MOOC Pedagogy: Gleaning Good Practice from Existing MOOCs

The revolutionary potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been met with much skepticism, particularly in terms of the quality of learning offered. Believing that a focus on learning is more important than a focus on course completion rates, this position paper presents a pedagogical assessment of MOOCs using Chickering and Gamson's Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education and Bloom's taxonomy, based on the author's personal experience as a learner in four xMOOCs. Although most xMOOCs have similar characteristics, the author shows that they are not all offered in exactly the same way, and some provide more sound pedagogy that develops higher order thinking, whereas others do not. The author uses this evaluation, as well as reviews of other xMOOCs in the literature, to glean some good pedagogical practices in xMOOCs and areas for improvement.