MITx launches its first-ever "fully-automated" online course
The Course 6.002x (Circuits and Electronics) is an experimental on-line adaptation of MIT’s first undergraduate analog design course: 6.002. This course will run, free of charge, for students worldwide from March 5, 2012 through June 8, 2012. The course will incorporate various open source technologies to offer lessons in text, video as well as interactivity within the learner community.
Prof. Anant Agarwal, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will be one of the course teachers.
President Hockfield called this “a transformative initiative for MIT and for online learning worldwide. On our residential campus, the heart of MIT, students and faculty are already integrating on-campus and online learning, but the MITx initiative will greatly accelerate that effort. It will also bring new energy to our longstanding effort to educate millions of able learners across the United States and around the world. And in offering an open-source technological platform to other educational institutions everywhere, we hope that teachers and students the world over will together create learning opportunities that break barriers to education everywhere.”
The Flipped Classroom: An innovation that got results too!
Imagine entering a class where students have already gone through the chapter on Algebra that you were about to discuss today. And no, not from their text books, but they listened to you delivering the session using the book! Difficult to imagine?
This is exactly what the principal at Clintondale High School in Michigan, USA did by flipping his classrooms (as his test scores were dropping and disciplinary rates were on the rise), and it paid off. In just one year, the failure rate at their 9th grade center reduced by 33% in English, 31% in Math, 22% in Science, and 19% in Social Studies -- plus the discipline rate dropped by 66%!
Isn't this what any teacher would want to do? There are the initial challenges of changing the mindset and making those lesson recordings, but technology has made it fairly simple. If you are interested in trying it out, you could join the group of such teachers at http://vodcasting.ning.com/. Before that, you could read this report and visit the Clintondale High School site too.
A common aptitude-cum-advanced knowledge test will replace the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) in 2013. Test scores will have 60 per cent weight in deciding admissions; school board marks will have 40 per cent. Test and board scores will determine admissions to all centrally funded engineering institutions.
The common entrance exam, planned as a SAT-type test, is likely to be held online from 2014, and could be given twice a year, highly placed sources said. The paper test is likely to stay on until the online system stabilizes.
...
“The common entrance exam will have two elements — simple aptitude testing to assess scholastic levels, and an advanced section which a student can choose to either continue with or skip,” said a source.
“This test will essentially produce only scorecards for each student, and the concerned institute will then decide how it will use the 60 per cent weight — say, an IIT can rely more on scores achieved on the advanced level section than on aptitude. It could be a 30-30 aptitude-advanced knowledge format for IITs, and 40-20 for NITs,” the source said.
Two Canadian teenagers used their ingenuity and a small budget of $400 to put a Legoman in space!
The space-bound contraption the two 17-year-olds came up with comprised an $85 weather balloon, a homemade parachute, a Styrofoam box, three point-and-shoot cameras, a wide-angle video camera, and a cell phone loaded with a GPS app so they’d be able to find the thing when it (hopefully) returned to Earth.
The finishing touch came in the form of a Lego man holding the Canadian flag strapped to a gangplank attached to their creation.
They launched it from a soccer pitch near Toronto, and lost the GPS signal after about 4 miles height. After going through the video from the on-board camera, they worked out that the Lego man had reached a height of about 80,000 feet in 65 minutes, and took just over half-an-hour to return to Earth.
BT Comment: As teachers, can we let our students keep dreaming and realizing their dreams, without believing that only Rocket Scientists can launch space rockets?
Uttam Chatterjee One who dreams plans ahead to make it true, So dreaming is the first step for success. One who dreams can do, one who only dreams can't do anything. Dream should be such that it takes your sleep away. Such dreams with makes you feel sleep more is useless. 05 Feb at 10:38 PM
Tabassum Good one 16 Feb at 11:15 PM
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BT Admin
Why should we change the way higher education happens in our world
This excellent article written by Dr. LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS (former president of Harvard University and former secretary of the Treasury) in The New York Times makes a case for changing completely the way world imparts higher education today.
An extract from the article:
Nonetheless, it is interesting to speculate: Suppose the educational system is drastically altered to reflect the structure of society and what we now understand about how people learn. How will what universities teach be different? Here are some guesses and hopes.
1. Education will be more about how to process and use information and less about imparting it.
2. An inevitable consequence of the knowledge explosion is that tasks will be carried out with far more collaboration.
3. New technologies will profoundly alter the way knowledge is conveyed. Electronic readers allow textbooks to be constantly revised, and to incorporate audio and visual effects.
4. As articulated by the Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman in “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” we understand the processes of human thought much better than we once did...“Active learning classrooms” — which cluster students at tables, with furniture that can be rearranged and integrated technology — help professors interact with their students through the use of media and collaborative experiences.
5. The world is much more open, and events abroad affect the lives of Americans more than ever before. This makes it essential that the educational experience breed cosmopolitanism...
6. Courses of study will place much more emphasis on the analysis of data.
This essay is based on a speech Dr. Summers gave at The New York Times’s Schools for Tomorrow conference.
Session on Disruptive Technology in Education Date and Time: Thursday, February 23, 2012 from 6:00pm until 7:00pm. Venue: The Auditorium, IICHE Building, 5/5-B Navratan Bagh Road, Geeta Bhawan Square, A.B. Road, Indore
Session on Disruptive Technology in Education with Mr. Rajeev Pathak, CEO, eDreams, Bangalore (IIM-Bangalore, BITS-Pilani alumnus)
Winner of "The Pitch" on Bloomberg| UTV To register for any BT event, please send an email to events@beyondteaching.com
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Beyond Teaching is to serve the teaching community across the globe with innovative offerings that will help them in self-development, which in turn, will effect social change by passing on information and awareness to their students. BeyondTeaching was conceptualized by a few concerned educators who have had a combined experience of over four decades. Having interacted with scores of teachers, both in the formal and supporting systems of education across the world, we felt that it was time we paid homage to the influencers of the society.
BT Admin
Job Alert: Part-time content development
An education technology product development company is looking for teachers who can develop curriculum and content for their innovative product due to launch in early 2012. The Company so far has enrolled 30+ top schools in India as their co-creation partners, and plan to take their products to thousands of schools in a few years time. The product aims to solve fundamental quality issues that exist in K-12 education globally. The team consists of founders (Most of them from IIT/IIM) having significant experiences in business creation and technology creation.
Beyond Teaching is proud to be associated with this company and invites applications from interested members to work part-time from home on this project.
The work involves the following:
Curriculum design for CBSE/ICSE/IB/State boards
Content development
Explanation creations
Question templates
Solution development
Audio/Video recordings
Content classification for various type of children
Experiment design
Concept/story creation for games for each topic
Brainstorming and reviews
Expected Qualification/Skills:
Passion for creative teaching
MEd/BEd
Post graduation in science
Teaching experience from Grade 1 to Grade 8 or Grade 10 science in CBSE/ICSE/IB schools
Any teacher training program for more than 3 months abroad
Any teaching exp abroad esp in US/Europe
Any science content development exp in any other company
Very good written and verbal communication skills in English
Teaching exp should consist of
Class room teaching
Creation work books/activity books
Writer of science books for any publications
Designer of new games/experiments in science that did not exist in books
Exposure of children psychology
No of positions: 3-5: Virtual contribution, company will train selected candidates in tools , guidelines and templates
Expected hours per week: 20 ( Evenings and Weekends)
Expected infrastructure at home: PC+MS office with broadband network connectivity
Remuneration:Rs. 5,000 to 10,000 per month depending on relevant qualification and experience.
The Course 6.002x (Circuits and Electronics) is an experimental on-line adaptation of MIT’s first undergraduate analog design course: 6.002. This course will run, free of charge, for students worldwide from March 5, 2012 through June 8, 2012. The course will incorporate various open source technologies to offer lessons in text, video as well as interactivity within the learner community.
A common aptitude-cum-advanced knowledge test will replace the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) in 2013. Test scores will have 60 per cent weight in deciding admissions; school board marks will have 40 per cent. Test and board scores will determine admissions to all centrally funded engineering institutions.
