This post is provided by guest blogger, Callie Surber, graduate student at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, MS in Training and Development program.

Have a big question about the future of education at your institution? Have thousands of college students and faculty who have opinions and possibly bright ideas on this exact topic? Jeffrey Young’s article for EdSurge highlights the efforts MIT implemented to sort out the plethora of options to restart the Cambridge, MA institution this fall amidst the pandemic. The student and faculty body shared their opinions on several models of re-opening via Zoom. Then, a group analyzed the feedback and are currently working on report to present to the MIT community.

I found this article to be quite relevant with leveraging a massive amount of stakeholders’ opinions coupled with readily accessible technology to quickly assemble the data. I find it refreshing that a higher education institution did not seclude the board to make this decision. They put it in the hands of those most affected, the students and faculty. Could your organization put a decision that affects the future of its employee and student base in the hands of the masses in a Zoom breakout room? MIT just did.

References

Young, J. R. (2020, June 19). How MIT is crowdsourcing its reopening plans for the fall. EdSurge News. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-06-19-how-mit-is-crowdsourcing-its-reopening-plans-for-the-fall