University Lecturers’ Experiences from the Classroom to a MOOC. Are they ready?

Abstract

This article explores the experience of contributors to a MOOC designed mainly for students embarking on second-cycle Master’s degree courses. Following the COVID pandemic, university lecturers were forced to adapt their traditional courses and lecture style in order to continue teaching. This involved a sudden shift to video conferencing platforms and the transformation of the format of learning objects. Teaching staff rapidly had to become familiar with new technologies and teaching strategies. Although all educators in Higher Education had to develop these new skills, getting involved in creating asynchronous online courses was yet another step into unfamiliar territory. A departmental research group designed a MOOC which will award university credits to users completing it. An initial survey to assess willingness to be involved and create content revealed considerable interest among teaching staff. Throughout the design and production process, the drop-out rate remained low. Teaching staff remained keen to contribute to the MOOC. Our hypothesis was that the recent disruption caused by the pandemic meant that teaching staff would be more open to new methods of teaching, and this would affect their approach to the design process in the future. Through the use of surveys and interviews to evaluate contributors’ attitudes, experience and knowledge, we focus on the connections between traditional F2F teaching, online teaching and asynchronous teaching via MOOC, as well as highlighting lessons for both contributors and organisers.

Keywords

• University lecturers
• adaptation
• MOOC content creation
• surveys and interviews