2. Massive Open Online Courses
FUTURELEARN
193 courses from 72 partners
Broad range of business,
health, science, arts
Male:
41%
Female:
59%
Responsive platform
25% access on mobile
devices
Over 2 million learners
4 million course sign-ups
Company formed by The Open University, launched in October 2013
3. PAGE 3
29 of the UK’s leading universities
FUTURELEARN PARTNERS
6. The BBC has co-developed its first four courses with partner universities
A BROADER RANGE OF CULTURAL AND CONTENT PARTNERSHIPS
BBC
7. PAGE 7
440,000 registrations (270,00 learners) for Understanding IELTS course from the British Council
WORLD’S BIGGEST MOOC
8. ‘Institutional MOOC strategies in Europe’ - EADTU
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN US AND EUROPE
EATDUhttp://www.eadtu.eu/documents/Publications/OEenM/Institutional_MOOC_strategies_in_Europe.pdf
11. PEDAGOGY-INFORMED DESIGN
Social learning
A.N. Meltzoff, P. K. Kuhl, J.
Movellan, & T. J. Sejnowski (200)
Foundations for a New Science of
Learning, Science 325 (5938), 284.
“A key component is
the role of ‘the
social’ in learning.
What makes social
interaction such a
powerful catalyst for
learning?”
How do we
design
successful
pedagogy-
informed
massive
open
courses?
12. PEDAGOGY-INFORMED DESIGN
How do we
design
successful
pedagogy-
informed
massive
open
courses?
John Hattie – Visible Learning
“What is most important is
that teaching is visible to
the student, and that the
learning is visible to the
teacher. The more the
student becomes the
teacher, and the more the
teacher becomes the
learner, then the more
successful are the
outcomes ” Hattie, p.17
13. PEDAGOGY-INFORMED DESIGN
Storytelling and narrative
“Narrative is central to our
cognition … It helps us think,
remember, communicate, and
make sense of the world…
Learners constantly adjust their
understanding in accordance
with their exposure to
conventional narratives, making
the construction of narrative a
central cognitive goal.”
Plowman et al. (1999) Designing multimedia for
learning: Narrative guidance and narrative construction.
CHI ’99.
How do we
design
successful
pedagogy-
informed
massive
open
courses?
14. Page
PEDAGOGY-INFORMED DESIGN
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT AND MASTERY
LEARNING
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
REVIEW AND FEEDBACK
REPUTATION AND REWARD
VISIBLE LEARNING AND GOAL SETTING
NARRATIVE LEARNING AND STORYTELLING
We are not simply adopting
methods from previous
platforms such as Moodle.
We have to rethink
• for massive scale
• a wide variety of learners
with different abilities
• self-motivation rather than
learning for credit
• multiple devices
Effective methods of teaching, learning and assessment
15. SCALING LEARNING
Some educational methods get worse with
scale
e.g. personal tutoring, sports coaching
Some educational methods don’t change
with scale
e.g. lecturing, testing
Which educational methods improve with
scale?
16. Metcalfe, R.M.: It’s all in your head. Forbes, 20th April, 2007.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0507/052.html
METCALFE’S LAW
For some networked systems
the value of a product or service increases
with the number of people using it
Telephone network
17. Downes, S.: The Personal Network Effect. Blog posting, 4th November 2007.
http://halfanhour.blogspot.co.uk/2007/11/personal-network-effect.html.
LEARNING NETWORKS
Networks enable learning if they support
conversations that are
new, important, timely, usable, understandable,
appropriate, trusted
Develop effective social networks for
learning
18. TWO-SIDED NETWORKS
Opportunity to teach
Manage complexity
Gain insight from data
Opportunity to learn
Ease of use
Value that increases with
scale
For a 2-sided network, both sides need to benefit
EducatorsLearners
19. Learning as conversation (Pask, Laurillard)
MASSIVE SCALE SOCIAL LEARNING
Learner
• demonstrates understanding
• proposes solutions to
problems
Learner
• acts to develop models
• acts to solve problems
Partner
• demonstrates understanding
• elaborates solutions to
problems
Partner
• acts to develop models
• helps to solve problems
Level of descriptions
Level of actions
Shared medium
• enables learners and partners to
represent arguments and reach
agreements
Shared medium
• enables learners and partners to access
information, develop models and solve problems
‘what’ & ‘how?’ questions and responses
‘why?’ questions and responses
offering conceptions and explanations
proposing goals and modifying actions
reflect
adapt
reflect
adapt
20. MASSIVE SCALE SOCIAL LEARNING
Enabling effective conversations for learning
At levels of action (about activities) and
description (about concepts)
For hundreds of thousands of people
From many cultures
Conversations for learning
23. PAGE 23
A visible and easy to follow structure and progress
VISIBLE LEARNING
Courses are made up of 6-8 weeks
Weeks run Mon-Sun and have a title
telling you what you’re going to learn
Weeks are made up of activities
An activity is a set of steps with
a clear learning objective
Activities are made up of steps
A step could be an article, video,
discussion, test, quiz, assignment…
28. 270,000 learners
From around the world
For many, their first time
learning online
35% contributed to
discussions
25% on mobile devices
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34. PAGE 34
Apply methods from social networking to manage the massive-scale conversations
SOCIAL NETWORK METHODS
Replies Likes FilteringFollowing
35. Learner
• demonstrates understanding
• proposes solutions to problems
Learner
• acts to develop models
• acts to solve problems
Partner
• demonstrates understanding
• elaborates solutions to problems
Partner
• acts to develop models
• helps to solve problems
Level of descriptions
Level of actions
Shared medium
• enables learners and partners to represent
arguments and reach agreements
Shared medium
• enables learners and partners to access
information, develop models and solve problems
‘how?’ questions and responses
‘why?’ questions and responses
offering conceptions and explanations
proposing goals and modifying actions
reflect
adapt
reflect
adapt
Discussions linked to content
Peer review
Exercise steps
37. PAGE 37
DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE
FutureLearn is attracting a high proportion of female learners and an even spread of age
groups
61%
Female
39%
Male
Age in Years
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Under 18
years old
18 - 25
years old
26 - 35
years old
36 - 45
years old
46 - 55
years old
56 - 65
years old
Over 66
years old
Data from Pre-Course Survey January 2015
38. 40%
2.6m Joiners
Someone who signed up for the course.
84%
Active
Learners
Learners who marked
steps as complete
43%
Returning
Learners
Learners who marked
steps as complete in
more than one week
23%
Fully
Participating
Learners
Learners who marked the
majority of steps as
complete including all of
the assessments
Learners who make comments
52%
Learners
Joiners who viewed
at least one step of
the course
15
39. Data provided by FutureLearn from all 51 courses starting between 29 July 2013 and 1 December 2014, lasting 5 weeks
or more, and offering tests.
Coursera: N. Gillani, R. Eynon, Communication Patterns in Massively Open Online Courses. The Internet and Higher Ed 23, 18-26 (2014).
EdX: A.D. Ho et al., HarvardX and MITx: “The first Year of Open Online Courses” (Working paper no. 1, HarvardX and MITx, Cambridge, MA,
2014).
Edinburgh Coursera data provided by University of Edinburgh for 22 Coursera courses to 1st March 2015
COMPARISON WITH OTHER PLATFORMS
FutureLearn data 2013-2014 for courses of 5 weeks or longer, with tests
40. The importance of responsive design
ANYTIME LEARNING
Learning for people’s lives
While desktop users still make up the
majority of our learners, tablet usage
increases in the evenings, and mobile
access remains constant through the
day.
Mon Tues Wed SatThur Fri Sun
12pm 12pm 12pm 12pm 12pm 12pm 12pm
Time
Visits
Desktop Tablet Mobile
41. Video duration vs session exit rate
ANALYTICS FOR LEARNING DESIGN
Short videos retain learners
Our goal is for steps to take no longer
than 20 minutes.
When videos last beyond 10 minutes,
learners start to exit the site.
Video Length
Exit%
0 10 20 30
40
60
20
80
42. Duration of peer review assignment vs length of assignment
ANALYTICS FOR PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT
Looking for patterns
Most assignments are around the
guide length of 200 words.
Some assignments are very short (0-
10 words) and can be ignored for
review.
Some assignments take less than a
minute between first view and
submission, but are up to 1000 words
– suggests these learners copy and
paste.
43. I am writing to you from the Medecins Sans Frontieres Bo-Ebola Treatment Centre in
Sierra Leone. As an expat doctor, I have found your Course on "Ebola In Context" from
the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene to be excellent. Our National Staff,
who are local Sierra Leone Nurses and Clinical Officers have enrolled in the course on
their mobile phones, however because internet is poor or not available, they have been
unable to attend the course/stream videos or download. In turn, with the help of MSF, I
have been able to download the videos, and articles, and together in a group of around
40 people, we have completed your course.
Courses make a real difference
LEARNER FEEDBACK
Sincerely,
Keri Cohn, MD, MPH, DTMH
Expatriate Responsible Doctor
Bo-Ebola Treatment Center, Sierra Leone
Medecins Sans Frontieres- OCA- Amsterdam
44. Learning as conversation (Pask, Laurillard)
MASSIVE SCALE SOCIAL LEARNING
Learner
• demonstrates understanding
• proposes solutions to
problems
Learner
• acts to develop models
• acts to solve problems
Educator
• demonstrates understanding
• elaborates solutions to
problems
Educator
• acts to develop models
• helps to solve problems
Level of descriptions
Level of actions
Shared medium
• enables learners and partners to
represent arguments and reach
agreements
Shared medium
• enables learners and partners to access
information, develop models and solve problems
‘how?’ questions and responses
‘why?’ questions and responses
offering conceptions and explanations
proposing goals and modifying actions
reflect
adapt
reflect
adapt
Discussions linked to content
Peer review
Analytics for learning
design
Exercise steps
45. Learning as conversation (Pask, Laurillard)
MASSIVE SCALE SOCIAL LEARNING
Learner
• demonstrates understanding
• proposes solutions to
problems
Learner
• acts to develop models
• acts to solve problems
Partner
• demonstrates understanding
• elaborates solutions to
problems
Partner
• acts to develop models
• helps to solve problems
Level of descriptions
Level of actions
Shared medium
• enables learners and partners to
represent arguments and reach
agreements
Shared medium
• enables learners and partners to access
information, develop models and solve problems
‘how?’ questions and responses
‘why?’ questions and responses
offering conceptions and explanations
proposing goals and modifying actions
reflect
adapt
reflect
adaptDiscussions linked to content
Peer review
Analytics for learning
designSocial annotation
Group learning Peer assessment
Exercise steps
ArgueGraph
UK Partners – not including specialist institutions
International partners
small map
Specialist Institutions
We have a long way to go but are learning and our key metrics are getting better
Courseras – data from a single course on Business Strategy
Coursera learners: Registrants who “logged into the course’s website at least once”
active learners - Learners who “viewed or downloaded at least one of the lecture segments”
Social learners: Learners who “created at least one post or comment in the online discussion forums”