SPOC-supported introduction to programming

Abstract

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), which have taken higher education by storm, are an opportunity to elevate the quality of existing residential courses. We report about an experimental attempt during the Autumn 2013 semester at ETH Zurich, involving our "Introduction to Programming" course. We designed and implemented a MOOC infrastructure and used it as a SPOC (Small Private Online Course) to support and complement the existing course. The results reported in this article are encouraging for two reasons: first, the participation level was good, in spite of the fact that the online course was an optional addition to the residential course; second, students really liked the assessments (quizzes and programming exercises), in spite of the fact that assessments did not count towards the course final grade. The data we collected suggest that this may, at least in part, be due to a gamification aspect we introduced in the course: awarding virtual badges for obtaining full points in the quizzes.