How students evaluate “Innovativeness” and “Expected Needs Satisfaction” of digital educational projects in an academic MOOC

• Main Authors: Orly Melamed, Dr., Rivka Wadmany Shauman, Dr.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) 2020-06-01
• Series: Italian Journal of Educational Technology
• Subjects: Peer Assessment in MOOC; Entrepreneurship in Education; Innovativeness in Education; Project Based Learning; Social-Emotional Learning; Educational Technology
• Online Access: https://ijet.itd.cnr.it/article/view/1164

New Media in Education MOOC was created in order to train education students in developing educational project plans based on new media and networked pedagogy. Students in the course submit detailed project plans and participate in peer assessments based on five evaluation criteria including innovativeness and expected needs satisfaction. An action research was conducted based on a content analysis of 789 student assessments regarding 89 project plans related to networked pedagogy and new media tools. The aim of the study was to explore how students assess their peer’s project plans, and use these insights to improve the peer assessment process and the guideline criteria. Findings of the study indicate that students mainly used two models for assessing the expected needs satisfaction criterion: an assessment model adjusted to traditional pedagogy, which focuses on cognitive scholastic needs and low-order thinking (knowledge, comprehension, and implementation), and a model adjusted to constructivist pedagogy, which focuses on emotional, social and cultural needs and high-order thinking (evaluation and creation). The findings of this study also motivated an elaboration of the innovativeness criterion and its extension beyond technological innovation, and motivated the elaboration of the expected need satisfaction criterion and its extension beyond cognitive needs. The findings motivated an inclusion of additional criteria to the assessment guidelines.