April 23, 2015, by Teaching at Nottingham

The Power of Course Design: the case of the Spanish N(ottingham)OOC

Video >>

Factors such as high numbers of participants and unpredictable mixed abilities have been claimed as responsible for the relatively weak presence of language courses amongst open online courses. The purpose of this talk is to present an attempt to bridge this gap by leveraging course structure and activity design.

The empirical context is provided by a course in Spanish Language and Culture which will be offered as a NOOC in the Autumn Term 2015, by the Language Centre in collaboration with the Department of Spanish, School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies.

The Spanish NOOC engages the participants in a multi-level structure conceived to foster peer collaboration and feedback across the language proficiency levels. This is achieved by adapting all resources to three broadly defined levels of proficiency, thus supporting mixed abilities, facilitating mobility across the levels and capitalising on peer interaction as a tool for coping with a high number of participants.

Observing the affordances and limitations of the design of the Spanish NOOC, the aim of this project is to inform the creation of pedagogical models for future initiatives of the kind both within the context of our University and of the wider scene of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Dr Cecilia Goria,
School of Cultures, Languages and
Area Studies

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn