Instructors’ Perspectives on Teaching Massive Open Online Courses

Abstract

The massive open online courses (MOOCs) movement has gained its popularity during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The aim of this study is to explore the experiences of the instructors on teaching MOOCs during the pandemic. A case study design as one of the qualitative research approaches was used and content analysis was conducted to analyze the findings. Total 41 volunteer instructors have participated the study. In the present study, what the instructors think about MOOC practices, their motives for teaching, to what extent they could transfer the experiences they gained while teaching MOOCs to their regular courses during the pandemic, which materials and practices they have used more frequently, favorite features of their MOOCs, and what they suggest for the improvement of the MOOC portal they used were sought for. The analyses shown that the instructors found the MOOC quite useful, and they think that more resources should be allocated to improve and extent these courses. The primary motivations of the instructors to launch MOOCs were sharing their knowledge and experience, financial income, gaining experiences that will increase their effectiveness in face-to-face courses, and strengthening their professional visibility in the field. It was also emphasized that they used their experiences in MOOCs while they transfer to the emergency remote teaching during the pandemic. The instructors mostly used self-prepared online reading resources, self-recorded videos and self-prepared visuals. Instructors pointed out the gathering of learners with diverse characteristics, flexibility of time offered by the system and system’s ease of use as their favorite features of the platform thorugh which they offered their MOOCs, Namely, AKADEMA of Anadolu University. Their suggestions for the improvement of AKADEMA portal concentrated on the need for better promotion of the portal, and provision of ETCS equivalence and certification.