But things are different today. And learning today occurs differently online. If the COVID-19 pandemic did one thing, it accelerated the change that needed to take place a long time ago. Simply put, instructors were teaching without the data to guide results of their efforts. Sure, there were snap quizzes or end-of-semester exams that tested rote memorization; but there was little done in the way of questioning the development of skills across multiple disciplines, or the readiness of students (gained through the application of such skills) to enter the workforce. It was all a fairly abstract enterprise, justified under the auspices of ‘we’ve always done it this way’ and ‘no evidence exists to dispute our method.’ Schools existed as remnants of the secular church, where instructors acted as high priests and students acted as scribes.
Hence the reason for highlighting Minerva. The company’s founders understood some time ago, well before the COVID-19 pandemic, that education needed to change – and, most particularly, that higher education needed to change. Anticipating the need for a different learning paradigm, one built on a technology
platform that empowered students and held instructors accountable through data and metrics, Minerva succeeded in building a platform that flipped instruction on its head. Teachers became guides, students pursued learning not just online through consciously structured global and multicultural environments but through the acquisition of skills that could be used across disciplines and in multiple professional settings. It is a model for our time, one that challenges traditional thinking by breaking down the barriers of how knowledge is gained and how it is demonstrated.
Origins
After decades of questioning the effectiveness of the current higher education system, Ben Nelson set out to re-imagine the university in 2011. For a year, with only an idea, he set out to convince investors, board members and the first members of the management team of his vision. By 2014, he had enrolled the
inaugural class at Minerva Schools at KGI (originally incubated at the Keck Graduate Institute, which became Minerva University in
example, a Minerva curriculum will not teach students how to write essays, but rather the concepts of audience, thesis, composition, etc. that can be applied whether writing an essay, tweeting, or producing a video – all of which would endure and still be applicable on whatever new media the future would bring. The curriculum is intentionally designed to teach students how to apply skills in unknown contexts, through rigorously applying them across subject matters and discipline, allowing students to learn as much from their peers, as from faculty.
How Minerva Teaches
The lecture is a highly cost-efficient way of teaching. It is an equally highly ineffective way of learning. With studies showing that 60% of learning acquired in traditional lectures is forgotten after six months, Minerva bans lectures in its classes, as evidence suggests there are more effective ways to acquire new information. Relying on a Fully Active Learning pedagogy, Minerva’s classes are all seminar based. Information acquisition happens outside the classroom, and classes are for deepening
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Posted with permission.