For teachers taking Eric Lander’s MOOC, 7.00x Introduction to Biology – The Secret of Life, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has collaborated with MITx to broaden the reach and impact of the course by offering great resources that complement the course materials.
NSTA will be hosting web seminars, which Professor Lander will participate in, to discuss course topics and how to better teach particular concepts. Below are links to information about the supporting components NSTA is offering for the course.
- Three pedagogical-focused web seminars by NSTA press authors with MIT professors
- Digital resources for teaching the concepts to your students
- Moderated community discussion forum on biological pedagogy
- An optional pedagogical certificate to showcase your knowledge via this open course
This collaboration is just one of the unique approaches being taken in the 7.00x course. We’ll share more on others in future posts.
Will MITx courses be openly licensed? The site footer says “Some Rights Reserved” but there’s not a single mention I can find anywhere on the site, including the FAQ, of what rights those might be. Really hoping for MIT to provide some leadership for the other MOOCs…
The current plan is to share materials from MITx courses through the OpenCourseWare site, much as materials are shared through OCW from MIT’s classroom based courses. The materials shared through OCW may not be inclusive of all materials used in MITx courses (just as OCW doesn’t include all materials from classroom courses) but we plan to share as much as possible.