Five ways to improve education at MIT & beyond
At the annual Festival of Learning, panelists across MIT discussed how to improve education on campus and online, and here are five key takeaways:
1. Define learning objectives and student needs first
“The biggest thing, regardless of what type of course I'm teaching, is to determine what I want my students to learn, where my students are, [and] what the population of those students looks like,” said Laura Frawley, senior lecturer in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “What do I want them to take away from my class?”
Focusing on the goals for the course—whether in-person or online—and unpacking the needs of the learners is a challenging yet crucial step to effective course design.
2. Be open to feedback from the community, especially the students
The community—students, course teams, colleagues—helps faculty and instructors to make iterative improvements. “We really get a lot of benefit from the whole world sort of giving us feedback on the materials that we have,” said Michelle Tomasik, lecturer in the Department of Physics and manager of MIT Online/Residential Physics Education.
One way to benefit from the community is to gather input from students and the teaching team before, during, and after implementing course changes. To make such a process meaningful, Frawley emphasized that she shares back with students what the feedback uncovered, what is being acted on, what is not, and why.
3. Build community for faculty and instructors across MIT
What’s important is to build out a community around the work of teaching and learning in the same way there are communities around research groups and labs, according to Richard Locke, the John C Head III Dean at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
“Find somebody else who's doing something interesting and talk to them,” said Tomasik. “Rather than reinventing all of their mistakes and then learning it yourself, I think building more of a community for yourself is probably a really good first step.”
At MIT, faculty, instructors, and their course teams can get such support and resources via the Teaching+Learning Lab and Open Learning Residential Education.
4. Align incentives for better teaching
Reimagining courses or programs takes time and effort and cannot simply be left to the few who put in the extra work. In order to reap the benefits of iterative improvements, institutions need to create and refine conditions to support instructor experimentation.
“If we're serious about going on this journey, we as an institution have to make sure that we're creating the resources, giving people the time, and [giving] access to the technology and experts so that they'll engage,” said Locke. “And, I think we bring in the students really early on to help us co-develop and coauthor these courses.”
5. Broaden the ecosystem for impact beyond MIT
“If we're really [going] to make these contents accessible, we need to do two things—first, we can't just assume that the same contents are going to work,” said Agustín Rayo, Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and a professor of philosophy. “The second is that it can't just be a MOOC. I think it requires an ecosystem.”
Concepts taught in certain ways to MIT students need to be translated to a broader context. An ecosystem, such as with the MITx MicroMasters Programs, is essential so that learners have a built-in community online in addition to a pathway to more advanced degrees.
“I would focus on partnerships, whether it's partnerships with students, partnerships with other organizations like the community colleges, and our global partners, if we want to reach others,” said Locke. “Going back to that idea of how we can embed education in existing communities.”
Educating for the future at MIT and beyond will require adaptability and a broader ecosystem. But, most important is a commitment to these five goals.
The Festival of Learning is co-hosted by MIT Open Learning and the Division of Graduate and Undergraduate Education.