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Aeronautics and Astronautics: 16.20 & 16.90

October 24, 2012 by MIT Leave a Comment

Moving from lectures to interactive class sessions while enabling remote student participation

The opportunity:

Two trends drive a growing interest for creating more flexibility in the Aero/Astro curriculum. First, undergraduate students can participate in an increasing number of valuable academic opportunities beyond the campus, but most required courses are for residential students only. Second, Aero/Astro faculty increasingly consider the use of “active learning” methods in class to be an effective pedagogical technique.

In recognition of these trends, Aero/Astro faculty hypothesized that “a learning model, emphasizing active student-instructor engagement, coupled with student preparation, can be effective for achieving subject learning objectives for students both on-campus and of-campus.”

The experiment:

In Spring 2012, two Aero/Astro courses (16.20: Structural Mechanics, and 16.90: Computational Methods for Aerospace Engineering) implemented several significant changes to the typical lecture-homework model. The experiment has just concluded and evaluation by the Teaching and Learning Laboratory is on-going.

Faculty oriented class activities around mini-lectures, focusing on topics that proved to be challenging to students, and collaborative sessions, in which students worked on problems or programming assignments together. Students were expected to review course notes before attending class. Students were also given the option of attending class remotely.

Areas of innovation:

Participating faculty from both courses felt that the experiments exceeded their expectations.

Participants agreed that increased interactivity made the class sessions more valuable learning experiences. Typical student comments noted that: “Every class is like office hours with the professor” and “The class knocked down barriers. If I don’t get it, I can ask”.

The use of embedded quizzes within the online pre-class material in 16.90 provided a dual benefit:

  • Faculty could tailor class interactions around the material where students’ results showed an inconsistent or incomplete understanding of key concepts.
  • Students appreciated immediate feedback on their grasp of the material, and came to class better prepared.

Class discussions were broadcast live via web-based videoconferencing enabling local and remote students to share the same class experience. Student remote participation was voluntary and typically 10% per class, with a different set of students choosing to remotely participate for each class.

Sustainability considerations:

These experiments were notable for their use of relatively simple and low cost technologies:

  • 16.90 used a project developed tool for embedding questions into online course material, then scoring and sharing the results.
  • Remote participation used web videoconferencing technology (MIT-supported WebEx or Adobe Connect) and a tablet PC or electronic whiteboard (Mimio) for note-sharing.

Future directions:

Given the success of this experiment, Aero/Astro is considering the following future options:

  • Expanding this model to more “professional area subjects” (junior and senior elective courses) in order to support off-campus opportunities.
  • Developing more embedded quizzes within pre-class material.
  • Exploring the MITx platform to provide a long-term supported infrastructure.
This project was supported by the MIT Office of Educational Innovation and Technology and was one of the experiments in course modularity conducted by the MIT Council on Education Technology in 2011-2012 with funding from the Class of ’60.
 
Written by Mark Brown

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 16.20, 16.90, Aero/Astro, Darmofal, Modularity Experiments, Radovitzky, Wang, Willcox

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

September 19, 2012 by MIT Leave a Comment

2:00 – 3:30pm Room 1-236

1. Introductions

2. Remarks by Eric Grimson, Chancellor: Online Education and Education Technology; Vision and MIT directions

3. Discussion of MITCET’s charge with emphasis on how to capture and share learnings from EdX for MIT education.

4. Updates/topics for future meetings: Proposed symposium on online education and discipline based educational research; Other

Filed Under: 2012

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

May 9, 2012 by MIT Leave a Comment

1:30 – 3:00 p.m. Rm. 1-236

Meeting Notes

1. Plan for Symposium on Online Education: “Online Learning for MIT Education: At the intersection of Residential Learning and MITx”.

Filed Under: 2012, CET Agendas

Monday, April 9, 2012

April 9, 2012 by MIT Leave a Comment

1.  Plan for Symposium on Online Education:   “Online Learning for MIT Education:  At the intersection of Residential Learning and MITx”, (Working title) on May 24, 2012, 2:00 – 5.00.

We are planning a workshop/symposium on May 24, 2:00-5:00 directed towards understanding the impact and implications of the online initiatives that have been launched (MITCET Alumni supported projects) for curriculum, learning, infrastructure as well as the intersection with MITx, with a view towards identifying and addressing the research issues and scaling considerations.

Discussion on:

– Desired Outcomes

– Key Themes/Topics to address

– Program and Format.

– Key participants

(A draft program will be presented for discussion)

2.  MITCET Experiments:

Context: So far MITCET has launched 3 Experiments: Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry and Aero/Astro. These experiments have progressed apace and a status update was presented at our meeting in February. These projects are employing a range of approaches directed toward making MIT undergraduate education much more flexible and richer.  What do we want to learn from these experiments?   What steps should be taken to understand and monitor the collective impact of these projects for the intended goals?  What might be areas for additional experiments in light of the opportunities of high interest that we had identified?

Discussion of Anthropology proposal for a MITCET Experiment.

3.  Updates:

– Comments on DUE Visiting Committee discussion on Online and Residential education.

– Learning Spaces Report.

Filed Under: 2012, CET Agendas

Monday, March 19, 2012

March 19, 2012 by MIT Leave a Comment

11:00 – 12:30 p.m. Rm. 56-167

Meeting Notes

1.  Discussion with Provost Rafael Reif on MITCET’s Role, Educational Technology Initiatives and MITx.

  • MIT has initiated three bold interrelated educational innovations: MITx, On-campus innovations (MITCETs work along with other funding (Alumni, D’Arbeloff and SoE)), and OCW.
  • How do we address these initiatives as an integrated package to maximize cross project learning, shared services and resources, and impact on MIT?
  • Discussion based on the White paper sent to the provost (attached)

2.  Announcement/Plan for Workshop:  Online Learning for MIT Education:  At the intersection of Residential Learning and MITx.

  • We are planning a workshop/symposium in the week after classes in May directed towards understanding the impact and implications of the online initiatives that have been launched (MITCET and Alumni supported projects) for curriculum, learning, infrastructure as well as the intersection with MITx, with a view towards identifying and addressing the research issues and scaling considerations.

Filed Under: 2012, CET Agendas

Wednesday, February 16, 2012

February 16, 2012 by MIT Leave a Comment

10:00 – 11:30 a.m. Rm. 56-167

No Notes Available

1.  Brief Status Update on MITCET Modularity Experiments          10:00 – 10:45

    • Ken Kamrin, Mechanical Engineering
    • Karen Willcox, Aero-Astro
    • John Essigmann and George Zaidan, Chemistry

2,  Discussion on MITx- Implications for Residential Education     10.45 – 11.30

 

Filed Under: 2012, CET Agendas

Friday, December 16, 2011

January 22, 2012 by MIT Leave a Comment

No agenda is available for this meeting.

Filed Under: 2011, CET Agendas

Monday, October 31, 2011

October 31, 2011 by MIT Leave a Comment

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Room 5-231

Notes for this meeting

  • Discuss modularity experiments
  • Discuss Academic Council presentation

Filed Under: 2011, CET Agendas

Monday, September 12, 2011

September 12, 2011 by MIT Leave a Comment

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Room 5-231

Notes for this meeting

  1. Online Education

    Recently Stanford announced new educational initiatives from the CS department and the School of Engineering. (See Links below)

    http://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/2917-more-free- online-courses.html

    http://see.stanford.edu/

    Discussion: What are the implications for MIT strategy?

  2. Modularity Experiments
    • Discussion on the ME and Chemistry experiments and next steps
    • Discussion of EECS Proposal (Sent earlier by Dan. Attached)
    • Other projects
    • Communication plans:
      • Academic Council; Departments;
      • Other
o Desired Outcomes
      • Timetable for MITCET Experiments (Please see attached draft)

    Discussion: What does MITCET want to learn from the experiments, and what are the implications for data collection and assessment?

  3. LMS Strategy: Review of the results of the Blackboard experiment. Implication and next steps.

Filed Under: 2011, CET Agendas

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

May 25, 2011 by MIT Leave a Comment

11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Rm. 33-206

Notes for this meeting

Agenda

  1. Feedback from student focus groups.
  2. Feedback from council and department presentations.
  3. Discussion of proposals: ESD and Chemistry (attached), and ME and EECS if we received them before the meeting.- These are experiments: What does MITCET want to learn from the experiments, and what are the implications for data collection and assessment?
  4. MITCET engagement plan for Summer- Communications(Article for upcoming FNL attached)- Working with the selected projects to ensure that they are well-defined* and ready for a start in Fall ’11.(* SOW, implementation and assessment plans are aligned with MITCET intent)

Filed Under: 2011, CET Agendas

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The mission of the MIT Council on Educational Technology (MITCET) is to enhance the quality of MIT education by encouraging the appropriate application of technology, both on and off campus.

The Council provides continuous strategic guidance and vision of MIT institutional activities concerning the application of information technology to education, and it advises the Provost on priorities, policies, and new opportunities. [ More … ]

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