Who Are Our Students? Bridging Local and Global Learning Communities

During the first week of March 2013, about 80,000 new students were added to the Vanderbilt University community, thanks to the launch of Vanderbilt's first two MOOCs. MOOCs, our own as well as those hosted by other universities, are changing our conceptions of learning communities. In this talk, we will explore a few ways the Vanderbilt local learning community is interacting with, learning from, and contributing to the global learning communities provided by MOOCs, including "wrapping" courses around MOOCs, hosting MOOC meet-ups, and using MOOCs as professional development opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. In this session, you'll discover ways to integrate MOOCs and materials from MOOCs into learning experiences on campus (including credit-bearing courses and informal learning experiences), reexamine the educational mission of universities in light of new abilities to teach thousands of students around the world, view a MOOC initiative through an educational development lens, and consider ways such an initiative might enhance faculty instructional practices and help prepare graduate students for future faculty teaching roles.