EdX and seven partner universities are now offering nine fully fledged master’s degrees starting at just $9,000, reports Forbes contributor Josh Moody. “Existing industries are evolving while new fields are emerging, and there is a clear demand for the advanced knowledge needed to succeed in this new workplace,” says MIT Prof. Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX.
In an article for The Boston Globe, Hiawatha Bray highlights how Prof. Anant Agarwal, president of edX, explained that online education can be a critical component of retraining workers for a more technologically advanced workplace during a Globe-sponsored panel discussion. “We have a planet-scale reskilling effort on our hands,” said Agarwal. “The only way to do that is really online education.”
EdX has witnessed growing interest in its MicroMasters certificates, which are “online, examined and graded, credit-eligible graduate-level courses that involve about a quarter of the coursework of a traditional Masters degree,” writes Adam Gordon of Forbes. As edX CEO Prof. Anant Agarwal explains, “Learning once and working for the next 30 years is obsolete; we need to move to a world where re-skilling becomes part of the culture.”
WBUR’s Fred Thys reports on how MIT faculty members are drawing on their experience with online courses to design more immersive case studies. “We really want students to feel like they're on the ground with us, investigating with us what is going on in a particular place,” explains Danya Sherman of the MIT Case Study Initiative.
In an editorial about online learning, The Boston Globe highlights a recent digital learning conference held at MIT, during which, “experts convincingly portrayed innovative online offerings as a key tool for helping those of modest means move up the economic ladder.”
WGBH News reports that Massachusetts residents will soon have the opportunity to take online courses through edX. General Electric, Microsoft and Partners Healthcare, “will pay for thousands of Massachusetts residents to take online courses in artificial intelligence, health care management and other in-demand fields.”
BostInno’s Karis Hustad spotlights how Solve tackles some of the world’s most pressing challenges. “You need a different type of innovation or technology or adaptation and affordability of technology for some of the big challenges of today,” explains Alexandra Amouyel, Solve's executive director. “To do that, you need a much more bottom up, grassroots innovation process.”
Inside Higher Ed reporter Jean Dimeo writes that select MIT courses will be offered in Latin America. Dimeo explains that the courses will “be taught in Portuguese and Spanish, will be offered fully online with technology provided by Ilumno and with support from MIT teaching assistants.”
In an article for Forbes, Elaine Pofeldt highlights how programs such as the MITx MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management provide workers with an opportunity to update their skills at any point in their career. “Education is the ultimate safety net,” explains Anant Agarwal, president of edX.
President L. Rafael Reif spoke with Bloomberg’s Peter Barnes about the future of work and stressed the importance of education in preparing workers for an ever-changing job market. Reif said that MIT’s MicroMasters programs offer students an opportunity to, “learn something new and train yourself for the jobs of the future.”
MIT was named to the top four of The Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings teaching pillar, reports Linda Nordling for the Times Higher Education. Nordling notes that MIT, “draws on technology to prime its offering,” and, “uses data analysis to investigate how people learn and is feeding the insights into teaching practice.”
MIT tops Class Central’s list of the “Top 50 MOOCs of all Time, ”reports Class Central reporter Dhawal Shah. Several MITx MOOCs were featured on the list, including The Analytics Edge, Circuits and Electronics 1, Introduction to Biology, and Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python.
Inside Higher Ed reporter Carl Straumsheim writes about the results from the first group of students to participate in MIT’s MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management. Sanjay Sarma, MIT’s vice president for open learning, explains that the MicroMasters model has proven to be, “an extraordinary fishing line for talent.”
The Economist highlights a study by J-PAL researchers examining the effectiveness of certain educational technologies. The researchers found that, “in nearly all the 41 studies which compared pupils using adaptive software with peers who were taught by conventional means the software-assisted branch got higher scores.”
Writing for CNBC, Ali Montag highlights MIT’s MicroMasters programs and how they offer students around the world a new path to a graduate degree. Montag notes that passing students from the MicroMasters in data, economics and development policy, “are eligible to apply for a master's program on campus at MIT.”