What we learned from creating one of the world’s most popular MOOCs

Abstract Learning How to Learn (LHTL) is currently one of the world’s most popular massive open online course (MOOC), with nearly 2.5 million registered learners in its first 4 years. Here, we “reverse engineer” the design of the course’s videos to show how creative application of well-known principles of multimedia learning in an MOOC context appear to have fueled the course’s popularity. Gaps in knowledge of multimedia learning are also noted. There have been some 50 years of experience researching effective classroom teaching, but less there have been only 5 years since MOOCs became widespread. The success of LHTL may provide further insight into the importance of the principles of multimedia learning, and how those principles might be practically implemented to improve MOOC making and the general design of instructional videos. Introduction Massive open online courses (MOOCs) burst on the scene in 2011 with a major article in the New York Times . 1 The large numbers that enrolled, coupled with the unprecedented reach through the internet, piqued the world’s attention. Just as the internet disrupted the domains of knowledge, commerce, and social networks, it appeared that the world of education was about to change. Almost overnight, new companies were founded to develop and freely distribute lectures online by some of the best educators in the world. These are available on demand anyplace and anytime that there is an internet connection. The latest data available, as of the end of 2018, indicates there are 11,400 extant MOOCs, servicing 101 million learners. 2 Background about the MOOC Learning How to Learn Although many of the most popular MOOCs today involve practical skills such as computer programming or marketing, a few self-help-type courses, such as Yale’s The Science of Well-Being and our own Learning How to Learn (LHTL) make the top […]

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