Participatory pedagogy in an open educational course: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

This article presents an empirical study of an open educational course in an online peer-to-peer university (P2PU). P2PU is a nonprofit organization offering free educational opportunities. Focus is on how peers are part of creating course content in a Web 2.0 environment. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have evolved into two different pedagogical directions: content-based xMOOCs and connectivist cMOOCs. cMOOCs emphasizing learning in networks developed informally, where learners are part of creating course content, resemble P2PU`s vision. We investigated processes of interaction in co-creation of tasks in an open educational course and what opportunities and challenges emerge. We employed template analysis for coding data. We report two different processes of interaction between users and organizers: problem identification and co-creation of tasks. This study contributes to understanding a new model of teaching and learning through scrutinizing participation in an open educational course and explores implications for the learning experience.

Metaanálisis De La Investigación Sobre Mooc en El Período 2013-2014

“…Los datos recogidos en la Tabla 4 permiten afirmar que más de un tercio de las investigaciones sobre MOOC se han orientado al análisis de las estrategias pedagógicas implementadas: por ejemplo, co-creación de contenido y pedagogía participativa (Andersen y Ponti, 2014); o diseño de MOOC para nivelación de conocimientos (Daza, Makriyannis y Rovira Riera, 2013). Más de la cuarta parte de los trabajos se centraron en el estudio del nivel de motivación y la implicación de los estudiantes: evaluación de sistemas de apoyo a los estudiantes (Stewart et al, 2013); razones para inscribirse en un MOOC y experiencia de aprendizaje (Zutzhi, O'Hare y Rodafinos, 2013); o estrategias para animar a la participación (Kizilcec et al, 2014).…”

An Analysis of Participants’ Experiences fromthe First International MOOC Offered at the University of Oslo

“…This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). tive feedback, personalised forum thread and personalised learning materials and learning tasks (Andersen & Ponti, 2014;Sunar et al, 2015). These emerging themes will be brought up again later in the article when we discuss MOOCs in terms of contemporary trends in online learning.…”

“…Pre-packaged instructional material does not promote active learning (Morris, 2014) and is not necessarily the best way for everyone to learn (Prensky, 2011). On the other hand, cMOOCs resist the banking model and provide the students with opportunities to direct their own learning experiences and to assist peers' learning as well (Howard, 2017), but put a very high burden on students to collaboratively create new understanding, such as co-creation of tasks (Andersen & Ponti, 2014), which arguably is better tuned to expert learners than novices, or at least a combination of expert and novice learners (Moen, Mørch & Paavola, 2012).…”

“…Andersen & Ponti, 2014), while xMOOCs advocate a more cognitive-behaviourist oriented approach with more focus on delivery of information and individual learning. They determine each a particular pedagogical approach.…”

“…A promising direction in personalization research is personalised learning materials and learning tasks. Andersen & Ponti (2014) investigated participants' co-creation of tasks in cMOOCs and what opportunities and challenges emerge. The authors identified and studied how peers can be part of creating course content and suggest offloading some of the teachers' work in course preparation onto students by co-creating course assignments, which they refer to as mutual development of tasks (Andersen & Ponti, 2014).…”