Chalk Radio

MIT OpenCourseWare

Chalk Radio is an MIT OpenCourseWare podcast about inspired teaching at MIT. We take you behind the scenes of some of the most interesting courses on campus to talk with the professors who make those courses possible. Our guests open up to us about the passions that drive their cutting-edge research and innovative teaching, sharing stories that are candid, funny, serious, personal, and full of insights. Listening in on these conversations is like being right here with us in person under the MIT dome, talking with your favorite professors. And because each of our guests shares teaching materials on OCW, it's easy to take a deeper dive into the topics that inspire you. If you're an educator, you can make these teaching materials your own because they're all openly-licensed. Hosted by Dr. Sarah Hansen from MIT Open Learning. Chalk Radio episodes are offered under a CC BY-NC-SA license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/).

  • 44 minutes 19 seconds
    The Kitchen Cloud Chamber with Prof. Anne White

    You don’t need a multibillion-dollar supercollider to detect subatomic particles. In fact, you can build a working cloud chamber—a device capable of revealing the cosmic radiation and radon decay events that go on continuously around us—with just a block of dry ice, some rubbing alcohol, and a few objects you probably already have in your kitchen. What’s more, constructing the cloud chamber only takes about an hour, making it an ideal project for an introductory physics class, for intellectually engaged nonscientists, or even for curious kindergartners (with some adult supervision!). In this interview, engineering professor Anne White discusses the pedagogical usefulness of such hands-on activities—and at the other end of the spectrum, she describes her enthusiasm for a much, much larger physics project, the decades-long effort to put nuclear fusion to practical use as a source of clean power for the world. The interview also touches on Prof. White’s experience of mentorship, both as mentee in her youth and as mentor now, and on the formative influence of childhood toys in paving the way for the kind of creative goal-driven tinkering that nuclear scientists and engineers practice.

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator Portal

    Professor White’s faculty page

    22.011 Nuclear Engineering: Science, Systems and Society on MIT OpenCourseWare

    Anne White's article: Cloud Chamber Kit for Active Learning in a First-Year Undergraduate Nuclear Science Seminar Class (PDF)

    PBS NOVA video on making a kitchen cloud chamber

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    24 April 2024, 9:00 am
  • 25 minutes 49 seconds
    Honoring Your Native Language with Prof. Michel DeGraff

    We first interviewed Professor Michel DeGraff back in season 1; he now returns for another episode, diving deeper into issues of culture and identity. He talks about his childhood in Haiti, where he was punished at school for speaking his own mother tongue, and where he was taught by his teachers and even his parents that Kreyòl was not “a real language.” After doing early work in natural language processing that led him to question widespread assumptions about language, Prof. DeGraff shifted his academic focus to linguistics. He now begins each iteration of his course 24.908 Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities by asking his students to write linguistic autobiographies that describe the languages they grew up speaking and examine their own attitudes about language. In addition to discussing that course, he talks in this episode about his efforts to draw attention to language’s role in perpetuating imbalances of power. As an added bonus, we hear from two students from 24.908, discussing how Prof. DeGraff helped cultivate trust in the classroom, and how that trust freed the students to enrich each other’s understanding of the world by sharing personal experiences and insights.

    *English Translation of Prof. Michel DeGraff’s Kreyòl Statement:

     So, my fellow countrymen,

    There's something that is very VERY important to understand:

    we must understand the origins of prejudices against Kreyòl.

    We must also remember that Dessalines said, so clearly,

    that everyone is human. And he also knew that,

    if everyone is human, then every language is a perfectly normal language.

    So Kreyòl, too, is a perfectly normal language.  

    That's why he said, since before 1804,

    that Kreyòl is our own language,

    so we don't need to always look for other languages to speak.

    Yes, we must remember, if we did not have Kreyòl as a language,

    we could never have succeeded in making this revolution

    that gave us an independent Haiti.

    Kreyòl was the language of the revolution.

    So, today, we must use

    Kreyòl too as language of instruction.

    It is this language that will allow all children in Haiti 

    to access quality education as their right.

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare 

    The OCW Educator Portal 

    Professor DeGraff’s faculty page 

    24.908 Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities on OpenCourseWare 

    The MIT-Haiti Initiative 

    Chalk Radio Season 1 episode with Prof. DeGraff

    NY Times op-ed by Prof. DeGraff 

    Linguistics and Economics in the Caribbean (article by Ianá Ferguson) 

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions (https://www.sessions.blue/)

     

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site 

    On Facebook 

    On Twitter 

    On Instagram 

     

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. (https://ocw.mit.edu/newsletter/)

     

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

     

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer 

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    18 April 2023, 9:00 am
  • 15 minutes 13 seconds
    Sustainability Education Across Learning Environments with Dr. Liz Potter-Nelson and Sarah Meyers

    Many people associate the word “sustainability” with a few specific activities such as composting or recycling. Our guests for this episode, Dr. Liz Potter-Nelson and Sarah Meyers, point out that sustainability is actually much broader, encompassing all the future-oriented practices that promote the continued flourishing of individuals, cultures, and life on earth. Dr. Potter-Nelson and Meyers have sought not only to make education a tool for sustainability but to make it a sustainable activity itself. In this episode, they describe how they created the Sustainability and Climate Change Across Learning Environments (SCALES) project, a curated repository of open-source, easily adaptable educational resources, many of them originally adapted from course materials on MIT OpenCourseWare. These resources, which are categorized according to a set of six main pedagogical approaches and six chief competency areas, draw from a surprisingly wide range of academic fields, but each was selected for its potential to support sustainability in the classroom and in the world. After all, Dr. Potter-Nelson and Meyers say, sustainability is an inherently interdisciplinary subject, one that can inform–and be informed by–teaching in nearly any field of study.

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator Portal

    Dr. Potter-Nelson’s website

    Sarah Meyers at MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative

    Teaching with Sustainability resource on OpenCourseWare

    The SCALES Project

    Dr. Potter-Nelson’s white paper on sustainability education

    United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

     

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On Twitter

    On Instagram

     

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

     

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

     

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    5 April 2023, 9:00 am
  • 18 minutes 37 seconds
    Teaching Teachers with Dr. Summer Morrill

    Nobody comes into this world already knowing how to teach—and most students arrive at undergraduate or graduate programs without any teaching experience at all. For those who are selected to be teaching assistants, the prospect of facing a classroom of students for the first time can be terrifying. To assuage those fears and provide pedagogical skills, the Biology department at MIT runs a training program for new TAs; our guest Dr. Summer Morrill helped develop the curriculum for that program, as well as serving as an instructor in it. In this episode, Dr. Morrill describes how she designed the content of the training program to reflect the specific challenges Biology TAs typically face in their first semester. Among the topics she discusses are the importance of empathy and inclusiveness in classroom teaching, how the same habits of thought that make effective biologists can also make especially effective teachers, and ways in which the course materials from the training program (which she is sharing in a forthcoming supplemental resource on OCW), would lend themselves to being usefully adapted for training TAs in other disciplines and at other institutions.

     

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator Portal

    RES.7-005 Biology Teaching Assistant (TA) Training on OCW

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

     

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On Twitter

    On Instagram

     

    Stay Current

    Subscribeto the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

     

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware,donateto help keep these programs going! 

     

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    22 March 2023, 9:00 am
  • 19 minutes 24 seconds
    Communication is the Whole Game with Paige Bright & Prof. Haynes Miller

    In this episode we meet Haynes Miller, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, who in his 35+ years of active teaching at MIT has done much to shape the institute’s math curriculum. Prof. Miller’s special focus is algebraic topology, but his teaching has encompassed a wide range of other topics from differential equations to number theory, and he has a special interest in teaching undergraduates. Join us as Prof. Miller discusses math education with guest host Paige Bright, a current MIT third-year student who was one of his students in a first-year seminar and who has since acquired teaching experience of her own as the instructor for the course Introduction to Metric Spaces during the Independent Activities Period in January 2022 and 2023. Among the topics they cover in this discussion are the importance of communication in mathematics, Prof. Miller’s use of computer manipulatives (which he calls “mathlets”) to engage students more actively, what “lab work” means in the context of pure mathematics, how instructors from different institutions have come together online to discuss ways to improve undergraduate math education, and what happens when you ask students to switch roles and become teachers.

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare 

    The OCW Educator Portal 

    18.03 Differential Equations on OCW 

    18.821 Project Laboratory in Mathematics on OCW 

    18.915 Graduate Topology Seminar: Kan Seminar on OCW 

    Paige Bright’s course Introduction to 18.S097 Metric Spaces on OCW 

    Prof. Miller’s faculty page 

    Prof. Miller’s “manipulatives” at mathlets.org 

    Online Seminar on Undergraduate Mathematics Education (OLSUME) 

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions 

     

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site 

    On Facebook 

    On Twitter 

    On Instagram 

     

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

     

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

     

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    8 March 2023, 10:00 am
  • 16 minutes 42 seconds
    Opening Computer Science to Everyone with Chancellor Eric Grimson

    Eric Grimson is MIT’s chancellor for academic advancement and interim vice president for Open Learning; he’s also a longstanding professor of computer science and medical engineering. In this episode, Prof. Grimson shares his thoughts on in-person and online education. We learn that he rehearses each lecture one, two, or even three times before coming to the classroom, and that he often pauses in his speech when lecturing to avoid distracting his students with “um”s and “ah”s and similar disfluencies. But though some of the techniques he describes might seem to reflect a view of teaching as performance, Grimson firmly believes that education should be a dialogue rather than a monologue—that students should be engaged as partners in the exploration of the material, even in an introductory-level class. “Anybody with enough curiosity ought to be able to explore a field,” he says, “and we ought to be able to teach at a level that opens it up to them.” The same conviction underlies his commitment to sharing his expertise online, whether by publishing his course materials on MIT OpenCourseWare or through purpose-built MOOCs on MITx. [Warning: this episode also includes numerous bad jokes!]     

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare 

    The OCW Educator Portal 

    6.0001 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python on OCW 

    6.0002 Introduction To Computational Thinking And Data Science on OCW

    Professor Grimson’s faculty page 

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions 

     

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook 

    On Twitter 

    On Instagram 

     

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

     

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!

     

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    22 February 2023, 10:00 am
  • 17 minutes 48 seconds
    Seeing Green with Drs. Sandland and Chazot

    MIT has long been an innovator in online education. For even longer—for its whole history, in fact—it has championed hands-on learning. These two emphases may seem incompatible, but the MICRO initiative draws on both in an effort to increase diversity within the field of materials science. Dr. Jessica Sandland and Dr. Cécile Chazot, our guests for this episode, describe how MICRO recruits undergraduates from minoritized backgrounds to do impactful research remotely in collaboration with MIT researchers. Dr. Sandland and Dr. Chazot see this collaboration as a mutually beneficial relationship: the MICRO students gain valuable experience in cutting-edge research, as well as an introduction to a field they may not have had the opportunity to study previously, while the MIT researchers benefit both from the students’ work on the projects and from the fresh perspectives they bring to the field. In this episode, we also hear how MICRO supports participants’ professional development with guidance from “near-peer” grad-student mentors, who provide help not only in technical matters but also in developing soft skills such as writing abstracts or defining questions for research.  

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator Portal

    MICRO resource on OCW

    Mentoring worksheets: 

    Abstracts of research by MICRO participants

    Apply to MICRO

    Dr. Sandland’s faculty page

    Dr. Chazot’s website

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

     

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On Twitter

    On Instagram

     

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

     

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!

     

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

     

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    8 February 2023, 10:00 am
  • 16 minutes 50 seconds
    Well-being is the Goal with Prof. Frank Schilbach

    Do you always make the best possible choices, even when you’re stressed or short on sleep? The ideally rational person (“Homo economicus”) assumed by conventional economics always acts in ways that are materially advantageous to them. But Associate Professor Frank Schilbach seeks in his research and teaching to explore the ways in which Homo economicus fails as a model of actual human behavior; in particular, Prof. Schilbach is interested in uncovering the psychological factors that influence people’s choices, even when those choices appear obviously counterproductive and irrational. In this episode, Prof. Schilbach discusses how psychologically-informed interventions can not only boost people’s productivity, earnings, and savings, but can even increase their tendency toward benevolence and cooperation. As he puts it, while economists have not ignored mental health altogether, they have tended to view it instrumentally, in terms of its effects on productivity or financial stability. It would be better, he suggests, to view mental health as valuable for its own sake, as an inherent element of overall well-being–which is why he prioritizes students’ mental health by making assignments due not first thing in the morning but at 6 or 8 PM!

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare 

    The OCW Educator Portal 

    Professor Schilbach’s behavioral economics course on OCW

    Professor Schilbach’s faculty page

    Professor Schilbach at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

    Connect with Us:

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On Twitter

    On Instagram

    Stay Current:

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

    Support OCW:

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!

    Credits:

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    25 January 2023, 10:00 am
  • 15 minutes 51 seconds
    The Greatest Existential Threat with Prof. Robert Redwine and Dr. Jim Walsh

    To most people, especially those who are too young to remember the Cold War, the possibility of nuclear Armageddon may seem so remote as not to be worth contemplating. But Prof. Bob Redwine and Jim Walsh, two of the instructors behind MIT’s Nuclear Weapons Education Project (NWEP), warn that it may not be so unlikely after all, and that failure to take the threat of nuclear war seriously makes it more likely that it will actually occur. Redwine, Walsh, and their colleagues used their expertise from a wide array of fields to create the NWEP and its associated course 8.S271 Nuclear Weapons – History and Prospects. Together, the course and the project website represent an interdisciplinary effort to educate nonspecialists on the science, technology, and history of nuclear weapons, along with present efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and to reach international agreements to reduce the likelihood of a world-devastating conflict. In this episode, we hear how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed geopolitics forever, how a well-intentioned nuclear doctrine may have disastrous unintended consequences, and why understanding the topic of nuclear weapons requires an interdisciplinary approach. 

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator Portal 

    Professor Redwine’s faculty page

    Jim Walsh’s faculty page

    8.S271 Nuclear Weapons - History and Future Prospects on OCW

    Nuclear Weapons Education Project website

    “Nuclear Gets Personal with Prof. Michael Short” (Chalk Radio episode)

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

    Connect with Us:

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On Twitter

    On Instagram

    Stay Current:

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    11 January 2023, 10:00 am
  • 13 minutes 38 seconds
    Visualizing Calculus with Professor Gigliola Staffilani

    Professor Gigliola Staffilani, who teaches in MIT’s Department of Mathematics, was closely involved in designing and teaching the introductory-level 18.01 Calculus I course series now found on the MIT Open Learning Library. She’s also been involved in teaching calculus to students on campus. To help students become proficient in a notoriously intimidating subject, she has tried to design learning experiences that bridge the gap between the pure abstractions that mathematicians love, exemplified by the use of conventional notation such as x, y, and f(x), and the concrete real-world situations in which calculus is typically applied in other fields such as chemistry or physics. In this episode, Prof. Staffilani discusses her efforts to make calculus less abstract and more intuitive for learners–efforts that draw on a diverse mix of teaching tools and props: digital applets, sketching tools, bagels, croissants, donuts, and even a balloon in a box. She also discusses her commitment to increasing equity and fighting implicit bias in her field.

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator Portal

    Share your teaching insights

    Professor Staffilani’s faculty page

    Single variable calculus courses on MIT’s Open Learning Library

    18.01 Calculus I: Single Variable Calculus on OCW

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

     

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On Twitter

    On Instagram

     

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

     

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!

     

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    30 June 2022, 9:00 am
  • 18 minutes 44 seconds
    Finding Expertise Everywhere with Prof. M. Amah Edoh

    Though there’s widespread consensus that the slavery and colonization that characterize the history of European relations with Africa represent a legacy of grave injustice, there is much less agreement on how to redress that injustice. Professor M. Amah Edoh, who teaches in MIT’s Department of Anthropology, designed the course 21A.S01 Reparations for Slavery and Colonization with the goal of honestly facing the historical record and openly discussing how best to respond. Because she believes expertise is too often conceived of as something that flows “north-south” from the developed nations toward the developing world, she structured the course to embrace expertise wherever it might be found—recruiting guest lecturers from various disciplines and from institutions around the world, as well as activists currently involved in the quest for reparative justice. She even went a step further, sharing the lecture videos on YouTube while the semester was still ongoing and inviting viewers to contribute their own insights into how to deal with the ongoing legacy of historical wrongs. In this episode, Prof. Edoh describes the motivation for this innovative course structure and reflects on the challenges of grappling with such a sensitive subject.

    Relevant Resources:

    MIT OpenCourseWare

    The OCW Educator Portal

    Share your teaching insights

    Professor Edoh’s faculty page

    Course materials by Professor Edoh on OCW

    21A.S01 Reparations for Slavery and Colonization on OCW

    Open Learning story on 21A.S01

    OCW YouTube playlist for 21A.S01

    Africa’s Expertise (YouTube lecture by Prof Edoh)

    African Futures Action Lab

    How Africa Has Been Made to Mean (2020 episode of Chalk Radio)

    Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

     

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    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer (https://twitter.com/learning_sarah)

    Brett Paci, producer  (https://twitter.com/Brett_Paci)

    Dave Lishansky, producer (https://twitter.com/DaveResonates)

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    Connect with Us

    If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! 

    Call us @ 617-715-2517

    On our site

    On Facebook

    On X

    On Instagram

    On LinkedIn

    Stay Current

    Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

    Support OCW

    If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! 

    Credits

    Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

    Brett Paci, producer  

    Dave Lishansky, producer 

    Show notes by Peter Chipman

    27 April 2022, 9:00 am
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