MODeLing: Reinventing MOOC through a learner-centred approach

Melinda dela Pena Bandalaria
University of the Philippines Open University
Los Baños, the Philippines

MOOC has taken a variety shapes and sizes since its start in 2008 and boom in 2012. Various education providers, both residential and open universities, have grappled for ways to implement their own version of MOOC in an effort to address the major issues surrounding this mode of delivering instruction. Backed by its more than ten years of offering degree and non-degree programmes in distance e-learning, the University of the Philippines Open University embarked on developing and offering its own MOOC in the framework used for its online courses. The resulting framework, MODeL — standing for Massive Open Distance eLearning — was tested in the two MOOC offerings of the University. This paper intends to: (1) describe the MODeL framework; and (2) present the initial results of its application in its own MOOC offerings. The data used in this paper came from a content analysis of the process documentation of the MOOC programme as well as an analysis of the learning activities in the MOOC offerings. Hopefully, the results of this study can guide other universities which are thinking of offering their own MOOC independent of Western influences and models.