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Mit is developing a new online tool platform called MITx that will hopefully bolster MIT's already success OpenCourseWare by:

• organizing and present course material to enable students to learn at their own pace
• featuring interactivity, online laboratories and student-to-student communication
• allowing for the individual assessment of any student’s work and allow students who demonstrate their mastery of subjects to earn a certificate of completion awarded by MITx
• operating on an open-source, scalable software infrastructure in order to make it continuously improving and readily available to other educational institutions.

You can check out the full article here you can see the details on how they plan to revolutionize the quality of online education in America. Very exciting times indeed!

MIT President Susan Hockfield said,

                       “MIT has long believed that anyone in the world with the motivation and ability to engage MIT coursework should have the opportunity to          attain the best MIT-based educational experience that Internet technology enables..."

Sitting in a lecture hall with 100-150 other psychology students isn't quite the definition of exciting. If you're an undergraduate student considering graduate school, getting out of the classroom and into the field of research is extremely beneficial to both your resume and your knowledge in psych. I am in my 3rd semeser as a 395 under the direction of Dr. Ellen Usher. It's one thing to learn about Albert Bandura and self-efficacy through a textbook and powerpoint presentations. It's an entirely different way of learning when you are seeing the motivation variances in 4th through 8th grade classrooms. I spend most every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in elementary and middle schools across Fayette County gathering data on how students feel they perform in reading and math. We are just finishing up our 5th wave of data collection and putting together proposals to present at conferences. I can assure any student that learning through your own research or helping others with theirs is a whole new way of gaining yet another great opportunity that the University of Kentucky provides you with. Join a 395 research team and experience it for yourself!!

This past Summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to study abroad with Semester at Sea. It was a fantastic learning experience and I was able to make many new friends. I was on the MV Explorer for a month and was able to see seven countries. With this program, you have the ability to study about a particular concept and then experience it in the countries you visit. I took a class in education on board the ship. My class then had the opportunity to teach in Honduras and Trinidad and Tobago. This was my favorite experience during my voyage. I cannot express how fun it is to study on a cruise ship. If you have the chance, you should look into this program or any other Education Abroad program! I highly suggest that as an undergraduate student you study abroad. It truly is a life changing experience.

http://www.semesteratsea.org/

Sunday morning I awoke to the news that Whitney Houston had passed away.

(Photo credit: Size Doesn’t Matter Blog)