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Bernard Nkuyubwatsi
Bernard
Nkuyubwatsi
Cultural translation in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
University of Leicester
2014
IR content
2014-01-30 13:30:20
Journal contribution
https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/Cultural_translation_in_Massive_Open_Online_Courses_MOOCs_/10127768
This paper discusses how courses are made relevant to students in their respective
cultural settings. Practices that enable such contextualisation, or cultural translation,
are investigated in five Coursera Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). I collected
data from lecture videos, quizzes, assignments, course projects and discussion
forums, using a cultural translation observation protocol I developed for this study. I
found that cultural translation was enabled in the course design of two courses and
in the forum discussions of all five courses. The course design that enabled cultural
translation included activities, tasks, assignments and/or projects that are applicable
to students’ own settings and gave students freedom to choose the setting of their
projects and people with whom they worked. As for forum discussions, students in the
five courses created informal study groups based on geographical locations, languages
and professional disciplines. Findings in this study can inform best practices in designing
and learning courses addressed to a culturally diverse group. The study is particularly
important to MOOC designers and students.