From online learning to offline action: using MOOCs for job-embedded teacher professional development

Over two iterations of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for school leaders, Launching Innovation in Schools, we developed and tested design elements to support the transfer of online learning into offline action. Effective professional learning is job-embedded: learners should employ new skills and knowledge at work. We aimed to get participants to both plan and actually launch new change efforts, and a subset of our most engaged participants were willing to do so during the course. Assessments, instructor calls to action, and exemplars supported student actions. We found that participants led change initiatives, held stakeholder meetings, collected new data about their contexts, and shared and used course materials collaboratively. Collecting data about participant learning and behavior outside the MOOC environment is essential for researchers and designers looking to create effective online environments for professional learning.