Dive Brief:

• St. George's University has increased the pass rate of students in its public health massive open online course by more than 400%, and nearly five times the national completion rate for similar distance learning modules. 
• The course uses flipped classroom models, peer review and industrial infusion to make lessons more engaging and enriched for students. 
• The model follows a similar approach taken by Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley in its graduate business courses. 

Dive Insight:

With their low completion rates and other negative performance indicators, Massive Open Online Courses have not transformed the industry the way many once thought they would. Some higher education officials believe MOOCs were a flashy idea that fizzled under the lack of interest and faculty capacity to make the module engaging for students. Now that institutions are leveraging technology and interaction as an essential part of the distance learning concept, their popularity 

Coursera Co-Founder Daphne Koller recently said MOOCs would be a regular part of the higher education landscape in five years, and that could be a reality for leaders who prioritize affordability, faculty buy-in and training and industrial pairing to make the courses and degree programs valuable to a growing student population.