Increasing interactivity and collaborativeness in MOOCs using facilitated groups: A pedagogical solution to meet 21st century goals

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are education technologies which capable of teaching thousands of students synchronously. The pedagogy in MOOCs are focus on decentralized learners where students watch videos, take quizzes, submit assignments and discuss using forums. This pedagogy is focusing on the didactic method of teaching. However, the students in 21st century are more connected and networked to learn effectively. Present and future workforce require critical thinking, communication, collaborative and creative skills, yet MOOC pedagogy does not support to upskill the required. This research introduces a facilitator driven group learning pedagogy inspired by cMOOCs. Pedagogies behind 7 different MOOC platforms were analyzed to understand existing models. Surveyed literature on empirical research of MOOCs success factors in order to propose and conceptually design the model "GroupMOOC". This will increase the student interactivity, provide a medium where they can collaborate and be creative. The paper explains the detail design goals and analogies behind features.