#fslt12 MOOC Week 1 starts today, 21-05-12

The MOOC is off to a really good start. We have around 120 people registered on the WordPress and Moodle sites and about 16 interested in being assessed. And there are likely quite a few more following the course without registering.

Activity in the Moodle forums last week, particularly in response to the question ‘What is learning for you?’ indicates a real interest in the issues surrounding learning. Discussion has covered aspects of the process and product of learning, transformative learning and threshold concepts – worth reading if you haven’t already visited the Moodle site (you do have to enrol in the Moodle site though, if you want to add to discussion). See http://openbrookes.net/firststeps12/moodle/

This week the focus is on Reflective Practice. Some people have already set up their blogs and started this activity which is:

We suggest that in this first week you reflect on your overall experience to date as a teacher; what kinds of students have you taught, what have you discovered from the experience, and what have you most enjoyed in your teaching?

We have also suggested that Stephen Brookfield’s lenses might be a good place to start when thinking about reflecting on learning and teaching – beginning perhaps with the autobiographical lens. There are some resources on this in Week 1 of the Moodle site – http://vle.openbrookes.net/mod/page/view.php?id=67

For those who have chosen to be assessed the activity is linked to UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in Higher Education 2011 http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/ukpsf/ukpsf.pdf  All the details are on the Moodle site

Also this week we have our first live session. We have allowed 2 hours for each of these sessions. The idea is that our Speakers (this week George Roberts and Rhona Sharpe, from Oxford Brookes University) will give us a presentation during the first hour and then we can use the second hour to discuss course issues, particularly those concerning assessment.

Looking forward to following the discussion in various locations.