Dartmouth is expanding its digital learning offerings with a new partnership with the Coursera e-learning platform.

Faculty and staff from across campus, including the Thayer School of Engineering, the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society, the Tuck School of Business, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, develop six Dartmouth-Coursera courses. credit-free on a range of topics, from energy equity to web development.

“Dartmouth’s partnership with Coursera is a new way for our amazing faculty to make their expertise accessible to a wider audience, and for faculty and staff to experiment with new teaching and learning methods that will pay dividends. in the classroom in person, ”says Interim Provost David Kotz ’86.

The first program, a stand-alone course titled Energy Justice: Fostering More Equitable Energy Futures, launched on November 20. The interdisciplinary course is a collaboration between the Irving Institute and the Departments of Arts and Science and includes perspectives from various fields including anthropology, history, environmental science, and political science. It aims to empower learners to take action. Participation in the course is free; an option to take graded assessments to receive a certificate of completion from Coursera is available for a fee.

Digital Transformation, a course developed with the Thayer School of Engineering that will provide skills to manage organizational change in a changing digital world, will begin on January 17. In this six-month, four-course program, students enroll as a cohort and receive a certificate of completion. Registration is now open; the deadline to register is January 10th. Registration is chargeable.

Later in 2022, Dartmouth-Coursera will launch a series of four-course certificate-less specialization programs, available for a monthly subscription through Coursera, which students can take at their own pace. These include “Full Stack Web Development,” a collaboration between arts and science faculty and the Digital Applied Learning and Innovation (DALI) Lab; and three business programs offered by Tuck’s faculty: “Strategic Leadership: Impact, Change and Decision Making for Work and Life”, “Go to Market: Strategic Choices for Your New Product’s Success” and ” Strategic innovation ”.

The partnership with Coursera is Dartmouth’s latest foray into digital learning, says Joshua Kim, director of online programs and strategy. In 2015, Dartmouth launched its first open online course in collaboration with the edX platform, and to date has produced over a dozen free and uncredited DartmouthX courses through the e-learning platform, in subjects ranging from environmental sciences to the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy to Italian opera and the poetry of John Milton.

Dartmouth’s relationship with edX continues as the institution expands to other platforms. Coursera, with around 80 million users worldwide, promises to expand Dartmouth’s reach, Kim says. But while the programs will help make faculty expertise accessible to a wider audience, they also have tangible benefits for students and faculty on campus.

“The goal of all of our online programs is to advance learning in Dartmouth,” says Kim.

A team effort

The faculty works with a team of instructional designers from Information, Technology & Consulting (ITC) and the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning – experts in learning science and educational technology – to tailor content to the digital environment, says Erin DeSilva, interim senior director of digital learning and innovation at ITC. “When teachers develop content for an online or asynchronous environment, it changes the way they teach. “

DeSilva says work to develop e-learning strategies with edX and in Dartmouth’s blended learning master’s programs over the past decade has helped when the COVID-19 pandemic forced Dartmouth to switch from in-person learning to distance learning almost overnight.

“What we knew about e-learning before the pandemic was how to think about student engagement – how students interact with course content, with the instructor and with each other,” she says. “These are the three things professors needed to name and be able to describe to their students early on in order for their distance learning courses to be successful. “

Likewise, according to DeSilva, the distance education experience has prompted faculty and instructional designers to develop innovative ways to assess student learning, from developing tailor-made group projects to integrating individual reflection in course work.

DeSilva sees Coursera as a way to keep innovating. “I am excited about what we are learning from this partnership,” she said.