And this week, I completed a MOOC!

 

 

Aloha all -

I observed a MOOC titled "Child Nutrition and Cooking 2.0."   It was run by Dr. Maya Adam from Stanford University and highlighted nutrition and healthy cooking for our children.  The course ran for 5 weeks and included basic nutrition information and simple recipes to prepare healthy food for your family. 

MOOCs by definition are massive open online courses and this one fit the bill perfectly. It was MASSIVE - There were about 40,000 registered students from around the world (Philippines, Hungary,  Greece, Sweden) with about half participating regularly.  It was OPEN and ONLINE- it was offered with open access at no cost to unlimited participants on the Coursera website.  And it was a COURSE for student learning on nutrition and healthy eating. 

 Each weekly module included a series of short videos that covered information on healthy nutrition and several recipes to try at home.  Optional cooking assignments were encouraged to be posted to social media on the class Facebook page and twitter hash tag.  Each week there was a short multiple choice quiz with automated grading and immediate feedback. You were able to retake the quiz as many times as you wanted. During selected weeks, surveys were sent out to garner feedback from the students.

Students who complete the weekly quizzes and surveys  received a statement of Accomplishment from the instructor.  There was also a giveaway of a one-year magazine subscription to ChopChop Magazine for 10 students who complete the course!

Most of the interaction was in the discussion forum with various topics - general discussion, building community, questions for Instructor/TA, post your recipes, etc.  It was interesting to review the comments on the discussion boards as some students have strong opinions on nutrition and healthy eating. 

The class was fun, informative and low stress.  I enjoyed this MOOC and was able to learn about nutritional basics.  I have made a few of the recipes - smoothies and pasta sauce - and they were, as promised, - simple, healthy and tasted good. 

 My MOOC experience was positive in that it allowed learning at my convenience without any excessive stress.  The short videos were informative and easy to understand. I feel that the format encouraged students to stay active until the end.  I wonder if MOOC's are as successful when the topic is very in-depth and complicated.  If it involves quite a bit of work, I would think that some kind of recognized credit would motivate more participants to complete the MOOC.  The fact that it is OPEN and "FREE"  may not cause students to feel fully vested in completing the course if other things in life come up. It will be interesting to see how the future of the MOOC unfolds. 

 

 

 

And how was your MOOC?


A hui  hou,
Terri