Key Moments
MIT Open Learning Salon: Transitioning abruptly from the physical classroom to online teaching
MIT OpenCourseWareKey Moments
MIT faculty transformed online teaching discussions into innovation and deeper student engagement.
Key Insights
Abrupt online transition surprisingly sparked faculty interest and innovation in teaching methods.
Faculty re-evaluated core teaching practices, moving from high-stakes exams to weekly grading and interactive lectures.
MIT's advanced preparation for the online shift was attributed to foresight and leadership, particularly from Meghan Perdue.
Students who were typically shy sometimes found more comfort and engagement in the online environment.
The experience led to a renewed seriousness and discussion around teaching quality among MIT faculty.
There's a hope and concern that the pedagogical innovations and enthusiasm for teaching will persist post-pandemic.
THE ABRUPT TRANSITION AND INITIAL RESEARCH
MIT experienced a sudden and unprepared transition to online teaching in March due to the pandemic, affecting approximately 1,200 courses. Professor Shigeru Miyagawa, driven by curiosity and his past experience with OpenCourseWare, initiated interviews with faculty to understand the impact. This research, later joined by Meghan Perdue and supported by the Michelson 20MM Foundation, aimed to observe the emergence of MIT's core values and leadership during this crisis. The initial interviews and subsequent survey analysis revealed unexpected outcomes regarding faculty engagement with teaching.
A SURPRISING RE-ENGAGEMENT WITH TEACHING
A significant and unexpected finding was the heightened interest faculty developed in their teaching methods. Stripped of familiar in-person structures and past teaching experiences, faculty were compelled to reconsider their pedagogical approaches from scratch. This forced introspection led to a deep questioning of long-standing practices, such as high-stakes midterms and final exams, which many faculty began to replace with more frequent, lower-stakes assessments that allowed for continuous interaction and feedback with students.
PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION AND CORE VALUES
This period of re-evaluation spurred considerable innovation in teaching. Faculty moved away from one-way lecture formats towards more interactive sessions, often incorporating shorter lecture segments interspersed with engaging activities. This embrace of innovation directly reflected MIT's core value of creativity and exploration, typically applied to research but now prominently applied to teaching. The Digital Learning Lab, where Meghan Perdue works, served as a crucial bridge, leveraging its expertise in online pedagogy to support faculty during this transformative shift.
LEADERSHIP AND INSTITUTIONAL PREPAREDNESS
MIT demonstrated strong leadership and preparedness, partly due to Meghan Perdue's early recognition of the potential for online instruction and her proactive approach in alerting leadership and initiating preparation. This foresight allowed MIT to transition more smoothly than many other institutions. Beyond operational readiness, leadership also focused on supporting students emotionally and practically as they adjusted to remote learning, highlighting a commitment to the welfare of the entire community during the crisis.
FACULTY PERSPECTIVES ON THE ONLINE EXPERIENCE
Research indicated that faculty viewed the online teaching experience in three primary ways: a burden, a tolerable experience, or an opportunity. A surprising majority fell into the 'opportunity' category, reporting satisfaction with student learning and teaching quality. Faculty in this group found the online format encouraged creativity and forced them to re-evaluate learning objectives, leading to rewarding pedagogical exploration. Conversely, those viewing it as a burden highlighted difficulties with hands-on classes and scaled-down learning outcomes.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AND NEW INTERACTION MODELS
Engaging students online presented challenges, with some faculty finding it difficult to maintain focus and motivation. However, many also discovered new opportunities for connection. The online environment sometimes allowed shyer students to participate more comfortably, and the informality of seeing students' home environments led to more intimate and personal interactions. The shift of office hours to immediately after class, for example, resulted in significantly more informal student-faculty interaction, deepening understanding and rapport.
ELEVATED SERIOUSNESS TOWARDS TEACHING
A profound long-term impact observed was the increased seriousness with which faculty approached teaching. Departments began holding more regular and better-attended meetings to discuss pedagogy and share best practices. This newfound emphasis mirrored the importance previously given to research, creating an exciting atmosphere of collaborative improvement. Faculty began actively consulting educational research and applying its findings, a shift that many found deeply engaging and rewarding.
PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE OF TEACHING
Many faculty expressed a strong desire to retain the pedagogical innovations and insights gained from the online transition, intending to integrate strategies like small group discussions into future in-person classes. There is a palpable sense among faculty that they are "on the cusp of a great new age of teaching." However, this optimism is tempered by a concern that these positive changes might be lost unless actively preserved and prioritized by the institution, highlighting a critical juncture for the future of teaching at MIT.
Mentioned in This Episode
●Software & Apps
●Companies
●Organizations
●Books
●Concepts
●People Referenced
Faculty Perceptions of Pandemic-Induced Online Teaching Transition
Data extracted from this episode
| Category | Description | Prevalence |
|---|---|---|
| Burden | Experience was terrible, mourning lost learning outcomes. | Smallest group (purple) |
| Tolerable | Reasonable but not ideal, minimal deviation from prior formats. | Moderate group (gray) |
| Opportunity | Better than expected experience, potential for more remote teaching. | Majority of faculty (green) |
Common Questions
The most surprising finding was that many faculty developed a newfound, keen interest in teaching itself. Instead of just focusing on the challenges, they began to deeply rethink their pedagogical approaches and question long-standing practices.
Topics
Mentioned in this video
The academic discipline of Professor Shigeru Miyagawa at MIT.
An MIT initiative that provides free course materials online, originating from a faculty committee proposal in 2000.
An initial online strategy proposed for MIT in the dot-com era, which involved selling educational content, but was ultimately deemed not a good idea by the faculty committee.
A publication where an opinion piece co-authored by Shigeru Miyagawa and Meghan Perdue about their research appeared.
One of the courses developed by Meghan Perdue and available on edX.
A course developed by Meghan Perdue and available on edX.
A course developed by Meghan Perdue and available on edX.
A course developed by Meghan Perdue and available on edX.
Senior Associate Dean for Open Learning and Professor of Linguistics at MIT, involved in OpenCourseWare and research on online teaching.
Digital Learning Fellow at MITx's Digital Learning Lab, involved in producing online educational content and researching online pedagogy.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and co-director of Visualizing Cultures with Shigeru Miyagawa.
The foundation that sponsored the research study on the transition to online teaching at MIT.
An MIT organization that acts as a bridge between residential MIT education and Open Learning, creating edX courses and digital learning tools.
The School of Humanities and Social Sciences at MIT, where Meghan Perdue reports and where many faculty were trained for online teaching.
University where Professor Miyagawa served as Project Professor and Director of Online Education.
An online learning platform where MIT courses, including 'Visualizing Japan', are offered.
The organization within MIT that Meghan Perdue is a Digital Learning Fellow for.
A video conferencing platform used by universities in Hong Kong for online teaching, noted by Meghan Perdue in February.
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