A Bird’s Eye-View of MOOCs for Pedagogical Knowledge and Technical Skills Development of Teachers in India

The present study reviews online courses on the E-Learning Platform – Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) for teacher education in India. Online education, E-Learning and MOOCs attracting learners and the initiative of SWAYAM is taking the lead in providing for a free platform for students and working professionals across the country teacher education and continuous professional development. The current study aims at looking at the courses on Teacher Education to get a birds’ eye-view of courses and in particular explore the courses for Pedagogical Knowledge and Technical skills development of teacher. This study also tries to explore courses that have innovative teaching approaches that are being offered to improve the ability of teachers to cater to 21st century skills. This study implies content analysis method for courses offered on SWAYAM for teacher education. It analyses the title and contents of courses designed to improve pedagogical knowledge and technical skills among teachers in the June 2024 semester. The PRISMA model was used to collect, screen and select course which led to 57 courses that were found suitable for the study and a review of the basic content available was conducted. Findings reveal that the number of courses and participant enrolment is higher in Technical skills course as compared to Pedagogical Knowledge development courses. Findings reveal that teachers prefer technical skills courses as against courses on pedagogical knowledge development. The learner enrolment is higher in courses with lower duration indicating that the duration of the course affects the decision of the learners for enrolment. The study also found a lack of courses on Innovative teaching approaches and Artificial Intelligence in Education. It is recommended to create bite-sized courses on new teaching methods with hands-on practice for courses on technology integration.