2026-09-22T14:11:36Z https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/132543 2026-02-20 col_2142_5131 col_2142_8800 com_2142_5130 com_2142_5132

application/pdf en text Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2026-02-19 without embargo terms The student, Thomas Kaufmann Jr., accepted the attached license on 2025-11-29 at 12:33. The student, Thomas Kaufmann Jr., submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-11-29 at 12:42. This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-12-04 at 20:18. DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22980 on 2026-02-19 at 18:25:41 Cultivating social support through MOOC communities of practice in the Philippines Kaufmann Jr., Thomas W 2025-12-04 Cope, Bill Cope, Bill Kalantzis, Mary Magee, Liam You, Yu-ling MOOC, SRL, MOOC Camp, Community of Practice, Connectivism eng MOOCs in their original ethos had the goal of democratizing education for all and broadening the knowledge gap, particularly in the STEM fields worldwide. This goal was short-lived as they were met with a challenge of completion rates at 10%, which is more than would have existed without MOOCs, but a far cry from what was hoped. Early challenges pointed toward a lack of interactivity with the instructor and social support from peers. Relationships between completers and SRL attributes were studied, and it was thought that highly self-regulated learners were the only ones capable of completing MOOCs. Communities of Practice and cMOOC interventions showed promise in bringing more learners to completion. MOOC Camps are one such example where online MOOCs are used in face-to-face contexts to strengthen the breadth and depth of the content through discussions, debates, and projects with a local facilitator. Social Support is a subscale of SRL that is thought to be a fixed trait, and scales have found it to be a threat to validity in MOOC research on the topic. The Philippines has a robust community of 8000+ MOOCers uplifting one another to MOOC completion and increasing teacher quality in English classrooms. This case study explores SRL-O data, archival course data, and focus group remarks to indicate that help-seeking is very much not a fixed trait and, with the right social supports, it can be cultivated and localized to increase MOOC completion and fill knowledge gaps. The assumption that MOOC learning is only for the highly self-motivated is flawed, and stakeholders should implement them more intentionally. MOOC designers should also devise community building and social support to increase the uptake of their investment in lectures from subject matter experts and realize the original dream of MOOCs – to uplift the world with high-class education, eliminating the place, space, and cost barriers to entry. 2025-12 Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132543 Copyright 2025 Thomas Kaufmann Jr. Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Ed.D. Dissertation