New University Studies for Student Veterans MOOC set to launch September 6

Sep 5, 2017 | Announcements

On September 6, 2017, Columbia University’s new Center for Veteran Transition and Integration, the School of General Studies, and the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) will launch a new MOOC (massive open online course) University Studies for Student Veterans on the edX platform.

Also known as USSV101x, University Studies for Student Veterans is based on a course that has been taught with great success at Columbia for the last five years. Led by a team of academic advisors from Columbia University with more than 20 years of experience supporting students—including thousands of student veterans—transitioning to higher education, this course offers strategies for academic success for service members and veterans navigating the transition from military service to the college classroom.

The CTL has worked closely with the USSV101x course instructors to develop an interactive learning design that encourages participants to discuss, reflect upon, and apply the concepts and strategies they are learning to help ease their transition from service to school and bolster their academic performance. Each of the six sections in the MOOC requires approximately 3-4 hours of effort and feature lectures by Columbia instructors, interviews with veterans on how they have used the skills in the course, and formative and summative assessment activities designed to help students complete the course by creating a personalized active learning plan to help them achieve their academic goals in college.

The course is free and open to all, but tailored specifically for student veterans currently pursuing higher education, active duty service members who aspire to start school or return to school soon, and higher education professionals who work to support student veterans at their schools.

“Student veterans who take the path from active military service to the rigors of a college classroom tell us the same thing: transitioning from being in the service to being a student isn’t always straightforward, and the culture shift can be jarring,” said R.J. Jenkins, the former Associate Dean of Students who leads the curriculum design team for the Center. “As a result, veterans who pursue higher education once they’ve left the military sometimes find the transition challenging.”

According to the course description on edX, the online curriculum may be used in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, as a start-to finish, self-directed online experience (MOOC). It can also, in its current format, serve as an “orientation” for other student veteran success programs, a library/toolkit of academic success strategies, a tool for flipped classroom pedagogy, or a companion text for on-the-ground transition courses.

Visit ColumbiaX to register for University Studies for Student Veterans and to keep informed about upcoming MOOC releases from Columbia.

Read the full press release on the Columbia News website.

For more information about University Studies for Student Veterans, visit the Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration website.