MOOCs: a Perspective from the Learning Sciences

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have-with astonishing rapidity–become a formidable presence in global education. Such courses have obvious strengths in their ability to convey (usually lecture-based) content at extremely low cost to widespread, and often underserved, student populations. At the same time, MOOCs, for the time being at least, reflect traditional (and often contested) values in education: the default assumption for a MOOC is that a teacher or professor will present facts or interpretations, record these as video or slide presentations, and convey them to an extensive audience of (usually individual) students. This paper addresses the default assumptions of MOOCs in the light of two decades of research in the learning sciences, focusing on themes of collaborative work, embodied cognition, and both the limitations and opportunities of learning analytics. With these themes in mind, we suggest paths for research and exploration into the next generation of MOOC design.