Group items tagged

"The company wants to be a "hybrid university." Its students would gather in dorms in major cities across the world, and after spending time together in one city, move to another, but take online classes from Minerva professors on the other end of the screen."

"The university bans lectures and requires that students be actively engaged at least three-quarters of the time while in their seminar classes, meaning that they must participate rather than passively listen to an instructor. By incorporating the science of learning across the curriculum, Minerva strives to improve how its students think before they move on to the specific subject matter most colleges emphasize."

""It will be harder to get into Minerva than any other university," says Nelson. "You'll have the same criteria for your grades, essay, and application. But you'll get no brownie points for how good an athlete you are, for how much money your parents can donate, or for what state you were born in.""

Even though all classes will be held online, first-year students must live in a residence hall in San Francisco and take classes together in real time, deviating from the "anywhere, anytime" model prevalent in online education.

""My entire critique of higher education started with curricular reform at Penn," he says. "General education is nonexistent. It's effectively a buffet, and when you have a noncurated academic experience, you effectively don't get educated. You get a random collection of information. Liberal-arts education is about developing the intellectual capacity of the individual, and learning to be a productive member of society. And you cannot do that without a curriculum.""

"In her new institution, which is yet to be named, students will design their own learning path, and use flipped curriculum to meet goals. "We see research as the most advanced form of project-based learning," Ortiz said. "This platform will enable us to evolve those pathways rapidly as things evolve." "

At Monday's meeting, Harker will discuss his vision in an address titled, "University of Delaware and the Future of Higher Education." Faculty will also be able to ask questions and share concerns. "One of my responsibilities as president is to anticipate the opportunities and threats facing us and higher education, with an eye toward continuing UD's role as an outstanding university," Harker wrote. "The University of Delaware has already made incredible progress. But we still have much work to do."

"Nelson says the new version of the system lets professors quickly divide a large class into groups of up to 12 students. Those break-out groups of students can then participate in a small-group discussion while each student fills out a "structured worksheet" that can be graded later by a TA following a rubric to make sure each student was following along and participating. During the live class, the professor can peek into any of the breakout sessions, either by appearing as one of the participants, or lurking in the background so that he or she can see and hear the students but they don't know the professor is there. The requirement of filling out the worksheet, or doing some other activity like a poll or quiz, makes sure students in breakout groups stay on task, Nelson says."