Capacity building of teachers: A case study of the technology-enabled learning (TEL) massive open online courses

Education is a key driver for economic and social development. For education to be accessible and valuable, teachers must have the pedagogical and technological skill to engage learners in ways that lead to the development of appropriate knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Considering the huge number of trained teachers required to achieve UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal 4, a massive open online course (MOOC) on Technology-Enabled Learning (TEL) was jointly developed by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and Athabasca University, Canada, to address the lack of adequately trained teachers globally, and particularly in the Commonwealth. This chapter presents the design, development, and delivery of the TEL MOOC. It analyzes the data collected from two offerings of the MOOC in 2017. Preliminary findings from TEL MOOC #1 and #2 revealed that the course design that was adopted improved learner engagement and completion rates. Data also reveal that more than 30% of the participants joined this course for specific professional development reasons. Importantly, active participation of a large number of those registered shows the potential of MOOCs for professional development of the teachers in the Commonwealth and beyond.