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A class with hundreds or even thousands of students might sound like a teacher＇s worst nightmare. But a big idea in higher education these days is Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs. Some universities offer free, non-credit MOOCs available to anyone in the world. Others charge for courses and provide credits, The idea is still developing. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology started its first MOOC in 2021. The school plans to offer many free, non-credit courses through a project called MITx. Many Chinese universities are beginning to offer free MOOCs now too. Nowadays, MOOCs almost cover every topic, like computer science, technology, mechanics, engineering, languages, etc. Generally speaking, there are no formal education requirements for these free online courses. Students watch short videos. Then, they take informal, ungraded quizzes after the videos each week for certain weeks. Quizzes are part of the lecture program to keep students engaged and keep them thinking, for students to be able to check that they understood what was covered. They can repeatedly watch the videos and take the quizzes whenever they want. Students receive homework. They can join online groups to exchange questions and answers about the courses. The teachers hold virtual office hours to answer questions that the students have posted. They also present their own questions and observations. Some supporters claimed that there are things that we can do better in the online format. We can certainly deliver high-quality education to many students at much lower cost.
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