Education leaders at MIT have received a pair of Silver Awards and a Bronze Award at the QS Reimagine Education Awards, an international conference on education held annually in December.
A team that developed the MITx MicroMasters program in supply chain management was honored with a silver award for Best Online Program for Nurturing 21st Center Skills and with a bronze for the North American region. The MITx Biology group received a Silver Award for promoting the science of learning in learning-experience design. Chris Caplice, who directs the MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management, and Mary Ellen Wiltrout, lecturer in digital learning, biology, accepted the awards for these teams, respectively.
The projects were selected for awards from a pool of more than 1,500 submissions across 16 categories.
“It’s an honor for us to be recognized for the pioneering role that MIT has played in initiating the MicroMasters program movement — and for continuing to provide educational opportunities to our learners at a high level,” Caplice says. “We’re also very proud of our learners, who inspire us with their great achievements in the supply chain industry.”
“We’re delighted to be recognized for our work that goes into the intentional design of learning experiences for MIT students and MOOC learners,” Wiltrout said. “Many in K-12, higher education, and professional education want to incorporate the learning sciences into their work and just aren’t sure how to do so. We want to empower these individuals with an easy-to-understand model and workshops on how to start designing digital learning materials supporting the learning sciences, even if hybrid or online teaching is new to them.”
Launched in 2016, the MITx MicroMasters program in supply chain management is the world’s first-ever MicroMasters program. This flexible, affordable, and rigorously assessed online pathway to advanced education consists of a series of courses that culminate in a digitally delivered credential. The credential is recognized by employers and institutions as commensurate with one semester of graduate-level coursework at MIT. A successful credential earner completes a demanding sequence of MITx massive open online courses (MOOCs) that demonstrates their mastery of the concepts and skills necessary for a strong foundation in the supply chain management profession. Nearly 2,000 learners around the world have received this credential to date.
Wiltrout and team received their Science of Learning award for their leadership and best-practice sharing on incorporating learning sciences into the design of MOOCs and beyond. The team documented the principles from the learning sciences they put into practice in their hybrid learning experiences on MIT-campus and MOOC projects. They plan to promote the inclusion of the learning sciences in design through academic publications and talks, as well as hands-on workshops for instructors to learn how to apply these principles in the context of their own courses.
“We’re exceptionally proud of the innovative work that these teams do to advance education every day,” says MIT Dean for Digital Learning Krishna Rajagopal. “The recognition reinforces our commitment to high standards as MIT faculty, our Digital Learning Lab, and MITx create new online learning opportunities for MIT students and for learners around the world.”
