International Perspective: The MOOC and Campus-Based Learning

MOOCs are primarily associated with the "M" in their acronym-"massive." For many of us, however, the MOOC is an opportunity to enhance the campus-based learning environment. There might be a hundred, a thousand, or even twenty-five hundred students in the MOOC from the campus offering the course, co-learning with tens of thousands of distributed fellow learners. The question for the place-based institution is how the redesign of course delivery for MOOCs opens up reconsideration of the campus physical learning environment. What opportunities exist from combining MOOCs with flipped classrooms? What learning design patterns apply when the MOOC is a module within a semester on-campus course? Do we need the same number and design of physical classrooms? We will address issues associated with restructuring course design for MOOCs where they are but a coherent portion of a semester course rather than the course as a whole, identify the potential space implications emerging from this pedagogical shift, consider a framework for the impact of MOOCs on physical space use, and reflect on the spillover effects this design change might have on other aspects of learning environment (e.g., instructor preparation, tutor training and support, and assessment).