In 2015, I contributed to the design and delivery of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called Teaching With Technology and Inquiry (INQ101x), offered by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto in collaboration with University of Toronto Schools (UTS). Its purpose was to provide scalable, practice-oriented professional development for in-service teachers, using inquiry-based pedagogy as both topic and method. The six-week course attracted more than 8,000 registrants worldwide, with approximately 2,200 teachers actively engaging in the learning design activities.
The course was distinctive in its dual focus: first, on equipping teachers to design technology-enhanced lessons that fostered inquiry and collaboration; and second, on modeling those very practices within the MOOC itself. Weekly modules explored core topics such as student-centered pedagogy, collaborative learning, assessment with technology, and classroom enactment. Each theme was examined from multiple perspectives—that of an academic researcher, a school administrator, and a K–12 teacher—bringing theory, policy, and practice into dialogue.
My role in this project bridged instructional design, content development, and teaching support. Early in the design process, I helped operationalize sociocultural learning theories into large-scale digital learning experiences. This required developing collaborative scripts and scaffolds that enabled thousands of geographically dispersed learners to engage in meaningful joint inquiry. For example, I co-designed a “resource brainstorming” activity where participants contributed, rated, and reviewed digital tools they had found effective in their own classrooms. The process harnessed the collective intelligence of the teaching community, generating a tagged and curated collection of resources that became a valuable asset for current and future participants in the course.
I also helped configure the course’s nested social structure, which organized participants into Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and smaller Lesson Design Groups aligned with their grade level, subject area, and interests. This approach fostered semantic cohesion, making peer discourse more relevant and productive.
On the production side, I created and coordinated the course video content. This involved capturing real-world examples of technology-enhanced inquiry in classrooms, filming interviews with teachers and administrators, and ensuring each week’s materials represented authentic classroom practice. Once the course launched, I served as a teaching assistant, supporting thousands of participants through discussion forums, clarifying instructions, and contributing as a peer collaborator within one of the design project teams.
The course itself pioneered several innovations in collaborative MOOC design. It offered two complementary participation strands: a Foundation Strand, where learners reflected individually, collaborated within SIGs, and engaged in peer review; and a Design Strand, where smaller teams of highly motivated teachers co-created complete technology-infused lesson plans. These projects unfolded within a purpose-built “Collaborative Workbench,” an external learning environment integrated through the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) protocol. The Workbench enabled persistent group communication, collaborative content creation (through Etherpad), and structured knowledge building within a Confluence wiki.
By the end of the course, participants had produced 25 high-quality lesson designs, which were curated into a public “gallery walk” for broader use by educators.
Research findings demonstrated that dividing students into semantically cohesive SIGs contributed significantly tot he quality of collaboration and the final design outputs, affirming the value of thoughtful orchestration in massive-scale online learning.
This project deepened my expertise in instructional design for large-scale, collaborative online learning, sharpening my ability to translate advanced learning theories into concrete digital practices. I gained significant technical fluency with LTI-based environments, collaborative authoring tools, and learning analytics, using these systems not only to support learner interaction but also to generate insights into participation patterns, group cohesion, and project quality. Just as importantly, the experience reinforced for me how thoughtful design can transform a massive online course from a one-way content delivery model into a vibrant community of practice. Working at the intersection of pedagogy, technology, and research, I learned how to design structures that invite broad participation, surface diverse expertise, and channel collective knowledge toward meaningful outcomes. These skills continue to shape my approach to educational innovation, particularly in contexts where scale, collaboration, and equity must be carefully balanced.
Alisa Acosta 