Dive Brief:
- Coursera, the massive open online courses provider, plans to set up eight new so-called learning hubs — physical classrooms where students can receive a more hands-on teaching approach — including its first two hubs in the U.S.
- Dominican University of California in San Rafael, CA, will be Coursera’s first learning hub in the U.S., followed by one at the New York Public Library.
- Coursera says the teaching hubs are more successful than online-only teaching, with completion rates above 30%, compared to 6.8% for all courses offered by Coursera partner institutions, Inside Higher Ed reported.
Dive Insight:
Coursera launched its first hubs in November, with more than half of them located in emerging markets countries. At the hubs, students combine screen time with in-person teaching and collaboration from course facilitators and other students. With the newly announced hubs, Coursera now has 17. The others are at Azusa Pacific University in South Africa, Bionic Hill in Ukraine, Brainstation in Toronto, Guokr in Beijing, Marconi University in Rome and the Slim Foundation in Mexico. Coursera also announced a program for signing up volunteers to translate course content.