Dear Commons Community,
Today I return home after a day of presentations at the OLC Annual Conference. The keynote session given by Stephen Kosslyn, the Founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer of the Minerva Project, was very interesting. Here is a quick summary of his address .
Minerva is a for-profit entity and has received private funding to build its programs and will forego any form of federal government financial aid or assistance. Minerva raised an initial $25 million from investors such as the venture capital firm, Benchmark. Tuition, housing and student fees total approximately $22,000. per year.
It uses a proprietary Active Learning Forum platform, designed especially for Minerva, that has a number of customized, built-in pedagogical features. Professors conduct sessions via live video, and use interactive learning features such as collaborative breakout clusters, debates, quizzes, polls, dynamic document creation, and real-time simulations All courses are taught as intimate seminars with classes maximized at 19 students.
An important feature of the Minerva model is that there are no academic departments and its curriculum focuses on interdisciplinary study and global cultural experiences. For the first two semesters, students meet as a group and take courses at its main campus in San Francisco. Each of the succeeding six semesters are held in campuses at different cities such as Hong Kong, New York, Berlin, and Buenos Aires. Online technology is the integral facilitator of its pedagogical approaches, its curriculum, and its global context.
I also attended three other sessions. Two were on research issues in online learning: one led by Tanya Joostens and the other a panel discussion with colleagues such as Peter Shea, Terry Anderson, Karen Swan, and Mark Brown. The third session was led by Norm Vaughan and included panelists describing blended learning initiatives in universities located in Hong Kong, South Africa, Canada, Brazil, and Ireland.
The day concluded with my session on Higher Education’s Digital Future based on material from my latest book, Online Education Policy and Practice… It was well-attended and there was good feedback.
I head back to New York this morning.
Tony
