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 revolutionthat gave us an independent Haiti.Kreyòl was the language of the revolution.So, today, we must useKreyòl 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. DeGraffNY 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 UsIf 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 @ 617-715-2517On our site On Facebook On Twitter On Instagram  Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. (https://ocw.mit.edu/newsletter/) Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!  CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

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 OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalDr. Potter-Nelson’s websiteSarah Meyers at MIT’s Environmental Solutions InitiativeTeaching with Sustainability resource on OpenCourseWareThe SCALES ProjectDr. Potter-Nelson’s white paper on sustainability educationUnited Nations Sustainable Development GoalsMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf 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 @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.  Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!  CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

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 OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalRES.7-005 Biology Teaching Assistant (TA) Training on OCWMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf 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 @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribeto the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.  Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware,donateto help keep these programs going!  CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

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 UsIf 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 @ 617-715-2517On our site On Facebook On Twitter On Instagram  Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!  CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

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 OCWProfessor Grimson’s faculty page Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions  Connect with UsIf 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 @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn Facebook On Twitter On Instagram  Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

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 OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalMICRO resource on OCWMentoring worksheets: Defining a Research Project and Aligning Expectations (PDF)Planning and Managing Remote Research Tasks (PDF)Effective and Inclusive Communication in Remote Mode (PDF)Fostering Independence (PDF)Establishing a Network of Mentors: The Mentoring Map (PDF)  Abstracts of research by MICRO participantsApply to MICRODr. Sandland’s faculty pageDr. Chazot’s websiteMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf 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 @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producerShow notes by Peter Chipman 

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 OCWProfessor Schilbach’s faculty pageProfessor Schilbach at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action LabMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect 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 @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay 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

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 OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator Portal Professor Redwine’s faculty pageJim Walsh’s faculty page8.S271 Nuclear Weapons - History and Future Prospects on OCWNuclear Weapons Education Project website“Nuclear Gets Personal with Prof. Michael Short” (Chalk Radio episode)Music in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect 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 @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay Current:Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman