Kes McCormick
Senior lecturer
Online teaching going massive: input and outcomes
Author
Summary, in English
The proliferation of massive open online courses is a recent phenomenon in higher education. At the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University in Sweden, emerging
pedagogical approaches in e-learning have long been embraced, allowing for valuable experience with new educational technologies applied in education for sustainability. In 2014, the Institute was given a formal task to develop a massive open online course on “Greening the Economy: Lessons from Scandinavia”, thereby utilizing existing capacities and experiences while experiencing new challenges revealed by courses of larger scale. This article presents the background to the Institute's undertaking with massive open online courses and the range of expectations from the main stakeholders. The article discusses massive open online courses as a novel venue for e-learning in sustainability education as regards learning activities, design and content. It concludes that while the initial experience of such a course has been positive, in order to better cater to the learner groups, continued attention needs to be paid to course design, teacher capacity and in particular an examination of learner motivations.
pedagogical approaches in e-learning have long been embraced, allowing for valuable experience with new educational technologies applied in education for sustainability. In 2014, the Institute was given a formal task to develop a massive open online course on “Greening the Economy: Lessons from Scandinavia”, thereby utilizing existing capacities and experiences while experiencing new challenges revealed by courses of larger scale. This article presents the background to the Institute's undertaking with massive open online courses and the range of expectations from the main stakeholders. The article discusses massive open online courses as a novel venue for e-learning in sustainability education as regards learning activities, design and content. It concludes that while the initial experience of such a course has been positive, in order to better cater to the learner groups, continued attention needs to be paid to course design, teacher capacity and in particular an examination of learner motivations.
Department/s
- The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Publishing year
2016-06
Language
English
Pages
230-233
Publication/Series
Journal of Cleaner Production
Volume
123
Document type
Journal article (letter)
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Environmental Management
Keywords
- e-learning
- Online
- MOOC
- Sustainability
- Education
- Green economy
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0959-6526