Tallinn University set up and ran their first MOOC “Computer-supported inquiry” on EMMA in recent weeks. This MOOC is mainly aimed at high school students and aims to prepare them for conducting inquiry projects, which is one of the requirements for graduating from high school along with 3 compulsory national exams. This course aims to enhance the students’ knowledge and experience on data collection and analysis methods in order to conduct inquiry tasks in school or university settings. Teachers, who are supposed to supervise inquiry projects at schools, were also welcome to participate in this course. This MOOC lasts for nine weeks and is quite practical in nature. Participants are expected to work with real data sets, perform different data analysis techniques, interpret results and monitor other participants’ tasks weekly. Learners have text-based materials and screencasts of data analysis techniques to support them.
Today the course has been running for nearly seven weeks and is about to end. High school students are not traditional self-directive MOOC participants. Young students value direct feedback from a facilitator and maybe a more regulated learning situation. It can be said that practical tasks in the course context are rather challenging for high school students, especially in an online context where you don’t have physical support from peers’ and facilitators. But our young students are responsible and do their best to complete the required tasks on time.