Sonia Kovalevsky Days (SK Days) are nationally-held outreach events that are commonly organized by local chapters of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) to encourage young women to continue their study of mathematics. The AWM Student Chapter at Worcester Polytechnic Institute hosted virtual renditions of SK Day for middle school girls…

Northeastern University's EdD faculty faced unique challenges during the pandemic and racial reckoning following George Floyd's murder. During this period, however, we found opportunities to adapt and improve our program. We prioritized compassion and connection. We made significant strides in curriculum development through design and…

Bridgewater State University moved undergraduate research (UR) programs online in early 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A few months later, Black Lives Matter demonstrations, the university's racial justice reckonings and recommitments, and the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on Black and Brown communities guided the…

Almost immediately after schools closed due to the coronavirus outbreak in spring 2020, we began to see anecdotal evidence that charter schools were reacting quickly and serving students well. This paper offers evidence that smaller networks and schools that represent over 65% of the charter school landscape were able to respond quickly and take…

In recent decades, in line with improvements in technology, schools have increasingly opted for Online Credit Recovery Programs (OCRPs) over traditional face-to-face courses. Despite sharing a common goal with traditional face-to-face programs--providing a pathway for students to get back on track, to avoid failing additional courses and falling…

Individual teachers, administrators, and parents made tremendous efforts to continue educating the Commonwealth's children between March and June of this year. But no amount of dedicated individual effort could have overcome fundamental challenges: weak guidance to districts from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) against…

While many colleges and universities are trying to adapt to the forces affecting higher education today, a recent move by the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology is about to cause a seismic shift. The prototype version of MITx is scheduled for launch in spring 2012. MITx is an outgrowth of MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), which began in…

Only a generation ago, universities like Northeastern and Boston University had campuses strategically sprinkled throughout eastern Massachusetts. Lesley University offered graduate education programs across the U.S. BU had a contract with the U.S. Army to deliver master's programs on military bases throughout Europe. Mega-high-tech companies,…

Innovators and entrepreneurs are using technologies to make freely available the things for which universities charge significant money. MOOCs (massive open online courses), free online courses, lecture podcasts, low-cost off-the-shelf general education courses, online tutorials, digital collections of open learning resources, open badges--all are…

It is an exciting time for online education. Lately, there has been breathless talk of a "revolution" and massive "disruption," largely based on Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) models pioneered by universities such as MIT and Stanford, and headline-grabbing start-up companies such as Udacity and Coursera. Meanwhile,…

Massive open online courses (MOOC's) are the latest development in online education. Over the past decade, millions of students have taken free online versions of existing courses at well-known universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but such courses often offered little more than reading lists and lecture notes. MOOC's are…

The Internet has disrupted or threatened to disrupt the traditional business models in many different areas, including publishing, record companies, retail sales, motion pictures, and advertising. One potential source of disruption for higher education is online learning, especially the recent focus on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Can…

A reality show about a college course--a chemistry class no less? That's what "ChemLab Boot Camp" is. The 14-part series of short videos is being released one episode at a time on the online learning site of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The novel show follows a diverse group of 14 freshmen as they struggle to master the…

In order for faculty to make a successful transition to teaching in the online classroom, they must receive professional development specifically geared toward this challenge. Bay Path College offers a faculty development program that incorporates three distinct components all geared toward aiding faculty to adjust to teaching online and providing…

Faculty development programs are critical to the implementation and support of curriculum innovation. In this case study, the authors present lessons learned from ten years of experience in faculty development programs created to support innovation in technology enhanced learning. Stages of curriculum innovation are matched to stages of faculty…