How do you upskill a team in mooc design: a workshop-based approach

How do you upskill a team in
MOOC design?
Matt Cornock
Online CPD Coordinator
@mattcornock
A workshop-based approach to team professional development
FutureLearn Partners Forum
11 October 2017

Own the approach
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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock

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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
If you start with a premise that online ‘must happen this way of
according to the FutureLearn pedagogy’ you run the risk of not getting
buy in, or worse creating courses that aren't a credible part of the
organisation’s portfolio, as it wouldn’t reflect the aims of organisation or
the professional expertise of the people in the team. Therefore, the first
part of the process was to align FutureLearn’s pedagogy with our
organisational approach to delivering effective CPD to teachers. This
formed the first of five one-two hour workshops, to identify what will
make our online CPD distinctive and identifiable as ours.
Together, we were able to create an underpinning approach for our
online CPD that reflects our organisational and professional approach,
which still takes full advantage of social learning on FutureLearn.

Draw upon
what we know
(and identify what we don’t)
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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock

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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
After establishing our approach, we then looked at online and
distance learning. To begin with we looked at the types of
activities that usually took place in face-to-face CPD (what the
team were already familiar with) and then considered what
would work and what challenges there might be of using similar
approaches online. It was also important to think about the
opportunities of the online environment, such as learning in
parallel with work.
Rather than delving into pedagogic theory, we looked at two
frameworks: Anderson and Garrison’s Tutor-Student-Content
interactions and a simplified model of activity-based learning.
These allowed us to unpick the role of the Educator and Learner
and the differences between instruction and facilitation.

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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock

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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
From this workshop we developed our intended learning
experience: encourage ongoing reflection; scaffold action
planning for impact; encourage sharing of practice; structured
points of interaction between participants/educators; linking
concepts between activities/weeks and into practice.
These can be represented by combining different actors and
content through a learning activity to lead to a learning
outcome.

Storyboard
a course
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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock

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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
After establishing a collective approach to what we want to achieve
with our online courses, and a distinctive learning experience that
is tailored to our audience, the next phase is to design the course.
A core part of our MOOC design process is storyboarding. We
used the adapted JISC Viewpoints / UCL ABC workshop from
FutureLearn. This workshop has two key strengths: first that it
provides discussion about the course and its target audience and
aims; second it is activity focused and is a great way to encourage
the team to think about what a Learner is doing with their time on
the course and our intended learning experience, rather than focus
on the content.

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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
The most important part of storyboarding is to attempt to get
ideas down, not focus too much on whether everything
suggested is feasible or flows. If you have subject experts for a
limited time, make sure they're storyboarding to help sequence
content as well as considering what activities are authentic and
valuable to your learners.
Once a storyboard is constructed, subsequent discussions
iterate the storyboard to refine it towards the intended
outcomes for the course.

Think creatively
and author
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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock

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Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
With the course roughly storyboarded, it is then broken down
into clear activities and steps and we started to develop how
the course would actually work.
At this point we looked at how the online environment allows
for different media to be used, the way video in particular
complements the Educator narrative with examples from
practice and provides opportunities for different voices to be
present in the course, how quizzes can be used to scaffold
learning or provide content through Educator feedback, and
how to balance content and activity.

4
Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
The authoring process then takes a fair bit of time. Trying to
overcome the ‘blank piece of paper’ is the hardest hurdle, so
the team began with a step they were familiar with and
worked out from there.
The learning designer’s role turns into an editor: providing
feedback on drafts, ensuring that the small bits of linking text
and signposting are in place, crafting discussion activities,
and suggesting alternative ways to present content. Most
important is the dialogue between the team, so that where
things are changed, there is a growing understanding of why
they’re changed to support online learning.

Provide examples
Avoid going into detail too quickly
Keep momentum going
Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
Tips

Matt Cornock
@mattcornock
TipsWhat did I learn by leading the workshops? First, the value of examples. We looked at a number of MOOCs throughout the series
of workshops. This was crucial to making some of the abstract concepts of online design more tangible. By comparing examples
the team could work out what type of MOOC they wanted to create and how they could make their courses relevant to their
audience. Viewing other MOOCs has to be an essential part of a design process.
Secondly, it was hard during the storyboarding workshop to ensure we kept a high-level view of the course design. Particularly with
large groups, discussion can veer off into detail or worrying about practicalities, rather than the helicopter view of activities. We
found that starting with the activity types first before flipping over the cards to add detail didn’t work for us, as just looking at
activities felt a little too ‘meta’. We discussed both activity and content in parallel, as a result, we took quite a bit of time to balance
the activity-first approach whilst also planning content.
Finally, this is a 6-month process of course design, particularly when you have filming. It is crucial to keep momentum going. Keep
to your workshop schedule, ensure that the team do have time to both engage with the workshops and prepare for the next, set
milestones and positively note our individual development and collective success.

Teaching Practical Science
futurelearn.com/partners/stem-learning
Our new Teaching Practical Science MOOCs show the
high-quality, learner-centred CPD we have created through this
process, complementing our popular established courses.

How do you upskill a team in mooc design: a workshop-based approach

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