Content Creation and Pedagogic Strategies for Skill Development MOOC

Abstract

Skill development is being promoted throughout India, as a channel to create employable resource. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) can provide a platform to enable such skill development programs at scale. The IITBombayX course, Basic 3D animation using Blender (SKANI101x), was the first of its kind offering of a Skill Development MOOC (sdMOOC) for the Indian learners. Over its two offerings, 6457 participants registered, 2465 (38%) were active and 1132 (19%) were certified. However while producing and conducting the course we realized the lack of content creation and pedagogic strategies for such sdMOOCs. Analysis of our pilot offering of SKANI101x, highlighted its effectiveness for both, first-time and experienced online learners. In the second offering we modified pedagogic strategies to foster student-instructor interactions that resulted in higher engagement and completion rate. This paper discusses the rationale of the decisions and reports an evaluation study of participants’ performance, engagement, and perceptions regarding the components of the course over two offerings. This provides an evidence for the effectiveness of the content creation and pedagogic strategies implemented.