As technological advances have changed communication, they have also changed the way students and educators use communication in academic coursework. This is particularly true at MIT, and several Institute programs take advantage of these advances. For many years, MIT’s OpenCourseWare has been a major resource for online learning, by providing MIT lectures, handouts, and assignments to the general public. In 2012, edX and MITx began to offer online classes, including 3.091 Introduction to Solid State Chemistry, with a certificate of completion. At the same time, there are more ways for students to further their study off-campus: Internships, overseas exchanges, and greater opportunities for independent study.
In 2012, Ian Waitz, Dean of Engineering, challenged departments to develop new programs that will provide outside learning opportunities to students. DMSE has responded with a pilot program called the Semester from Anywhere, set to roll out in spring 2013. Professor Gene Fitzgerald, head of the program, describes it as a chance for students “to do anything, anywhere in the world,” while still completing their degree requirements. Because the Course III curriculum is sequential and subjects have specific prerequisites, our students may have difficulty participating in an abroad program or pursuing other interests, whether academic or extracurricular. A student enrolled in the Semester from Anywhere will be able to complete an abroad program and learn a language intensively, work in an internship facility, or continue development of a MADMEC project, without fear of missing a Course III requirement.
The re-imagined subjects will be built around a library of pre-recorded “concept” material offered online for students to watch at their own speed, as many times as necessary. Concepts are currently being recorded on tablets using Camtasia. Professor Fitzgerald emphasizes that the recorded material will not be faculty in front of a blackboard lecturing to a camera for almost an hour, but will follow the model of the very popular Khan Academy, in which concepts are broken down and demonstrated for approximately five minutes with opportunities to demonstrate learning. Recent studies have determined that as little as 4% of material heard in lecture is retained and students actually learn through individual study of notes and supplementary material.
In addition to the online material, students will have scheduled intense interactions with faculty and classmates through Skype, chat, or whatever technology is appropriate. Depending on the subject, these interactions may be like an MIT recitation, like office hours, or like student presentations. DMSE has experience with this kind of distance learning: in the Singapore-MIT Alliance, started in 1998, MIT faculty taught students from the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University. For many of the subjects, lectures were given remotely and beamed to a classroom in Singapore and others were recorded to be watched by students on their own time.
The “hybrid” learning model of the Semester from Anywhere will integrate three or four hours of recorded concepts with one or two hours of interactive time each week, similar to the traditional MIT ratio of lecture to recitation. This model works well with up to forty or fifty students, which is a little less than the enrollment of one undergraduate class. The initial three subjects in the program are 3.044 Materials Processing, taught by Professor Chris Schuh; 3.15 Electrical, Optical, and Magnetic Materials and Devices, taught by Professor Caroline Ross; and 3.086 Innovation and Commercialization of Materials Technology, taught by Professor Fitzgerald. More subjects will be added to the online offerings in future semesters and the educational material will later be part of Course III’s MITx offerings.
Professor Fitzgerald is excited about the potential of this new program, as it will give students more individualized attention and feedback from the faculty while giving faculty time to interact more deeply with students and thereby understand how well they are learning the material. He encourages students to sign up but warns that, “right now, Semester from Anywhere is restricted to the Planet Earth, internet access required.”