, the students in all sizes lectures showed higher satisfaction with the MOOCs' against other factors adopted within the learning design.

Students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) enter the labour market with recognized high level technical skills, but often need to enforce their soft skills in order to build effective professional relationships, according to companies view. Polimi Open Knowledge (POK), the MOOCs portal developed by Politecnico di Milano, starts bridging this gap with a series of MOOCs on soft skills, opened by Conflict Management and Change Management and growing with a new course on Working into Multidisciplinary Teams [4]. In these MOOCs an innovative role is played by the integration between role plays and clips taken from famous movies, in order to foster the student personal engagement through involving and enjoyable resources.

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The use of didactic games in order to promote scientific culture leads to innovative methodologies and technologies that can be very effective for the learning process of students or simply to make them more curious about “critical disciplines” such as mathematics. Delivering learning games means making an effort to meet the language and the culture of learners, focusing on their motivation: this aim can be achieved by developing projects and products with a high use of competitiveness and creativity