Some of us remember the days of mega-freshman overview courses in huge state universities. Hundreds of students packed into hot lecture halls listening to canned lectures from a professor that we’ll probably never meet in person. MOOCs – massive open online courses – are the modern digital version of that experience. They’re cheap, they’re convenient, they’re even informative. But are they the best way to offer a digital education?
The answer, to no one’s surprise, is probably “no.”
So what’s the alternative? An educational product called MAIT, or Massive Adaptive Interactive Text, a new generation of interactive learning experiences for STEM fields that can adapt to learners’ individual needs and simulate the experience of one-on-one education.
Rather than the enormous cookie-cutter approach of MOOCs, MAITs attempt to provide students with a more pedagogical feel to their studies. Students are able to interact personally with instructors and receive personal assessments. Courses are adaptive, differentiating between various student responses and guiding students through the material based on those responses. As a natural outgrowth of this process, course curricula are less standardized and rigid.
All of this, educators say, provides online students with an experience that more closely resembles that of a small class in a traditional college.
MOOCs were only the first wave of electronic educational resources. The introduction of MAITs, whether successful or not at replacing MOOCs, demonstrates that electronic education is here to stay. Educators will continue to adapt to technology and universities will continue to look for ways to exploit these new learning venues. Whatever paradigm rises to the surface, open online education is clearly a positive force for improving STEM education in the United States.