I am always delighted when I can publish an open access article. I am even more delighted when it is research from one of my advisees. And I am ecstatic when it is research from a dissertation project of an emerging young scholar who has potential to do great things.
So I was smiling a couple weeks ago when the Online Learning journal announced its annual special issue of AERA papers. My brilliant advisee, Meina Zhu (now Dr. Zhu, an assistant professor at Wayne State University), had a key aspect of her dissertation on MOOC instructor perspectives on self-directed learning (SDL) published. This paper was evolved from an AERA poster last April in Toronto. She defended her dissertation right after the conference (April 15, 2019....tax day in the USA) and happily went through commencement in May.
Zhu,
M., Bonk, C., J., & Sari, A. (2019, April 8). Designing MOOCs to Facilitate Participant Self-Directed Learning: An
Analysis of Instructor Perspectives and Practices. Poster presented at the 2019 American Educational Research Association
(AERA) annual meeting, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
A picture of our poster at AERA is below. Meina is on the left. Of course, our poster visitors included current and past IU students and visiting scholars like Tina and Chris.
The journal article reference is below as is a link to the article as well as the entire special issue (and it's a good one!). Congrads to Meina who is on an upward trajectory with
a string of publications and accepted manuscripts during the past year. In fact, she had six papers accepted for publication her first 40 or so days at Wayne State. She is definitely a rising star in the field.
Zhu, M., & Bonk, C. J. (2019,
December). Designing MOOCs to facilitate participant self-monitoring for self-directed learning. Online Learning, 23(4), 106-134.
doi:10.24059/olj.v23i4.2037. Available: https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/2037
Designing MOOCs to Facilitate Participant Self-monitoring for Self-directed Learning
Meina Zhu, Curtis J. Bonk
Abstract
This study investigates the design and delivery of MOOCs to
facilitate student self-monitoring for self-directed learning (SDL)
using mixed methods. The data sources of this study include an online
survey with 198 complete respondents, semi-structured interviews with 22
MOOC instructors, and document analysis of 22 MOOCs. Study results
indicated that MOOC instructors considered self-monitoring skills
critical for SDL. To foster students’ self-monitoring, MOOC instructors
reported that they facilitated students’ self-monitoring by helping
students with internal feedback and providing external feedback.
Students’ internal feedback includes cognitive and metacognitive
processes. To facilitate cognitive processes, MOOC instructors provided
quizzes, tutorials, learning strategies, learning aids, and progress
bars. For metacognition, these instructors provided reflection questions
and attempted to create learning communities. In addition, MOOC
instructors, teaching assistants, and peers provided external feedback
for students’ self-monitoring. Across these findings, technology played a
central role in supporting student’s self-monitoring.
Keywords
massive open online courses (MOOCs), self-monitoring, self-directed learning, instructional design, MOOC instructors
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Check out the entire special issue:
Per the Editors to Volume 23, number 4:
Karen Swan, Jennifer Richardson, Tadd Farmer
"At the 2019 annual meeting, the OTL SIG received 145 proposals from
which 66 were selected to present. The articles in this special issue
report on the research findings stemming from those proposals. It
includes several articles concerned with quality in a variety of
settings and from both instructor and student perspectives."
More to come from Meina Zhu in the near future...just keep reading this blog.
Labels: massive open online course, MOOC instructors, MOOCs, open education, SDL, self-directed learning |
