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This is a time of important
change in undergraduate education at MIT. Through the energy and
creativity of the faculty and staff and with the financial support
of generous alumni donors, we are seeing a number of developments
which promise to provide lasting improvements to the educational
experience of our undergraduates.
As one would expect, individual departments periodically review
their major subject requirements to assure that the disciplinary
education they provide is well suited to the preparation and educational
goals of their students. In recent years MIT has seen impressive
examples of such reviews, leading to clear improvements in the
education offered.
For some years now the resources donated by three alumni classes
(1951, 1955, and 1972) have been critial in making possible the
beginnings of important educational experiments and reforms. See
Alumni Sponsored
Funding Opportunities for a description of these funds and
their programs. A major new impetus for experimentation in ways
of teaching at MIT came with the establishment in 1999 of the
d'Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in MIT Education. This Fund has
made it possible for faculty and others to pursue sizable projects
in education reform, several of which now are poised to become
long term fixtures of the MIT educational experience. See d'Arbeloff
Fund for Excellence in Education for a listing of the projects
supported by the d'Arbeloff Fund. While the efforts supported
so far have many varied aspects, several features are common to
many of them:
1. Emphasizing the importance of active learning. MIT has traditionally
used the lecture/recitation format for many of its (especially
introductory) subjects. While this format continues to provide
a number of advantages for teaching relatively large numbers of
students, it is also clear that many students find it difficult
to become closely engaged with their learning in this format.
Various ways to engage students actively in the learning process
are being tried and adapted to specific subjects.
2. Project-based learning. For those teaching the introductory
science subjects, there has always been the compromise between
including material which involves current problems and issues
and giving the students the base of knowledge in science which
allows them to appreciate and approach such modern problems. Recent
experiments in project-based learning in the first year promise
to provide an optimal compromise, where students take a project-based
learning subject which involves teamwork and which integrates
knowledge and techniques from different disciplines to complement
the traditional science core subjects.
3. Use of modern educational technology. Recent years have seen
great strides in educational technology, especially in the ability
to make available large amounts of material from local and remote
sources. MIT faculty, students, and staff are pioneering the use
of technology for education in a variety of ways.
There is every reason to believe that the already very strong
undergraduate educational experience at MIT will be significantly
enhanced during the next few years as we move some of these successful
pilots into the mainstream of the curriculum.
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