Date and Time: January 21st, 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Hosts: Harvard Graduate School of Education and HarvardX, co-sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Location: Larsen Hall, G-08, Appian Way, Cambridge, MA
Hashtag: #harvardx
Livestream/Recording Link: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news-impact/2014/01/watch-live-the-first-year-of-harvardx/
Speakers:
- Introduction: Peter Bol, Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
- Speaker: Justin Reich, Richard L. Menschel HarvardX Research Fellow, Fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society
- Discussant: Bridget Terry Long, Academic Dean and the Xander Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Member of the HarvardX Research Committee
- Discussant: Dan Levy, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government and co-chair of the HarvardX Research Committee
Abstract:
During the 2012-2013 academic year HarvardX launched six courses on edX, an online learning platform jointly founded by Harvard and MIT. In addition to expanding access to knowledge and improving residential education, one of the underlying goals of of the enterprise was to advance research on learning.
To that end, on January 21st, the HarvardX research team and MIT's Office of Digital Learning, will release a series of course reports detailing research findings that cut across the enterprise and drill deeply into the nuances of particular courses.
In this talk, affiliates from HarvardX will discuss the reports, with particular emphasis on the six courses created and taught by faculty from schools and departments across the University.
Based upon data from 400,000 registrants, the researchers will explore the influence of diverse teaching approaches and instructional platforms, highlight the various learning goals of students, and delve into activity, persistence, and performance metrics that go beyond simple measures of attrition and completion.
The aim is to provide a critical research-informed perspective on MOOCs and other online learning endeavors and inspire discussion about the limitations of online learning and possibilities for innovation in coming years.