Sunday, January 4, 2015

With virtual seminars and lower tuition, Minerva Schools offers online alternative to college - PBS NewsHour

Minerva is a highly competitive liberal arts college without a single classroom, much less an ivy-trimmed campus. The dormitory is on one floor of this old apartment building Nob Hill. Students will spend the first year here, and then the subsequent six semesters living and studying in six different cities around the world. Next year, they head to Buenos Aires and Berlin. But the professors don’t go with them. In fact, they can be anywhere, including home, because they see their students exclusively online, via a proprietary software platform called the Active Learning Forum. It fosters a face-paced, engaging, seminar-style class. No lectures allowed. Studies show students only retain about 10 percent of what they learn this way two years later. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/virtual-seminars-lower-tuition-minerva-schools-offers-online-alternative-college/