Minerva Project Awards $500,000 to Harvard U. Pioneer of Peer Instruction

Eric Mazur, a professor of physics at Harvard University, will receive the first Minerva Prize for Advancements in Higher Education for his pioneering work on peer instruction in the classroom. The award, which includes a $500,000 cash prize, is offered by the Minerva Academy, a nonprofit offshoot of the entrepreneur Ben Nelson’s for-profit Minerva Project, which aims to create an elite online liberal-arts college.

Mr. Mazur developed peer instruction more than 20 years ago, and it has become po...