Carol Gering

I met with my committee yesterday and received approval on my proposal—now I’m officially beginning the project! As a short, one-sentence description of the study: I’m exploring the implementation of various open courseware projects, with an eye toward a “best fit” for CDE. The final product will be a recommendation document that outlines a practical way for CDE to launch an open courseware project, including software packages, overall design of the learning space, course features, and interaction spaces.I’m particularly interested in course designs that offer significant learning opportunities for individuals. Based on my initial literature review, existing open courseware projects can be divided into 3 major categories:

1. Those that focus on publishing documents and artifacts from classroom courses
2. Those that focus on the cognitive science of interaction between students and content
3. Those that incorporate social interaction between students as a key element of course design

I’m predisposed to believe the second and third types of open courseware are most useful for individuals and self-learners. I’m especially interested in finding a way to implement effective strategies for social interaction in a self-paced, stand-alone study environment.As I begin the project, I’ll post updates here—on Rhetorica—for anyone who’s interested in following my progress.