Designing MOOCs for teacher training according to their needs and disciplinary topics

This work illustrates the design path followed in the creation of two MOOCs realized in order to develop flexible and user-friendly products suitable to specific disciplinary contexts. There is a tight link between users learning mode and means used in the creation, distribution and enjoyment of training contents. The "SMART" project, “Science and Mathematics, Advanced Research for Good Teaching”, launched under the Erasmus + Action 2 (Strategic Partnership), involved the development of two MOOCs in the Mathematics and in Science for teacher training. The didactic methodology adopted and the contents were shared with transnational partnership. In the realization of the courses the difficulties of teachers in the use of new technologies and the link of the taxonomy of the course with the specific disciplinary content were taken into account. The MOOCs design began analyzing the training needs of teachers, on one hand, and the specific disciplinary topics on which to construct the courses, on the other hand. The teachers training needs gave us information on the competencies to develop and how these competences should be self-evaluated. The methodology used in the course was “Problem Posing and Solving” for Mathematics and P&PBL (Project & Problembased Learning) for Physics and Science.