Online Learning for MIT

The Provost has asked the MIT Council on Educational Technology (MITCET) to address opportunities to integrate online and other technology-enabled tools into the residential campus and classroom experience with the focus on improving the learning of our students.

As part of our investigation in 2010-2011, we are asked members of the MIT community to share with us their thoughts about what MIT could be like if our residentially based education changed to more thoroughly integrate information and communication tools:

  • What opportunities are there for significant change in the delivery of MIT education?
  • Can you envision ways in which the MIT educational experience at MIT could be very different for students and faculty?
  • What values of MIT’s culture could be strengthened through the changes you foresee? What risks should be avoided?

Opportunities and Initiatives

  • Opportunities and Projects
    • Learning Styles: “Allow several different styles of learning going through MIT with deeper and more refined contact with individual students.”
    • Pre-preparation: “Making lab time more efficient.”
    • More Interaction: “More personalized interaction with other students and a faculty mentor around learning objectives.”
    • Global Interaction: “Interactive virtual learning environment facilitating global interactions with faculty and students from different universities around the world.”
    • Dynamic Curriculum: “Where the concept of curriculum shifts from static to dynamic, evolving and personalized built of small chunks.”
    • Redefine Experience: “Put independent learning and research at the center of the undergraduate experience by increasing the role of self-study and advanced standing examinations for “training” material.”
    • Problem Based Learning with Analytics: “More project based learning mixing analytic-action-review/reflect learning modes.”
  • Value Proposition (Original List)

Research:

  • Focus Groups
    • Undergraduate Association Senate (October 18, 2010 from Vijay Kumar and Brandon Muramatsu)
    • Graduate Student Focus Group (October 25, 2010 from Brandon Muramatsu)
    • Freshman Advisory Seminar (October 18, 2010 from Vijay Kumar)
    • Student Focus Group (April 21, 2011 from Liz Denys)
    • Student Focus Group on Flexibility (May 4, 2011 via Anna Babi Klein)
    • MacVicar Faculty Fellows
    • Undergraduate Officers (UGO)
    • DUE Office Heads + OEIT Implications of Blended Learning
  • Stats and Survey Data
    • Evaluation Response Rates of Selected Subjects by Academic Year 2006-2010
    • Subject Evaluation Educational Technology Questions Spring 2010
    • Stellar Data Fall 2010
    • MIT Faculty Quality of Life Survey 2008
    • OpenCourseWare
    • STAR Biochem Survey and Analytics
  • Readings
  • MIT Projects
  • External Initiatives: Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UC Berkeley