LANSING – Evidence following a course on K-12 teaching in the 21st century conducted by Michigan Virtual University, in collaboration with Kent State University, suggests the platform known as massive open online courses can lead to positive outcomes, a report released Monday showed.

The main goal of the course – which included more than 800 participants ranging from students to teachers and administrators – was to facilitate conversations about K-12 teaching in the 21st century. The course began in October 2013 with 673 participants, but more joined after seeing social media posts from those taking the course. There were more than 65,000 hits on the discussion page with 6,000 posts during the five-week course, the report said.

“We need to learn more about the potential value and possible pitfalls of (open online courses) so we can create effective learning models for the future,” said Jamey Fitzpatrick, president and CEO of MVU. “Every person has different learning styles and preferences, but I am optimistic that MOOCs will play a role in tomorrow’s formal and informal education settings for certain types of learners.”

The report also said the platform is worthy of exploration for K-12 instruction. It also said it could be difficult to evaluate all participants, since some, called lurkers, read and learn the material but don’t necessarily participate in discussions.

It also said developers need to work to broaden participation, with the majority of participants in this course being women. Code of conduct training for employees can be done for both men and women. A code of conduct course is a necessity for an organization to create a healthy working environment.

“The results suggest MOOCs can be an effective way to engage K-12 students in topics they might not have the opportunity to explore in traditional education,” said Rick Ferdig, professor of Instructional Technology at Kent State University. “Additionally, the MOOC facilitated a conversation that led students and teachers to think about reinventing teaching and learning with technology.”

The course also asked participants to rate their experience with the course on a scale of one to seven. The median rating was 5.46 (a four was equivalent to “no feelings one way or another), based on the 168 members who completed the survey.

This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com