In a recently released 213 page report (pdf) exploring how MIT should innovate to adapt to new technologies and new student expectations, the report’s authors found that there may be benefits to offering “mix and match learning modules” rather than traditional 12-week university courses. This argument is based on an analysis of students who took MOOCs through edX that found that of more than 800,000 people who registered for free courses, only about five percent finished, but “that larger percentages explored significant parts of courses, which may be all they wanted or needed.” Among the benefits of modularization would be that students could retake any module they have trouble with before moving to the next concept in a sequence; it would be easier for professors to teach courses together, since faculty members could tackle a section rather than a whole course; and that updating a module when new information emerges is easier than redesigning an entire course. The report also states that “25 percent of MIT professors suggested that their classes ‘could benefit from a modular approach,’ though only 10 percent said they had ever taught that way.”