Innovators were prepared to meet the pandemic
A conversation with Ben Nelson (Feb 10, 2021)
By John Mitchell and Maxwell Bigman (Decade Ahead Project)
“Minerva is unique,” says founder Ben Nelson, “with fully online instruction in a comprehensively designed fully residential program.” Sitting comfortably at a simple white table in front of a plain beige wall, Ben explains over Zoom that “we were the only one of our model” when the pandemic struck. Unlike almost all other colleges and universities, Minerva was well positioned to operate through the pandemic, using fully online classes to serve residential students living in easily isolated pods. But as Ben observes, “When other institutions [moved to] online, they didn’t mirror what we did.” With years of successful operation since its creation in 2012, and several classes of lively energetic graduates trumpeting its success, why didn’t other colleges and universities flock to Minerva for assistance or advice?
“There is something pedagogically better”
The Minerva model created by Nelson, former Harvard psychologist, neuroscientist, and learning scientist Stephen Kosslyn and others is dramatically different from conventional colleges and universities. Many of the core ideas shaping Minerva are collected in Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the Future of Higher Education (MIT Press, 2017). Minerva focuses on students’ abilities to think critically, think creatively, to communicate effectively, and to work well with others. The Minerva curriculum is carefully designed around these four competencies, articulated in nearly 80 learning objectives. These objectives for all students, emphasizing what Minerva calls Habits of Mind and Foundational Concepts (HCs), are supplemented with additional content learning objectives for each field of study.
For students at residential facilities in seven vibrant world cities on four continents, the pedagogical model is flipped. Using a research-methodology, classes hosted on a custom online platform are devoted to discussing, debating, and collaboratively working on topics that are presented first in assignments that students complete outside of class time. “We are constantly encouraged to participate, which is one of the many ways our classes are different from the traditional lectures at other institutions,” says Joy Okoro, Class of 2019, from Lagos, Nigeria (https://www.minerva.kgi.edu). The residential component builds community and includes site-specific learning through hosted events, co-curricular programs, location-based assignments, and longer-term challenge projects.
“A golden opportunity for higher education”
The Minerva model already incorporated many of the key ideas that faculty elsewhere are discovering as a result of the pandemic: appreciation for the residential experience, setting clear learning goals, tracking student progress and safety, active-learning engagement, scaffolding student study groups outside of class, and mastery-based learning. Recognizing the value of their success, Minerva made several offers to assist other institutions in spring 2020. However, “this was too early,” says Ben; it has taken time for other institutions to realize the value of what Minerve offers. Without naming specific partnerships, Ben tells us that Fall 2020 brought stronger interest from institutions who had created some operational stability and started to understand the changes that could be useful to them longer term.
Ben Nelson’s energy is as contagious as his message about Minerva is clear: “there is something pedagogically better” and it’s time for higher education to catch on. Unlike pundits calling for a reckoning in higher education or predicting it’s imminent downfall, Nelson sees this moment as a “golden opportunity for higher education” — a chance to move away from what he describes with a sly smile as an “11th century modality of teaching.” Nelson likens this moment to a tsunami: there has been an earthquake at the bottom of the ocean floor, subtly creating a tectonic shift to move education toward more effective research-based pedagogy. “I think we’ll see a real shakeup coming out of this.”
