The role of the teacher-facilitator in organizing and accompanying the MOOC students

Abstract

In the modern information society, the priority trend of modern education has become the system of open education through distance learning technologies. The most innovative of
such technologies are mass open online courses (MOOCs), when each student chooses the goal, content, method, time and place of training independently. The interest in this problem is due to both the global situation associated with the coronavirus pandemic around the world and, as a result, a global
lockdown, and applied tasks designed to contribute to the achievement of the main goal of modern education, which is to prepare an individual for independent life in modern society, arming him with the necessary skills and professional competencies.

This article attempts to study the role of a facilitator in the framework of teaching a number of disciplines in English for 61 students of language and non-language specialties in Kazakh universities. It also describes the experimental training of students both in the traditional form of classes according to recommended textbooks and educational and methodological complexes, and using MOOCs on various platforms for 15 weeks independently and with the help of a facilitator through consultations. At the end of the training, a questionnaire and a survey were conducted, both teachers and students. The
results of the survey allow us to conclude that the majority of students have significantly increased their motivation to study the subject, they have become more responsible in performing tasks, thanks to numerous international practices. However, a third of the respondents from students without the
necessary support from a facilitator to gain access to MOOC courses found themselves in a self-built distance education vacuum. The conducted survey objectively demonstrates that teachers and students do not know all aspects of this type of training and it is necessary to identify the trajectories of the
distance learning format in order to expand the understanding of the role of the facilitator.