Daniel Hastings
Dean for Undergraduate Education

Exploring e-Learning at MIT

Dear students:

For the last year, the MIT Council on Educational Technology (MITCET) has been exploring how educational technology could enhance the residentially-based educational experience of students. There is no doubt that MIT provides an outstanding, residentially-based education. MITCET is considering how we take advantage of the significant transitions in information technology, such as the shift toward mobility, cloud computing and the growth in online tools, to increase the flexibility and adaptability of MIT’s educational programs.

The focus is on learning. The question is not what opportunities could educational technology provide. Instead, the question is what curricular and pedagogical approaches could transform the educational experience of MIT students and how could educational technology enable those changes. MIT showed significant leadership with the development of OpenCourseWare (OCW) ten years ago and now it is time to develop the “beyond OCW” strategy.

The Opportunities
MITCET has identified modularity as an approach with significant potential to enable transformative educational innovation. This is the idea of providing experiences that are more modular and flexible both in time and geography. We envision many opportunities for the use of modularity at MIT:

• A shift away from a predominantly inactive lecture-based mode of student-instructor engagement to an active learning mode with a focus on conceptual understanding and problem solving.
• An increased expectation of student preparation for active learning using a variety of learning resources such as video lectures, lecture notes, sample problems, on-line demos, etc.
• An expansion of active learning engagement to facilitate students who are not present in the classroom.
• A modularization of the course syllabus and content materials with a self-paced, independent-study option where students' progression in the course is assessed module-by-module and adapted to their individual pace.
• Majors would be able to complete portions of the course over IAP or while away from campus during internships, study abroad, or the extended research collaborations that have arisen as part of MIT's efforts to build relationships internationally.
• Modular offerings would allow for more precise prerequisites for down-stream courses and provide students with a focused review of concepts and skills if it becomes apparent that a refresher is required.

What Next
MITCET is undertaking a set of experiments in curricular modularization with Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, EECS and Aero/Astro to test the opportunities in this space. MITCET is also open to student initiated ideas and experiments along these lines. Hal Abelson and I act as MITCET Co-Chairs; please contact us via whatsonyourmind@mit.edu to share your ideas.

Sincerely,

Daniel Hastings
Dean for Undergraduate Education

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