It’s time to MELLO

For one thing I’m about to go on annual leave for 3 weeks and plan to mellow out a little after I’ve dealt with a couple of tasks that just didn’t make it to the top this week despite my plans.

For another, and the real point of this post, we are beginning our publicity push to recruit participants in our MOOC for Enhancing Laboratory Learning Outcomes (MELLO). We is Alexander Kist, Andrew Maxwell, Victoria Terry, Lindy Orwin, Ananda Maiti, Hannah Jolly and me at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). Toward the end of 2015 we secured an extension grant from the Office of Learning and Teaching to develop a MOOC that would extend on a previous project about planning for laboratory learning. The project also has support from the Global Online Laboratory Consortium (GOLC).

MELLO is designed to assist educators at all levels, from school to university, to improve the quality of laboratory experiences in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. Experienced educators seeking to review and revise current practices or beginning educators are all welcome to participate. Everybody can benefit from reflecting on practice and there is much to be learned from other practitioners at all stages and levels.

MELLO is designed in six modules, each of which can be completed in a couple of hours or less for a total of 10 hours of activity. Information about the modules, which address all phases of laboratory classes from planning through implementation and review, can be found on the MELLO website. Registration is through that site and the MOOC itself has been developed on openlearning.com.

The MOOC is being offered in 2 modes. It can be taken in a self-paced mode by those who prefer to work independently at their own pace with occasional asynchronous exchanges with other participants. For those seeking a more structured experience there is an action learning option that will include small group interaction to support work on a personal laboratory learning project informed by the MOOC content.

MELLO is scheduled to begin on Monday 16 January 2017 and run for 6 weeks. Further information and registration is via the MELLO site.