Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course

Professional learning, combining formal and on the job learning, is important for the development and maintenance of expertise in the modern workplace. To integrate formal and informal learning, professionals have to have good self-regulatory ability. Formal learning opportunities are opening up th...

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Autores principales:	Colin Milligan, Allison Littlejohn
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Athabasca University Press 2014
Materias:	MOOCs massive open online courses professional learning self-regulated learning Special aspects of education LC8-6691
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/7464ab8b07d845fe9a93bd872a581c04
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:7464ab8b07d845fe9a93bd872a581c042021-12-02T19:25:28ZSupporting professional learning in a massive open online course10.19173/irrodl.v15i5.18551492-3831https://doaj.org/article/7464ab8b07d845fe9a93bd872a581c042014-10-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1855https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831 Professional learning, combining formal and on the job learning, is important for the development and maintenance of expertise in the modern workplace. To integrate formal and informal learning, professionals have to have good self-regulatory ability. Formal learning opportunities are opening up through massive open online courses (MOOCs), providing free and flexible access to formal education for millions of learners worldwide. MOOCs present a potentially useful mechanism for supporting and enabling professional learning, allowing opportunities to link formal and informal learning. However, there is limited understanding of their effectiveness as professional learning environments. Using self-regulated learning as a theoretical base, this study investigated the learning behaviours of health professionals within Fundamentals of Clinical Trials, a MOOC offered by edX. Thirty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed to explore how the design of this MOOC supported professional learning to occur. The study highlights a mismatch between learning intentions and learning behaviour of professional learners in this course. While the learners are motivated to participate by specific role challenges, their learning effort is ultimately focused on completing course tasks and assignments. The study found little evidence of professional learners routinely relating the course content to their job role or work tasks, and little impact of the course on practice. This study adds to the overall understanding of learning in MOOCs and provides additional empirical data to a nascent research field. The findings provide an insight into how professional learning could be integrated with formal, online learning. Colin MilliganAllison LittlejohnAthabasca University PressarticleMOOCsmassive open online coursesprofessional learningself-regulated learningSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691ENInternational Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Vol 15, Iss 5 (2014)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	MOOCs massive open online courses professional learning self-regulated learning Special aspects of education LC8-6691
spellingShingle	MOOCs massive open online courses professional learning self-regulated learning Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Colin Milligan Allison Littlejohn Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course
description	Professional learning, combining formal and on the job learning, is important for the development and maintenance of expertise in the modern workplace. To integrate formal and informal learning, professionals have to have good self-regulatory ability. Formal learning opportunities are opening up through massive open online courses (MOOCs), providing free and flexible access to formal education for millions of learners worldwide. MOOCs present a potentially useful mechanism for supporting and enabling professional learning, allowing opportunities to link formal and informal learning. However, there is limited understanding of their effectiveness as professional learning environments. Using self-regulated learning as a theoretical base, this study investigated the learning behaviours of health professionals within Fundamentals of Clinical Trials, a MOOC offered by edX. Thirty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed to explore how the design of this MOOC supported professional learning to occur. The study highlights a mismatch between learning intentions and learning behaviour of professional learners in this course. While the learners are motivated to participate by specific role challenges, their learning effort is ultimately focused on completing course tasks and assignments. The study found little evidence of professional learners routinely relating the course content to their job role or work tasks, and little impact of the course on practice. This study adds to the overall understanding of learning in MOOCs and provides additional empirical data to a nascent research field. The findings provide an insight into how professional learning could be integrated with formal, online learning.
format	article
author	Colin Milligan Allison Littlejohn
author_facet	Colin Milligan Allison Littlejohn
author_sort	Colin Milligan
title	Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course
title_short	Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course
title_full	Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course
title_fullStr	Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course
title_full_unstemmed	Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course
title_sort	supporting professional learning in a massive open online course
publisher	Athabasca University Press
publishDate	2014
url	https://doaj.org/article/7464ab8b07d845fe9a93bd872a581c04
work_keys_str_mv	AT colinmilligan supportingprofessionallearninginamassiveopenonlinecourse AT allisonlittlejohn supportingprofessionallearninginamassiveopenonlinecourse
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Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course

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