Editor's Note: Ellen Moir is Founder and CEO of New Teacher Center, a national organisation dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers and school leaders.
Published in Partnership with the Skoll World Forum.
Rarely a day goes by when MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are not in the news. There is no hotter topic of conversation in education technology today. Journalists are asking “has the future of college moved online?” While many think that MOOCs are the future of higher education in America and are excited by the enticing business opportunities they offer others are expressing concerns. What is certain is that the evolution of MOOCs is still in the experimental stage and I’m excited that New Teacher Center (NTC) is now part of that experiment. NTC is partnering with Coursera to offer high-quality online professional learning for K-12 teachers via MOOC. Honestly, it’s exhilarating.
Here’s why.
My email has been buzzing everyday with inquiries from press, friends, strangers, partners, and funders wanting to talk about our involvement with Coursera. I tell them I’m excited NTC is on the forefront of this burgeoning technology with the potential to improve how teachers teach and students learn. NTC believes teachers are learners too and we must pounce on this opportunity to directly reach a greater number of new teachers to put them on the path to teacher leadership and excellence. Affordability and access to learning are driving the MOOC movement forward, and these are both relevant to the K-12 sector. Like Cathy Davidson, I too regret the polarizing of the debate about MOOCs and agree that it’s important to look at how we can make necessary, important, invaluable learning available to the widest number of people for the lowest cost.
That must apply to teachers, too.
Organizations should be learners too and embracing change is part of learning. Social entrepreneurs are, by nature, opportunistic and confidently embrace change. They relish opportunities to develop new solutions to how to make the world better that traditional institutions have not explored. I established NTC when I saw, first hand, some of the best and brightest new teachers leaving the classroom early due to lack of support. Similarly, we embraced the development of an online program model when we identified that in rural areas with few teachers and urban areas where a scarcity of teachers in key disciplines existed it was challenging to take local expert teachers from the classroom to support their novice peers. Online learning is not something new to education or for NTC.
NTC knows a great deal about how to create a high-quality online course. As part of this new partnership we look forward to contributing what we know to the MOOC community. We’ve been supporting new teachers through our online mentoring platform, eMSS, for almost a decade and have learned a lot about what it takes to support teachers virtually in their professional growth. Offline or online, learning needs to be engaging and that’s something we know a lot about. In turn we hope to share what we are learning from others about building teacher competency through MOOCs. This is a dynamic community and I’m very proud to be a part of it.
We embraced this opportunity to partner with Coursera because it offers another means of delivering on our mission to improve student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers. With an estimated demand for 350,000 new teachers each year for the next five years, scaling support for them is of critical importance. We owe it to our students to ensure they have great teachers at the front of their classrooms, regardless of a teacher’s years of experience, and regardless of a student’s zip code.
We recognize that there is no virtual replacement to a well-trained and supportive mentor and comprehensive teacher induction programs. Unfortunately, those resources are not available for many new teachers and even when they are there is always room for additional tools. Our partnership with Coursera will offer a greater number of teachers high-quality strategies for advancing student learning. Our goal is no less ambitious than for every new teacher in U.S. to take our “First Year Teaching – Success from the Start” MOOC this August. Courses are available for both Elementary and Secondary school new teachers. Two other NTC courses will help teachers, new and experienced alike, learn about the Literary Design Collaborative and Math Design Collaborative tools and techniques for implementing Common Core State Standards. In the future teachers will increasingly take responsibility for their own professional learning and it is our job to ensure they have easy access to high-quality professional development opportunities. This is a step in that direction.
We hope you’ll follow us and support us on this journey.
