A classroom at home: children and the lived world of MOOCs

This research asks “What is it like for a K-12 school-age child to learn in a massive open online course (MOOC)?” Evidence suggested that a significant number of children are participating in MOOCs either independently or alongside their parents, both inside and outside the K-12 school system. Researchers have expressed concerns regarding how these self-directed, massive learning environments may alter children’s study patterns and habits. However, little scholarly attention has been devoted to this unique phenomenon. In particular, rigorous qualitative inquiry is needed to undercover the complex realities of children’s actual experiences in MOOCs. Following the methodological approach “phenomenology of practice,” our study analyzed lived experience descriptions (LEDs) gathered during interviews with 12 children–parent couplets; each child had completed at least one MOOC including Coursera’s Dino 101. This article highlights several themes that arose in our existential analyses of the collected LEDs.