Collaborating to support
learning worldwide |
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Dear John,
Like so many of you, I think of learning as a continuous journey, full of new discoveries, surprising insights, and joyful moments. At OpenCourseWare, MITx, and MIT Open Learning, we’re always innovating to provide everyone we meet on this journey with the pathways and resources to support their individual goals. |
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Tapping into collective expertise
Whether we’re researching how to support online learners or piloting a program to promote culturally responsive teaching, we know that our efforts to support learning worldwide will go farther if we approach them collaboratively—working with our colleagues, with researchers and innovators around the world, and with you, our community of learners, educators, and supporters.
Currently, at OpenCourseWare, we’re teaming up with community colleges in California and Arizona to explore how student engagement and outcomes might improve when educators and students adapt OCW’s resources for more personalized, dynamic, and responsive learning experiences. These new equity-focused collaborations are supported by a generous grant from the Sloan Foundation.
During this year’s Open Education Week, OpenCourseWare also hosted a resource-sharing event to expand our database of materials about culturally responsive teaching and open education. This database is part of our ongoing collaboration with participating Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Multimedia Education Resource for Learning (MERLOT) on educational equity. Thanks to contributions from the open education community, we added 40 new resources to the collection. |
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Producing courses to fit your needs
It’s also with our learners’ diverse needs and circumstances in mind that we strive to make our MITx courses as flexible as possible. From considering accessibility when designing a course to creating new education-to-employment pathways for underserved communities, we continue to bring MIT’s mens et manus (mind and hand) philosophy to our online courses to give learners an interactive and supportive learning environment wherever they may be in their journeys or in the world.
I invite you to take a behind-the-scenes look at how our team of faculty and instructors, Digital Learning Lab Fellows, and learning science experts design or adapt an MIT course for global audiences. |
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Making a difference through Open Learning
In all these efforts, we continue to draw inspiration from our community—learners and educators who motivate us to keep innovating with your stories of joy, determination, and difference-making. Tergel, a college student from Mongolia, recently shared this: |
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Stories like Tergel’s are what come to mind when I reflect on why it’s vital for us to work together to transform teaching and learning. We want to empower people everywhere to make an impact not only in their lives, but in their communities and even the world. And what’s even more wonderful is how often we hear from learners like Tergel. Or Tetiana Herasymova, a mathematician from Ukraine who earned her MITx MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science in the midst of a war. Or educators like Ashu, a university instructor from India who adapted lessons from 14.126 Game Theory to her own classroom lectures. Or supporters like Chansa, a machine learning engineer from Zambia who, after discovering free courses from MIT on OpenCourseWare, was able to turn his childhood interest in robotics into a fulfilling career.
These are exceptional stories, but I fully believe that every learning experience is exceptional and I invite you to share yours.
Thank you again for learning with us; for sharing our resources with your family, friends and communities; and for supporting and working with us to open learning.
Best regards,
Chris
Christopher Capozzola
Senior Associate Dean for Open Learning |
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