The work of a partnership between The University of California Davis and OLI was recently highlighted by New York Times reporter Richard Prichard Pérez-Peña: Colleges Reinvent Classes to Keep More Students in Science. Inside Higher Ed blogger Joshua Kim argues that this is ‘The Most Important Higher Ed Story of 2015‘:
Larger enrollment courses are being re-thought as opportunities to invite students into the knowledge creation process. Advances in learning theory have taught us that we don’t retain what we don’t manipulate, create, and explain. Advances in digital learning platforms have enabled us, with significant investments in instructional design and course planning, to bring more active and collaborative methods to classes that were traditionally based on lectures and high-stakes assessments. Any course that does not move a significant portion of the content to beyond the time and space where instructors and students gather will feel anachronistic in an age of blended learning. Any course that does not take advantage of adaptive platforms for frequent low-stakes assessment will be forgoing opportunities for authentic learning.