Creating value from co-designing CoMOOCs with teachers in challenging environments

Abstract

Conditions of mass displacement and other complex crises create a need for widely accessible teacher professional development opportunities. This article reports on the forms of value created for participants through a scaled-up collaborative online peer-sharing experience developed to support teachers in challenging environments to become transformative educators. This is an approach we have conceptualised as a co-designed, massive open online collaboration (CoMOOC), since it uses massive open online course (MOOC) platforms, but extends the concept of a traditional MOOC. The CoMOOC was co-designed with teachers and teacher educators in Lebanon and hosted on two platforms to create an equivalent co-learning experience in two languages (Arabic and English). To assess the impact of the CoMOOC, we adopt a value creation approach to evaluation. This approach considers how educators’ perception of their participation in the CoMOOC can support and enhance their professional practice in the long term, creating value for themselves and those affected by their practice (for example, learners, colleagues and institutions). We present evidence of the forms of value created during and after participation, collected through impact survey responses and interviews with CoMOOC participants.