A For-Credit MOOC Offered On-Campus at MIT Gets High Approval

Last fall, MIT experimented by offering the edX.org MOOC version of a popular class (6.002 Circuits and Electronics, created in 2012) for on-campus students, for credit, in an attempt to help students who were facing scheduling issues. A recently released internal working paper of the class has found that students not only performed well but also reported feeling less stress and having more flexibility.

Sanjay Sarma, Vice President for Open Learning at MIT, said, “We are committed to shaping the future of digital learning, and the 6.S064 experiment is a prime example of how we can use digital learning to enhance the residential experience. Moreover, due to the online format we are able to assess a student’s experience in ways that are simply not possible in the traditional classroom.”

“This preliminary work highlights ways in which the edX platform can enhance student learning while addressing some of the challenges students face with residential classes,” said Anne E. Marshall, associate director for assessment and evaluation. “Our ongoing work on this project will help to identify approaches to using this technology to make more transformational changes across curricula at MIT and elsewhere.”