The Effect of Soft Classroom: A New Learning Environment Integrating MOOCs into Conventional Classrooms for College Students

In the last two decades, new insights into the nature of teaching and learning have driven the development of a variety of constructivist approaches for providing flexible and powerful student-centered learning environments. Also, recent advances in technology and in ideology have unlocked entirely new directions for education research. At the center of this discussion is the flipped classroom. This paper presents an ongoing study on how to integrate MOOC courses with an on campus course, adopting both the flipped classroom and self-directed learning paradigms. The authors created and recorded four courses, 2D CAD, 2D CAD project, 3D CAD and 3D CAD project, on Coursera, a popular MOOC platform. The instructor proposed three learning environments, the “hard classroom”, “hybrid classroom”, and “soft classroom”. The students rated the environments for favorability in the beginning of the semester and decided whether or not they would go to the classroom during the course hours listed on the syllabus and how their learning would be facilitated. The “soft classroom” was the students’ first choice, over the “hybrid classroom” and “hard classroom.” Therefore, they were not required to attend the classroom physically. In addition, the students were responsible for their own pace of learning, without their learning progress being regularly checked. The instructor and teaching assistants were still available in the classroom during the course hours to interact with students. To understand how the “soft classroom” worked and helped students to learn, the authors distributed a self-developed survey, followed by focus group interviews of the students to reflect students’ attitudes toward classroom attendance and their learning efficacy under this innovative self-regulated learning. Three rounds of surveys were conducted to examine students’ changes in attitude and preferences as well as their perceptions of their learning efficiency. Based on students’ self-reports, the average rate of physical classroom attendance was 26%. More than 60% of the students preferred this “soft classroom” learning. In addition, they reported on how efficient this course was in response to this new learning environment. The results from the three rounds of surveys and focus group interview provided evidence of the success of the current case. Students exhibited positive attitudes toward the soft classroom and achieved better learning outcomes. Besides expressing a preference for this learning paradigm, students also benefitted from its effectiveness. The soft classroom is an innovative model of teaching that utilizes educational technology and active learning to positively influence the learning environment by providing students opportunities to decide on the ways they are learning. !