Pedagogical models for video communication in massive open on-line courses (MOOCs): a success story

Abstract

The initiatives on MOOCs promoted in the United States by prestigious universities, such as Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and by private bodies such as Udacity, aroused great interest worldwide; however the teaching and learning models proposed with MOOCs do not appear to rely on solid theoretical bases and, therefore, on valuable psycho-pedagogical models. The aim of this paper is to analyze some pedagogical aspects related to video communication models in order to highlight the strong and weak points of the educational framework of these initiatives. The teaching models adopted by the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO for its video lessons, the distance assessment systems, the teacher/tutor and student distance interaction models reached such a quality level that it allows us to generalize this model and trigger teaching and learning processes of high quality and to lower the dropouts rates of the students enrolled in MOOCs.

Keywords

• video lecture design
• on-line learning
• MOOCs