How did students learn in a MOOC?

Unlike in a traditional classroom setting, teachers can to some extent keep track of students' learning process through observation. In an open online learning environment like MOOC, learning takes place outside the campus and teachers have little or no control of student learning depending on who the MOOC provider is. In this study, a four-week short MOOC developed by another institution was incorporated into an on-campus course of Master program of Educational Sciences as an online learning assignment for students. Learning diaries were used with students to document their learning experience in the MOOC. The weekly learning diary assignment was a semi-structured writing assignment. Students responded to nine open-ended questions in the diary. These questions asked for information about students' use of learning strategies and their actual learning activities. A sample of 23 first-year master students participated in the study and 20 of them submitted learning diaries. We developed a coding scheme in alignment with Zimmerman's (2000) three phases of self-regulation and the three major groups of learning strategies described by Donker and colleagues (2014). The results indicate that most students aimed to complete one module per week and they accomplished their goals. Note-taking was the most frequently used learning strategy adopted by students in learning the MOOC. Viewing video transcripts to recap the MOOC was another strategy used by many students. When learning the MOOC, students often linked the MOOC content to their previous knowledge and experience to gain a deeper understanding of the course content.