Reluctant mathematician: Skills-based MOOC scaffolds wide range of learners
Lambert, Sarah

PublishedNovember 2015
JournalJournal of Interactive Media in Education
Volume 1, Issue 21, Pages 1-11
CountryAustralia, Oceania

ABSTRACT
The University of Wollongong’s first locally developed and hosted Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “The Reluctant Mathematician” was run in the last four weeks of our summer holiday, prior to Autumn session in 2014. It was developed to lift maths skills at our university and also in the community – where maths skills continue to be a challenge and in some cases a source of stress. Internally the MOOC provided an alternative online way to support students who struggle with mathematics at university level, as a complement to the existing face to face small group workshops and individual consultations.
This paper describes the aims, rationale of the learning design, and evaluation of the MOOC. Data sources include enrolment/demographic data, analytics data of student patterns of use, assignment submission data, and qualitative feedback via online forms. It provides some support for recent non-binary definitions of MOOCs proposed by Lane (2012), and discusses the importance of discipline specific issues in the design of the MOOC, such as scaffolding learning experiences to address high-stress and low self-efficacy in maths learners.

Keywords foundation skills · Mathematics · MOOC

ISSN1365-893X
RefereedYes
Rightsby/4.0
DOI10.5334/jime.bb
Export optionsBibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar



AVAILABLE FILES
377-3025-1-PB.pdf · 2.2MB25 downloads



Viewed by 127 distinct readers




CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.

Click a star to be the first to rate this document


POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS

Embedding MOOCs in academic programmes as a part of curriculum transformation: A pilot case study
Lambert, Sarah; Alony, Irit; Li, Kam Cheong; Yuen, Kin Sun; Wong, Billy Tak Ming
The University of Wollongong's first locally developed and hosted massive open online course (MOOC) The Reluctant Mathematician was a highly scaffolded MOOC designed to support stressed and low-efficacy mathematics ...
Match: lambert, sarah; mathematics; mooc; australia; oceania

Do MOOCs contribute to student equity and social inclusion? A systematic review 2014–18
Lambert, Sarah
In recent years, hopes that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) would make access to education fairer faded in the light of research showing MOOCs favoured the already educated and relatively advantaged. This paper ...
Match: lambert, sarah; mooc

Changing our (dis)course: A distinctive social justice aligned definition of Open Education
Lambert, Sarah
This paper investigates the degree to which recent digital Open Education literature is aligned to social justice principles, starting with the first UNESCO definition of Open Educational Resources (OER). A critical ...
Match: lambert, sarah; australia; oceania

Perceived resources and technology acceptance model (PRATAM): Students' acceptance of e-Learning in Mathematics
Tarmuji, Nor Habibah; Ahmad, Salimah; Abdullah, Nur Hidayah Masni; Nassir, Asyura Abd; et al.
The methods of teaching in class are also affected with the rise of technology used in education. The lecturer or instructor may want to use innovative ways of teaching to capture the students' attention and to make the ...
Match: mathematics; mooc

Openness in Education as a Praxis: From Individual Testimonials to Collective Voices
Bozkurt, Aras; Gjelsvik, Torunn; Adam, Taskeen; Asino, Tutaleni I.; et al.
Why is Openness in Education important, and why is it critically needed at this moment? As manifested in our guiding question, the significance of Openness in Education and its immediate necessity form the heart of this ...
Match: lambert, sarah

Opening up Down Under: the role of open educational resources in promoting social inclusion in Australia
Bossu, Carina; Bull, David; Brown, Mark
This article discusses the role of open and distance learning to widen participation and promote social inclusion within Australian higher education, as well as the benefits that open educational resources (OER) could ...
Match: australia; oceania

Massive Open and Online Courses (MOOC) in an international perspective: New global agenda for innovation in higher education
Titlestad, Gard
This report is written based on a note provided by ICDE’s Secretary General Gard Titlestad to the Norwegian Government. It has been slightly modified to adapt it for an international audience and a working ...
Match: mooc; australia

A design guide for open online courses
Pratt, Dave; Schmoller, Seb; Jennings, David; Buckman, Will; et al.
This guide is a comprehensive summary of how we went about creating Citizen Maths, an open online maths course and service. The guide shares our design principles and the techniques we used to put them into practice. ...
Match: mathematics; mooc

MOOCs and open education around the world
Bonk, Curtis J.; Lee, Mimi Miyoung; Reeves, T C.; Reynolds, Taylor
As new digital forms of formal and informal learning proliferate, there is an increasing need to better understand how people in different regions of the world are implementing massive open online courses (MOOCs) and ...
Match: mooc; australia

Mathematics courses: Fostering individuality through EMOOCs
Martschink, Bastian; Ullmo, Pierre-Antoine; Koskinen, Tapio
When it comes to university-level mathematics in engineering education, it is getting harder and harder to bridge the gap between the requirements of the curriculum and the actual mathematic skills of first-year ...
Match: mathematics; mooc