There is a new digital Ivy League with millions of enrollments and a global reach, an elite of universities that includes MIT (4+ million), Harvard (4.5+ million), UPenn (5+ million), Michigan, TU Delft and a few Australian universities –reports Class-Central.com. Among all of them, Harvard University, through HarvardX, is considered a paragon, with 80 MOOCs taught by 120 faculty, and an unique ability to reuse content developed for online courses to improve in-person classroom instruction.
Through this blended approach, “students watch recorded lectures at home, and spend class / instructor time asking questions, working with other students, reflecting, and applying what they learned from the lectures”, explained Peter Bol, Harvard’s Vice Provost for Advances in Learning. HarvardX content is also being used to prepare new students before they arrive on-campus.
Another interesting fact is that around a third of HarvardX MOOC learners identify as teachers, so this university has been developing tools to help teachers incorporate and effectively use MOOC content in their classrooms. The university is also experimenting with offering its MOOCs, along with other support, in community centers.
Harvard has also begun offering its very popular CS50 course in a new virtual reality format, allowing learners to feel like they’re sitting inside the lecture hall.
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Class Central: Harvard and the Rise of a Digital Ivy League
