Making lemonade out of remote teaching

Abstract

2020 was a year of big changes for the whole world. For the academic community, it was not different. The need to rapidly switch from in-person to online teaching represented a big challenge for most educators. However, with new challenges come also new and big opportunities. Assistant Professor of Economics at Stockholm University, Johannes Haushofer, saw in remote teaching the opportunity to open classes to students from low and middle-income countries.

Remote Student Exchange was then created as a volunteer and non-profit initiative to match professors willing to offer spots in their classes with interested students from low and middle-income countries. To facilitate the matching process, a website was launched. It has been a great success so far. Two weeks after its launch, there were 1701 students and 88 professors registered and more than 30 courses offered in varied disciplines such as Economics, Business, Psychology, Political Science, Neuroscience, and many others. You can browse the available courses here.

At FORRT, we believe that one of the most overlooked benefits of integrating open and reproducible scholarship into higher education is that of social justice. Academia is still a place of privileges that many cannot afford. We highly commend this initiative and in the hopes of helping it grow even further, we have invited Johannes Haushoffer to explain a bit more how this idea came to be and to share his initial experiences with the community.