JOIN USOpen online course set to cover more teachers in State
The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is set to be extended to a larger number of teachers and teacher educators in Karnataka as part of a project to improve the quality and quantity of teacher education.
In May this year, 25 teacher educators and officials from various bodies under the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) had enrolled in the MOOC. The six-week course concluded in July with 22 participants completing it.
The MOOC was started by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) in partnership with The Open University, a distance learning and research university in the UK, under a project called TESS-India (Teacher Education through School-based Support in India) in seven states, one of which is Karnataka. In Karnataka, the Department of State Educational Research and Training is the nodal agency for the project.
Jayakumar S, director, DSERT, was one of the 22 who completed the MOOC. The rest were teacher educators from various District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) and Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs).
“There is always a need for reference area for teachers and such online course are good resources for teachers to gain more knowledge. The platform also provides for discussion with the peer group and is helpful for teachers to understand various aspects of their profession. We will inform more DIETs as well as teachers and motivate them to involve in the MOOC,” he said.
The 22 passouts will work as “facilitators” to bring more people to the course and spread word about such learning implements. “We want to open this learning to more and more people, be it teachers, teacher educators, policy makers and even parents concerned about education. There is a big demand for the course from subject teachers forums,” said C S Lalith Prasad, regional programme manager, TESS India Project.
The course has been divided into 125 learning units covering elementary and secondary maths and science, school leadership, etc.
Localised content
Presently imparted only in English, the court will soon be provided in Kannada too. “Out of the 125 learning units, 110 have been translated into local content. But the aspect of providing it online still remains. We are yet to work on the design of this local content that will be suitable for the online platform. This will hopefully happen soon,” Prasad said.
Besides the MOOC, there are plans to set up kiosks in all DIETs to disseminate the content of the course. Mobile phone apps loaded with the content may be used, too.
Register by November 23
Registrations for the MOOC opened on October 5 and the last date is November 23. The course is hosted at the well-known MOOC platform, edX.