MITx Impact Report
Highlights of the 2023-24 Academic Year
Dear Friend of MITx,
Just about every semester, someone turns to an MITx MOOC (massive open online course) to learn or improve their knowledge of a subject, grow their skillset, and be in community with fellow learners around the world. We deeply appreciate your time, energy, and trust in learning with MIT.
This past academic year, we’ve added 20 courses to our growing catalog of MOOCs, welcomed over 643,000 learners who registered for a course, and celebrated the 23,642 learners who earned a certificate in our rigorous courses. We'd also like to highlight the 1,189 learners who earned their MicroMasters Credential. We commend and appreciate the 49,124 who bought a certificate – which helps with the cost of providing these free MOOCs.
What makes these successes more meaningful is hearing from you and learners like Dustin who used the knowledge he gained in a calculus course to predict his white blood cell count while he was undergoing cancer treatment. And Silva Branco Magalhães who told us earning his credential in the MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science program helped him on his path to an advanced degree at Northwestern University.
As we begin gearing up for an excellent fall, here’s a look back at some milestones from this last academic year. We hope you enjoy all of the educational choices available to you and continue to keep MITx in mind as you enhance your knowledge and grow your expertise.
Sincerely,
Dana
Dana Doyle and the MITx Team
I have grown so much personally and professionally just from having access to the rich knowledge offered through MOOCs. I felt indebted and was happy to be able to make a modest contribution.
Radhika
MITx Supporter, India
Perseverance
Teen uses calculus learned through MITx to better understand his cancer treatment
High schooler Dustin Liang estimated his blood cell counts by applying knowledge from an MITx course and talking to doctors.
MITx, part of MIT Open Learning, offers hundreds of high-quality massive open online courses adapted from the MIT classroom for learners worldwide. The Calculus 1A: Differentiation course was designed and created by the Department of Mathematics and offered through the MITx program. Liang took the free course this summer in between treatment sessions and medical tests so that he could meet the four-year math requirement to graduate from a Massachusetts high school — an arrangement he made with his school.
In class, Liang learned how to differentiate functions and how to make linear and quadratic approximations. He then applied this knowledge to estimate his blood cell counts. “I was in a hospital bed when I saw the doctor draw a graph of my neutrophils on a whiteboard, and I thought you could apply a quadratic approximation to it to estimate my blood cell counts at a certain time in the future,” Liang recalls. “I talked to the doctors about it, and they said it was a good idea but that they currently didn’t have the technology to do that.”
When doctors conduct blood tests on a patient, they look at multiple cell counts. Three of those are especially important for cancer patients: hemoglobin, which is the protein in red blood cells responsible for the delivery of oxygen to tissues; platelets, tiny blood cells that help the body form clots to stop bleeding; and neutrophils, a type of white blood cell that helps the body fight infections.
“Heavy chemo kills all of the cells, regardless of whether they’re good or bad,” says Thomas Liang MS ’97, who is Dustin Liang’s father. “We asked the doctor a few times about the nadir [the lowest value of the neutrophil count after drug administration], but the doctors couldn't predict when Dustin would get to it. The anxiety was pretty high.”
While Liang was in the intensive care unit, his doctors ordered blood tests hourly to get a clearer picture of his blood cell counts. Being able to predict blood cell counts allows doctors to more accurately manage the next treatment procedure, and it allows patients and their caregivers to be more cautious and prepare for the next treatment.
Predicting neutrophil counts with math
After being hospitalized for weeks, Liang couldn’t wait to go home. He had his eyes locked on his absolute neutrophil count, which needed to reach 1,000 per microliter of blood in order for Liang to get discharged.
“Given a series of points of the blood cell counts, a function can be modeled,” Liang explains. “So, predicting a future point not far away is mathematically feasible.”
Determined to test his idea, Liang called his mentor, Jiawen Sun, who works in a London security exchange firm as a trading analyst simulating and modeling stock market behavior. Sun helped Liang create a graph to estimate Liang’s neutrophil count at a certain time. When Liang compared the graph to his blood test results, he found that the math worked.
“I was able to predict the blood cell counts. It was a little off, but close enough,” Liang says. “There are some challenges in simulating the function of blood cells. However, the human blood cell counts turned out to be converging easier than the stock market to simulate.”
Now, Liang is working on a more accurate model for the neutrophil count based on input he received from doctors at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He hopes to use data from other cancer patients to test his model; however, much more work will be needed to determine if this kind of model can be used on other patients.
“If this works, it will alleviate some of the anxiety of cancer patients, and make their lives a little bit easier,” Liang says. “For doctors, they will be able to come up with more accurate procedures for treating cancer.”
Searching for better treatment options
Liang completed Calculus 1A: Differentiation in September, receiving a grade of 100 percent on his final exam. “My other chemo had started, and I was feeling pretty bad when my dad told me the grade,” he recalls. “I’m proud I managed to accomplish something while I was undergoing chemo.”
Liang, who continues to undergo chemotherapy treatment, enrolled in class 18.01.2x (Calculus 1B: Integration) through MITx this fall semester. He is also taking an English class at his high school. After graduating from high school next year, Liang wants to study pre-med and become a cancer researcher.
“I was always pretty interested in the science field. Then I got cancer, and I got even more interested in it,” he says. “I want to research it, find ways to help people get rid of their cancer, and better patients’ treatment.”
For Thomas Liang, his son’s survival is the first priority. “I want him to be a successful survivor,” he says. “Dustin is a brilliant kid and a chess prodigy. He thinks fast. He’s very sensitive. He doesn’t talk a lot, but is very popular among his friends. He's a kindhearted kid. I am proud of his aspirations to be a doctor.”
MITx by the numbers
“MIT can give you ‘superpowers’”
MITx MicroMasters credential leads learner to accelerated graduate program in data science. “You don’t need to be a superhero to participate in an MIT program, but MIT can give you ‘superpowers.’ In my case, the superpower that I was looking to acquire was a better understanding of the key technologies that are shaping the future of transportation.”
Speaking at the virtual MITx MicroMasters Program Joint Completion Celebration last summer, Diogo da Silva Branco Magalhães described watching a Spider-Man movie with his 8-year-old son and realizing that his son thought MIT was a fictional entity that existed only in the Marvel universe.
“I had to tell him that MIT also exists in the real world, and that some of the programs are available online for everyone,” says da Silva Branco Magalhães, who earned his credential in the MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science program. “You don’t need to be a superhero to participate in an MIT program, but MIT can give you ‘superpowers.’ In my case, the superpower that I was looking to acquire was a better understanding of the key technologies that are shaping the future of transportation.”
Part of MIT Open Learning, the MicroMasters programs have drawn in almost 1.4 million learners, spanning nearly every country in the world. More than 7,500 people have earned their credentials across the MicroMasters programs, including: Statistics and Data Science; Supply Chain Management; Data, Economics, and Design of Policy; Principles of Manufacturing; and Finance.
Earning his MicroMasters credential not only gave da Silva Branco Magalhães a strong foundation to tackle more complex transportation problems, but it also opened the door to pursuing an accelerated graduate degree via a Northwestern University online program.
Learners who earn their MicroMasters credentials gain the opportunity to apply to and continue their studies at a pathway school. The MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science credential can be applied as credit for a master’s program at more than 30 universities, as well as MIT’s PhD Program in Social and Engineering Systems. Da Silva Branco Magalhães, originally from Portugal and now based in Australia, seized this opportunity and enrolled in Northwestern University’s Master’s in Data Science for MIT MicroMasters Credential Holders.
The pathway to an enhanced career
The pathway model launched in 2016 with the MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management. Now, there are over 50 pathway institutions that offer more than 100 different programs for master’s degrees. With pathway institutions located around the world, MicroMasters credential holders can obtain master’s degrees from local residential or virtual programs, at a location convenient to them. They can receive credit for their MicroMasters courses upon acceptance, providing flexibility for online programs and also shortening the time needed on site for residential programs.
“The pathways expand opportunities for learners, and also help universities attract a broader range of potential students, which can enrich their programs,” says Dana Doyle, senior director for the MicroMasters Program at MIT Open Learning. “This is a tangible way we can achieve our mission of expanding education access.”
Da Silva Branco Magalhães began the MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science program in 2020, ultimately completing the program in 2022.
“After having worked for 20 years in the transportation sector in various roles, I realized I was no longer equipped as a professional to deal with the new technologies that were set to disrupt the mobility sector,” says da Silva Branco Magalhães. “It became clear to me that data and AI were the driving forces behind new products and services such as autonomous vehicles, on-demand transport, or mobility as a service, but I didn’t really understand how data was being used to achieve these outcomes, so I needed to improve my knowledge.”
“The content is world-class,” da Silva Branco Magalhães says of the program. “Even the most complex concepts were explained in a very intuitive way. The exercises and the capstone exam are challenging and stimulating — and MIT-level — which makes this credential highly valuable in the market.”
Da Silva Branco Magalhães also found the discussion forum very useful, and valued conversations with his colleagues, noting that many of these discussions later continued after completion of the program.
Gaining analysis and leadership skills
Now in the Northwestern pathway program, da Silva Branco Magalhães finds that the MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science program prepared him well for this next step in his studies. The nine-course, accelerated, online master’s program is designed to offer the same depth and rigor of Northwestern's 12-course MS in Data Science program, aiming to help students build essential analysis and leadership skills that can be directly implemented into the professional realm. Students learn how to make reliable predictions using traditional statistics and machine learning methods.
Da Silva Branco Magalhães says he has appreciated the remote nature of the Northwestern program, as he started it in France and then completed the first three courses in Australia. He also values the high number of elective courses, allowing students to design the master’s program according to personal preferences and interests.
“I want to be prepared to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities that AI and data science technologies will bring to the professional realm,” he says. “With this credential, there are no limits to what you can achieve in the field of data science.”
MITx pathways
Cumulative numbers on the MITx MicroMasters Programs
pathway schools
“Today, I am an owner and founder of a social enterprise advocating for sustainability, education, and local business/brand empowerment. My journey with MITx ensured me that I can stand through different challenges by innovating and being involved with people in all facets of life.”
Shainne
Lifelong learner, Philippines
In the Forefront
MIT Jameel World Education Lab grants inaugural Frontiers in Digital Learning awards
The new grant program supports MIT researchers developing cutting-edge digital learning innovations.
The DLL grantees are John Harrold, MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) instructor and DLL fellow; Jessica Sandland, DMSE principal lecturer and DLL scientist; and Mary Ellen Wiltrout, MIT Department of Biology director of online and blended learning initiatives, lecturer, and DLL scientist. Their transferable ideas include broadening the scope and application of the xMinor online undergraduate minor certificate program; broadening the impact of the DLL by creating an associate member program; creating experiential lab components for MITx courses; and studying and applying evidence-based approaches to increase engagement in online courses.
“We have long wanted to bring the incredibly varied and innovative work of the MIT Digital Learning Lab to many. The Frontiers in Digital Learning awards will pave the way, and, at the same time, directly support awardees,” said Anjali Sastry, faculty director for J-WEL. “Our goal is to strengthen knowledge of the design, implementation, applicability, and impact of digital learning innovation at MIT and across the world. Instructors and leaders in J-WEL’s network are eager to learn about field-tested insights and to launch their own tests and experimentation. We’re particularly excited about the opportunity to amplify and extend the work of these DLL grantees by facilitating collaborative implementation projects with a number of member institutions in the fall. Such small-scale efforts could reveal new insights about challenges and opportunities in digital learning that could apply everywhere — including on the MIT campus.”
As early as October 2024, grantees may be awarded additional funding for follow-up work that builds upon their initial proposals. Awardees will work directly with one or more J-WEL members to explore a practical and academically-grounded implementation of an idea aligned with their original paper.
“Members of the Digital Learning Lab are committed to advancing digital learning by drawing on their advanced knowledge of their disciplines,” said Christopher Capozzola, senior associate dean for MIT Open Learning. “By strengthening ties between the DLL, J-WEL, and its member institutions, the DLL will expand its visibility and impact. And most importantly, learners around the world will benefit.”
The Digital Learning Lab is a joint program between MIT Open Learning and MIT’s academic departments, where lab experts learn, collaborate, and innovate with digital learning on campus and beyond. The lab is composed of digital learning scientists and digital learning fellows who play a critical role in advancing digital learning initiatives across MIT.
The Frontiers in Digital Learning Awards build on J-WEL’s Education Innovation grants, its flagship grant program for MIT faculty and principal investigators addressing teaching and learning across the student lifecycle, from pK-12 to higher education to workforce learning. To date, J-WEL has awarded more than $5.9 million across all of its grant programs.
Originally published at https://jconnector.mit.edu/.
Lessons in building the future of teaching and learning
Nine shifts in pedagogical and learning approaches since the global pandemic.
In her article, published in 2022 in Advances in Online Education: A Peer-Reviewed Journal, Wiltrout hypothesized on the lasting impacts of the 2020–2021 events on teaching and learning organized across seven themes: course logistics, tools, activities and assessment for learning, student services and programs, work culture, attitudes, and relationships. Now in 2024 at MIT, Wiltrout can see the positive changes continuing and progressing in these areas:
Flexibility: During the pandemic, instructors were more flexible about coursework requirements, scheduling, grading structure, and expanded the number and types of assignments beyond summative exams. Some enacted policies enabling partial flexibility such as dropping the lowest score on assignments or allowing for late submissions. Now, with student support services approval, instructors remain open to working with students in need of flexibility.
Online learning: Residential colleges relying on completely in-person education now incorporate more blended learning and online courses for students interested in that option. Hybrid instruction and online assignments continue to be part of the curriculum.
Technology: The most valuable functions of the learning management system are the organization of course events and materials and the integration of the multitude of learning tools in one place with one login (for example, web conferencing, discussion forum, grading, video, and calendar). As a result of reducing barriers, more tools like online conferencing, polling, and tablet drawing software to teach, are being used by a larger percentage of teaching staff and students.
Reducing unconscious bias: Grading exams and assignments through an online tool increased the efficiency and consistency of grading with rubrics for every question. And the ability to anonymize submissions in the grading process helps reduce unconscious biases, while students also gain transparency from the rubrics to learn from mistakes and trust the process.
Rethinking in-person sessions: More conversations emerged on how to take advantage of in-person interactions to prioritize activities of value in that mode for learning and work. Instructors and students intentionally kept online approaches that enriched the experience as students returned to campuses. Some digital components enhance student learning, mental well-being, equity, or inclusion and could be as easy as providing a course chat channel for peer-to-peer and peer-to-staff conversations during synchronous sessions. Some instructors maintained more creative, open-ended assignments and online exam policies that seemed experimental during 2020.
Demand for student support services: The effects of the pandemic combined with normalizing taking care of mental health resulted in the sustained high demand for student support services. Institutions continue to invest more in the staffing of these services and programs, such as peer mentoring programs that result in positive academic and attitudinal gains for students. Instructors are generally more aware of how to positively influence students to seek help with simple actions, like speaking in a warm tone and intentionally including a statement about student services.
Belonging and inclusion: Racial and social injustices are being addressed more openly than ever before. Many institutions are recognizing the value and importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in their students and staff and have invested in funding and training for their community to shift their culture in a positive way. At the course level, instructors have the training and resources available to learn how to become more inclusive teachers (through free resources such as massive open online courses or internal efforts) and have the student and institution pressure to do so.
Mentoring: With the help of online tools and technology, students, educators, and staff are able to foster and create meaningful internship programs. Mentoring in these online programs with students in disparate locations around the world continues to take place and have a positive impact for students and any research that may be part of a program.
Collaborations: Although possible before, more researchers see collaborations across states or countries as less of a hurdle, especially with the everyday use of tools like Zoom. Instructors enhance authentic experiences for students by bringing outside experts into the classroom virtually for discussion — a method that was not used often before the pandemic.
Wiltrout concludes that many opportunities for widespread maintenance of practices that worked well and benefited students during the pandemic can and should continue to persist and grow into the future. Instructors also expanded and improved their curricula and pedagogical approaches to nurture a more inclusive and engaging course for their students and themselves.
“The lasting impacts of the pandemic include profound lessons on what best served both learners and educators,” Wiltrout says. “It’s heartening to see changes and adjustments to pedagogy, student services and programs, attitudes, and relationships that continue to benefit everyone. If these new effective ways endure and grow, then a better future of education for students, staff, and instructors is possible.”
Meet 8 MIT women faculty who teach MITx courses and lead cutting-edge research
Celebrating Women’s History Month with MIT women’s contributions to science, society, and online learning.
Women at MIT have been impacting their fields since Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman graduate of MIT, was appointed chemistry instructor in 1882. Richards was an industrial and environmental chemist who established the Woman’s Laboratory in 1876 to create better opportunities for the scientific education of women, opening future opportunities at MIT and beyond.
Through groundbreaking research, scholarship, and teaching, MIT women faculty and instructors have had a far-reaching impact on the Institute and science and society at large.
Here are eight MIT professors who teach MITx courses and continue the legacy of creating better opportunities for all.
Polina Anikeeva
Courtesy photo
A professor of materials science and engineering and brain and cognitive sciences, Polina Anikeeva works across disciplines to develop tools and methods for improving treatment for neural disorders. Anikeeva is an associate director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics and the director of the K. Lisa Yang Brain-Body Center.
From unraveling connections between the brain and gut to designing soft optical fibers that block pain and soft-bodied robots that can be controlled with magnets, Anikeeva’s research has uncovered new connections between the brain and body that are revolutionizing medicine.
Learn online from Anikeeva with Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of Materials.
Regina Barzilay
Courtesy photo
Regina Barzilay, the School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of AI and Health and the AI faculty lead at MIT Jameel Clinic, is a MacArthur Fellow whose research is pioneering applications of machine learning in healthcare.
Barzilay’s work developing AI models and tools that can detect future lung cancer risk, offer personalized cancer screening, find potential drug molecules a thousand times faster, and accelerate the process of discovering new medicines offers significant potential for advances in disease detection, treatment, and prevention.
Professor Barzilay teaches Machine Learning with Python: from Linear Models to Deep Learning, part of the MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science, developed by the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and MITx.
Esther Duflo
Courtesy of MIT J-PAL
Developing the MicroMasters Program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP) is only one of Professor Esther Duflo’s many accomplishments.
In 2019 she was co-named a winner of the Nobel Prize in economic sciences along with her partner and fellow MIT professor, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer of Harvard University for their work in antipoverty research and relief efforts. Working towards turning evidence-based research into policy continues to be a large focus of Duflo’s work.
Her recent book, “Good Economics for Hard Times,” is the basis for the DEDP course of the same name.
Lorna Gibson
Courtesy photo
With a research focus on the cellular structure of materials, Lorna Gibson is a post-tenure professor of materials science and engineering who investigates how materials behave mechanically. She co-authored several widely used textbooks on these topics, and has received numerous awards for her teaching.
Gibson also co-authored a 2023 study that uncovered how sandgrouse hold water in their feathers — a discovery that could lead to useful applications in desert areas where water is scarce.
You can learn from Gibson’s expertise with MITx courses Mechanical Behavior of Materials and Cellular Solids.
Janelle Knox-Hayes
Photo: Courtesy of Janelle Knox-Hayes
Professor Janelle Knox-Hayes’ work focuses on the influence of globalization on the use of social and environmental systems, including the ways in which renewable energy solutions should engage the communities that they serve.
With three other colleagues in the field, Knox-Hayes launched a new academic journal that focuses on how finances and spaces influence one another.
Knox-Hayes teaches Cities and Climate Change: Mitigation and Adaptation with faculty from Columbia University and the Pratt Institute.
Tamar Schapiro
Photo: Allegra Boverman
Tamar Schapiro is a professor of philosophy at MIT who teaches Moral Problems and the Good Life with Professors Caspar Hare and Kieran Setiya.
Schapiro’s research has extensively focused on ethics and human reasoning, which she covers in her book “Feeling Like It: a Theory of Inclination and Will.”
Susan Silbey
Photo: Jake Belcher
Professor Susan Silbey has been teaching since 1974 — and at MIT since 2000. Her significant contributions to the scholarship were honored in 2019 with the James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award. She served as chair of the faculty from 2017–2019.
With award-winning work in lab safety procedures and regulatory best practices, her research has helped examine the ways in which people interact with and engage with law in their work and personal lives. “The Common Place of Law” tells the stories of ordinary citizens’ interactions with law.
Silbey serves on the MITx Faculty Advisory Committee and teaches two MITx courses, Qualitative Research Methods: Conversational Interviewing and Qualitative Research Methods: Data Coding and Analysis.
Anne White
Photo: Gretchen Ertl
Anne White’s research focuses on tokamak plasma and its role in transitioning energy systems to low-carbon or zero-carbon models. She and co-author Pablo Rodríguez Fernández answered a 20-year-old problem in fusion research.
She is the current associate provost and associate vice president for research administration, the co-chair of the MIT Climate Nucleus, and chair of the federal advisory board Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee.
White is one of the lead faculty members on Nuclear Energy: Science, Systems and Society. She spoke about her experience creating the course with MIT News in 2019.
There are many more MIT women faculty and instructors to learn from with MITx courses! Explore them all.
Empowerment
“A whole world of potential learners and potential knowledge to gain”
MIT Digital Learning Lab advances quality digital learning on campus and globally.
“It exposed me to different ways of solving problems,” Khalifa says, adding that the resource was a “huge gain” for her academic progress. She initially took the course during the summer before her program officially started, but she also used Math Boot Camp for Engineers to revisit concepts throughout the semester.
This online MIT resource is now also available as a massive open online course (MOOC) to any learner in the world. Through serving learners on MIT campus and online, the DLL advances quality digital learning initiatives at the Institute and extends MIT’s teaching and knowledge globally.
Digital learning on campus and beyond
The DLL, a joint program between MIT Open Learning and MIT’s academic departments, is composed of academic staff and postdocs who collaborate on digital learning innovations. With their combined subject-matter expertise of their respective departments and instructional design innovation, DLL staff promote the latest findings in the learning sciences and educational technologies to develop and update courses.
“The DLL team does so many cool things — creative, hands-on, and informed by the best evidence in teaching and learning,” says Christopher Capozzola, senior associate dean for open learning. “From bringing cutting-edge technologies and ideas into classroom teaching to working alongside faculty as thought partners in developing new courses, programs, and projects, they bring a unique academic and digital agility to every department at MIT.”
“The Digital Learning Lab team does so many cool things — creative, hands-on, and informed by the best evidence in teaching and learning.”
Over the last decade, the DLL has grown to encompass all aspects of online learning research and deployment. Faculty work closely with digital learning scientists to incorporate digital technologies into the design and teaching practices of MITx courses and MITx MicroMasters programs for everyone and on-campus courses for MIT students. MITx online courses embody the rigor and quality of MIT’s residential courses, and MicroMasters are credential-bearing programs that can help individuals fast-track and save on costs of their master’s degree. In trying to identify the most effective teaching methods, the Digital Learning Lab ultimately discovers how to better support online learners and MIT students.
Khalifa says the material she learned in Math Boot Camp for Engineers was relevant to her core graduate courses, including classes 10.50 (Analysis of Transport Phenomena) and 10.65 (Chemical Reactor Engineering). “I didn’t struggle with solving mathematical equations when there was already new content to learn in the course itself,” she says.
This was the outcome the chemical engineering department hoped for when they first approached Joey Gu MS ’16, PhD ’19, lecturer and digital learning scientist in chemical engineering, about improving the first semester experience for graduate students. Gu collaborated with departmental leadership, faculty, and graduate students to develop the first iteration of 10.MBC for summer 2020. Today, Math Boot Camp for Engineers is composed of six self-paced, self-guided, active-learning modules that cover different math topics. Students can take the modules in any order, depending on their needs, as identified by a diagnostic quiz.
“[Digital learning scientists] bring a unique academic and digital agility to every department at MIT.”
“I liked the option of doing the course in my own time and pace,” says Khalifa, adding that she thought the platform was “very user-friendly.” She found it helpful when concepts were divided into multiple short instructional videos, as opposed to hour-long lectures.
Immediacy was key to her online learning experience. “I was not waiting for an instructor to give feedback,” Khalifa says. “I solved the problem right then and there, got the answer, and the explanation of the correct answer. I really appreciated that as a student.”
Sharing the latest advances in online learning
As some of the early pioneers and today’s leaders in designing open online courses, digital learning scientists publish research in the fields of learning science and their respective academic areas. They speak at conferences, lead workshops, and share their insights and innovations with MIT faculty and the learning community at large.
This semester, Mary Ellen Wiltrout PhD ’09 and Jessica Sandland ’99, PhD ’04 are serving as general chairs for the 2023 IEEE Learning with MOOCs Conference (LWMOOCs) taking place Oct. 11–13 at MIT. LWMOOCs is an international forum for academic and industry professionals to discuss the latest advances in MOOCs. This year, the conference will focus on blended learning with an emphasis on key topics such as strategies and opportunities for implementing open online courses in today’s world, using these courses to increase educational opportunities for more learners, especially those facing an opportunity gap, and impacting sustainability education. The conference is returning to campus for the first time since its inception in 2014.
“Now there’s more interest in exploring a variety of different educational spaces that are trying to use online modalities to make education more accessible, more affordable.”
“Ten years ago, we were talking about individual, stand-alone online courses, but now there’s more interest in exploring a variety of different educational spaces that are trying to use online modalities to make education more accessible, more affordable,” says Sandland, principal lecturer and digital learning scientist in materials science and engineering.
Participants will also have the opportunity to join workshops on AI in education and inclusive teaching, and learn evidence-based practices from experts developing and managing MOOCs and other open online courses.
“We want to highlight case studies, research, and frameworks from those creating, running, or studying MOOCs for the community to learn from each other, driving the field to evolve,” says Wiltrout, who is the director of blended and online initiatives, lecturer, and digital learning scientist in biology and has managed over 100 course runs of MOOCs since 2013.
Through participation in LWMOOCs and their own research at the DLL, MIT’s digital learning scientists have been on the forefront of best practices for online teaching and innovations in online learning. “There’s a whole world of potential learners and potential knowledge to gain,” Sandland says. “The more we understand that, the more we can make rich learning experiences for all sorts of different learners.”
Originally published at https://news.mit.edu on October 2, 2023.
High school students gain skills by working on digital learning materials
MIT Digital Learning Lab and Empowr pilot a new internship program.
“Once you know the syntax of language, computer science is really just problem-solving,” Esayas says. “I enjoy challenging problems, especially things that require much more consideration than something that takes a lot less time. I like the feeling of doing a challenging thing and overcoming it.”
Esayas' aspirations to gain iOS development experience led him to Empowr, a program offering computer science training to Black high school students with the goal of providing support throughout students’ entire high school career. After already participating in Empowr for a year, he joined a pilot internship program this past summer, in which two Empowr students worked remotely with MIT Digital Learning Lab (DLL) scientists to create and improve online learning content.
The DLL, a joint program between MIT Open Learning and MIT’s academic departments, is composed of academic staff and postdocs who collaborate on digital learning innovations on campus and beyond. The idea for the internship grew out of a conversation between Empowr Executive Director Adrian Devezin and Mary Ellen Wiltrout PhD ’09, director of blended and online initiatives in MIT's Department of Biology. They discussed how Empowr might support students by connecting students with high-quality internship opportunities, specially at MIT.
“There were lots of motivations to start this internship program,” says Wiltrout. “The DLL needed extra help, and Empowr had some motivated students wanting coding experience and ready to solve some complicated problems.”
The two interns in this pilot program worked with MIT digital learning scientists across disciplines, including Wiltrout and Darcy Gordon in biology; Alex Shvonski, Michelle Tomasik PhD ’15, and Aidan MacDonagh in physics; and Jessica Sandland ’99, PhD ’04 in materials science and engineering. By working with so many individuals in DLL, the interns were exposed to a wide range of professional projects and learning opportunities. Interns had regular communication with the DLL mentors, with at least one DLL scientist checking in with them every day — with other meetings as needed — in addition to a lot of asynchronous work and checking in via Slack.
“The interns are a lot like MIT students,” says Wiltrout. “Both showed a lot of promise, quickly tackled assignments, and found ways to figure things out on their own when they faced a barrier.”
Specific projects included translating assessment content from Google Docs to the Open edX platform, creating custom XML code for problem or grading functionality in the course running in Open edX, and developing interactive graphs with multiple programming languages. The interns made these contributions within the 7.03.3x (Genetics: Population and Human Traits) course. They gained valuable, hands-on experience in important principles of online content development, including universal design.
“The course I was working on had to feature elements that made it more accessible,” says Esayas. “It opened my eyes to realize you should expand the scope to be more accessible to more people.”
Shvonski worked with the interns on the physics course 8.03x (Vibrations and Waves). Shvonski had developed interactive physics visualizations in Jupyter notebooks but wanted to embed them in web pages more easily, which required that they be rewritten in JavaScript.
“It was an important step to revise the course,” says Shvonski. “Learning how to rewrite these course elements in JavaScript myself would have been time consuming, so the interns made a significant contribution.”
Shvonski implemented the products the interns developed for the fall 2023 semester of Vibrations and Waves, including Esayas’ interactive plot project and other visualizations. “MIT students taking 8.03 have benefited from using these interactive elements this semester,” he says.
Esayas says the internship helped him to understand how computer science skills can be applied across disciplines.
“I like computer science a lot,” he says. “The internship helped me to look at it differently. I see it’s very interdisciplinary. I worked in physics and biology — you can use computer science almost anywhere, like a tool that can be implemented in different places.”
In addition to growing their technical skills, the interns also gained professional experience, learning what it is like to work, report hours, participate in professional conversations and scheduled meetings, and more. The Digital Learning Lab also helped Empowr brainstorm ways to support the other high school juniors in the program, such as trainings on resume writing or what to expect when beginning a job.
MIT Open Learning would like to continue exploring areas for future collaborative efforts with Empowr, says Christopher Capozzola, senior associate dean.
“The interns learned more about themselves and all that they were capable of,” says Shvonski, “and we all learned from each other.”
“Before learning about MITx, I had difficulty looking for nearby classes offering machine learning. The rigor of the materials and the expertise of the professors and recitation teachers contributed significantly to my comprehension of theory and practice of the various topics. The course fees are significantly less costly than another equivalent educational path. It was a time well-spent for my own personal and professional growth.”
Dhan
Working professional, United States
Fostering research, careers, and community in materials science
MICRO internship program expands, brings undergraduate interns from other schools to campus.
Wood is also one of 10 undergraduates from 10 universities around the United States to participate in the first MICRO Summit earlier this year. The internship program, developed by the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), first launched in fall 2021. Now in its third year, the program continues to grow, providing even more opportunities for non-MIT undergraduate students — including the MICRO Summit and the program’s expansion to include Northwestern University.
“I think one of the most valuable aspects of the MICRO program is the ability to do research long term with an experienced professor in materials science and engineering,” says Wood. “My school has limited opportunities for undergraduate research in sustainable polymers, so the MICRO program allowed me to gain valuable experience in this field, which I would not otherwise have.”
Like Wood, Griheydi Garcia, a senior chemistry major at Manhattan College, values the exposure to materials science, especially since she is not able to learn as much about it at her home institution.
“I learned a lot about crystallography and defects in materials through the MICRO curriculum, especially through videos,” says Garcia. “The research itself is very valuable, as well, because we get to apply what we’ve learned through the videos in the research we do remotely.”
Expanding research opportunities
From the beginning, the MICRO program was designed as a fully remote, rigorous education and mentoring program targeted toward students from underserved backgrounds interested in pursuing graduate school in materials science or related fields. Interns are matched with faculty to work on their specific research interests.
Jessica Sandland ’99, PhD ’05, principal lecturer in DMSE and co-founder of MICRO, says that research projects for the interns are designed to be work that they can do remotely, such as developing a machine-learning algorithm or a data analysis approach.
“It’s important to note that it’s not just about what the program and faculty are bringing to the student interns,” says Sandland, a member of the MIT Digital Learning Lab, a joint program between MIT Open Learning and the Institute’s academic departments. “The students are doing real research and work, and creating things of real value. It’s very much an exchange.”
Cécile Chazot PhD ’22, now an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University, had helped to establish MICRO at MIT from the very beginning. Once at Northwestern, she quickly realized that expanding MICRO to Northwestern would offer even more research opportunities to interns than by relying on MIT alone — leveraging the university’s strong materials science and engineering department, as well as offering resources for biomaterials research through Northwestern’s medical school. The program received funding from 3M and officially launched at Northwestern in fall 2023. Approximately half of the MICRO interns are now in the program with MIT and half are with Northwestern. Wood and Garcia both participate in the program via Northwestern.
“By expanding to another school, we’ve been able to have interns work with a much broader range of research projects,” says Chazot. “It has become easier for us to place students with faculty and research that match their interests.”
Building community
The MICRO program received a Higher Education Innovation grant from the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab, part of MIT Open Learning, to develop an in-person summit. In January 2024, interns visited MIT for three days of presentations, workshops, and campus tours — including a tour of the MIT.nano building — as well as various community-building activities.
“A big part of MICRO is the community,” says Chazot. “A highlight of the summit was just seeing the students come together.”
The summit also included panel discussions that allowed interns to gain insights and advice from graduate students and professionals. The graduate panel discussion included MIT graduate students Sam Figueroa (mechanical engineering), Isabella Caruso (DMSE), and Eliana Feygin (DMSE). The career panel was led by Chazot and included Jatin Patil PhD ’23, head of product at SiTration; Maureen Reitman ’90, ScD ’93, group vice president and principal engineer at Exponent; Lucas Caretta PhD ’19, assistant professor of engineering at Brown University; Raquel D’Oyen ’90, who holds a PhD from Northwestern University and is a senior engineer at Raytheon; and Ashley Kaiser MS ’19, PhD ’21, senior process engineer at 6K.
Students also had an opportunity to share their work with each other through research presentations. Their presentations covered a wide range of topics, including: developing a computer program to calculate solubility parameters for polymers used in textile manufacturing; performing a life-cycle analysis of a photonic chip and evaluating its environmental impact in comparison to a standard silicon microchip; and applying machine learning algorithms to scanning transmission electron microscopy images of CrSBr, a two-dimensional magnetic material.
“The summit was wonderful and the best academic experience I have had as a first-year college student,” says MICRO intern Gabriella La Cour, who is pursuing a major in chemistry and dual degree biomedical engineering at Spelman College and participates in MICRO through MIT. “I got to meet so many students who were all in grades above me … and I learned a little about how to navigate college as an upperclassman.”
“I actually have an extremely close friendship with one of the students, and we keep in touch regularly,” adds La Cour. “Professor Chazot gave valuable advice about applications and recommendation letters that will be useful when I apply to REUs [Research Experiences for Undergraduates] and graduate schools.”
Looking to the future, MICRO organizers hope to continue to grow the program’s reach.
“We would love to see other schools taking on this model,” says Sandland. “There are a lot of opportunities out there. The more departments, research groups, and mentors that get involved with this program, the more impact it can have.”
MITx MOOCs worldwide
“MITx’s mission to democratize education resonates deeply with me. It empowers learners from diverse backgrounds and geographical locations to access and benefit from top-tier education. This initiative not only elevates individual careers but also fosters a global community of knowledgeable and skilled professionals.”
Atou Koffi
Educator, Togo
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