This episode features a wide-ranging conversation about poetry: what it is, where it comes from, and why it matters. Our guest, poet (and poetry professor) Joshua Bennett, talks about the early experiences that pushed him toward poetry and about the people who shaped and inspired his creative approach as a writer. Many of these people are fellow poets, others are his own grandparents, parents, and teachers, but Prof. Bennett has also found inspiration in less expected figures; over the course of the interview, he name-checks the singers Yolanda Adams and Marvin Gaye, the biologists Charles Henry Turner and Ernest Everett Just, the astronaut Mae Jemison, and various characters from the TV series Star Trek: the Next Generation. Other topics Prof. Bennett addresses include the relation between poetry and generative AI (his own work is among the vast body of text that has been fed as training data into large language models), education as liberation, and the concept of social poetics. Eventually, the interview blossoms into a heartfelt meditation on human experience: childhood, aging, parenthood, identity, and the ways poetry enhances our humanity by capturing the magic of being alive.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalJoshua Bennett’s faculty pageJoshua Bennett (Poetry Foundation)Aracelis Girmay, from The Black Maria June Jordan, “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America”Charles Henry Turner (Wikipedia)Ernest Everett Just (Wikipedia)Mae Jemison (Wikipedia)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 FacebookOn XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

Our guest for this episode, Professor Rebecca Saxe, is MIT’s Associate Dean of Science. Prof. Saxe is also the principal investigator for her own laboratory, the Saxe Lab, where she deploys powerful technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the relationship between human thought and brain activity. (She originally went into cognitive neuroscience because, as she puts it, there’s nothing cooler than the fact that “all the thoughts we ever have” arise out of the firing of neurons.). Prof. Saxe is also deeply committed to improving how research is conducted and published, both in her own field and in others to support a scientific method that will be more robust and will yield more reliably replicable results. One of the ways to achieve this more robust science, she explains, is to make a shift toward more openness, embracing transparency in every step of the scientific process and promoting generosity in the sharing of data. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProf. Saxe’s faculty page at Saxe Lab website“How We Read Each Other’s Minds” (TED talk video) Nelson memo on open access to Federally funded research (PDF)9.401 Tools for Robust Science on MIT OpenCourseWareRES.9-005 fMRI Bootcamp on MIT OpenCourseWareMusic 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 XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

As MIT’s Senior Associate Dean for Open Learning, Christopher Capozzola’s job is to look forward, identifying new opportunities and facing new challenges in online and digital learning. But he’s also a professor of American history. In that capacity, his job also requires him to study the opportunities and challenges people faced in the past—and, in the classroom, to make those past events meaningful to young people in the present. In this episode, Prof. Capozzola draws analogies between the present moment and the late 1800s, when new communication technologies and systems for organizing and presenting information transformed the world. Just like in the 19th century, he says, we’re facing questions about the trustworthiness of the flood of information we’re exposed to, as well as about how to democratize access to that information in order to achieve a more equitable society. In overseeing MIT OpenCourseWare and other programs in MIT Open Learning, Prof. Capozzola says, he’s on a mission to make information both trustable and discoverable, and to seek out—and collaborate with—the innovators and philanthropists (the “Deweys and Carnegies” of today) who can support that mission.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProf. Capozzola’s faculty pageThe Dewey decimal classification system (PDF) The Carnegie libraries21H.221 The Places of Migration in United States History on MIT OpenCourseWare21H.223 War & American Society on MIT OpenCourseWare21H.224 Law and Society in US History on MIT OpenCourseWareMusic 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 XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

Professor Hal Abelson has been active in computer science for over half a century—the first computer he worked with, in high school, was the kind where programs were encoded in a pattern of holes punched into a paper tape fed into the machine. When he arrived at MIT as a graduate student in the late 1960s, Abelson became involved in exploring computers’ potential as educational tools. One of his first projects, under the guidance of Prof. Seymour Papert, involved working to create a graphics display for use with the Logo programming language, which had first been introduced to schoolkids just a year or two earlier. In this episode, Prof. Abelson reminisces about those early experiences and discusses the importance of computer education for everyone–including, and especially, for children who have the power to make real-world impact through their programming work. He also weighs in on the risks associated with artificial intelligence, and describes his involvement in MIT’s decision to give away educational materials online for free—an initiative that ultimately became MIT OpenCourseWare. Fundamentally, Prof. Abelson believes that computer scientists need to confront not only the technical challenges of designing new systems or applications, but also a deeper, humanistic question: “What, in fact, is worth making?”Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProf. Abelson’s faculty pageLogo and the TurtleScratch coding languageMIT App Inventor6.S062 Generative Artificial Intelligence in K-12 Education on MIT OpenCourseWareMusic 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 XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

In a departure from our usual format, in which we interview an exceptional faculty member to learn about their approach to teaching, this time we’re showcasing an exemplary piece of student work: an exploration of ways in which seemingly everyday places and activities, such as a cornfield, the meeting place of two rivers, or the process of planting and tending crops, are imbued with sacredness in Diné (Navajo) tradition. This episode was created by first-year students as a semester-long project in the course SP.360 Terrascope Radio as part of MIT Terrascope, a learning community for first-year undergraduate students focused on solving complex environmental problems. (For more information on the Terrascope learning community and its approach to student-led problem-solving, check out our interview with Dr. Ari Epstein in Season 5 Episode 5, which we’re releasing simultaneously with this special episode!) Follow along with the Terrascope students as they visit the Navajo Nation and learn firsthand about how the Diné people’s traditional relationship with the land survives as a powerful force in their lives, both shaping their response to environmental issues and marking their identity as a distinct people.This episode was produced by the Spring 2023 MIT Terrascope Radio class: Xiner Luo, Jacqueline Prawira, Nevena Stojkovic, and Elisa Xia. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalS5 E5 Chalk Radio interview about Terrascope with Ari EpsteinTerrascope RadioThe Navajo Nation at WikipediaNMSU Agricultural Science Center at FarmingtonThe Gold King Mine incidentMusic 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 XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

You thought Chalk Radio was a podcast about inspired teaching at MIT? Yes and no! “We don't do a lot of teaching,” says Dr. Ari Epstein, our guest for this week’s episode. Dr. Epstein is associate director of the Terrascope program, a learning community for first-year undergraduates. Each year the program focuses on one particular issue relating to sustainability, and participants in the program learn by direct experience, launching themselves into projects focused on solving complex environmental problems. The role of the program’s instructional staff, Dr. Epstein says, is to create an environment where learning can happen, rather than to impart knowledge or teach skills directly. Toward the end of the semester, the students create a website describing their proposed solutions in as much technical detail as they can. And then a week later, they present their proposals in front of an invited panel of outside experts. In the process of preparing for this presentation, students often come to realize that understanding the history and cultural implications of an issue are just as important as understanding the science behind it and the technology available for dealing with it.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal Dr. Epstein’s faculty page The Terrascope program RES.12-002 Terrascope on MIT OpenCourseWare DigDeep 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 FacebookOn XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

In this episode we meet professor and Nobel laureate Esther Duflo and her colleague Dr. Sara Ellison for a discussion about economics: what it is, how it differs from sociology, how it incorporates classic intellectual tools like probability and statistics with newer technologies like machine learning, and how it can itself be a tool for improving the world by solving problems of inequity one problem at a time. As Duflo and Ellison explain, economics has shifted in recent decades from a primarily solo endeavor to an intensely collaborative one, in which any given paper is likely to have multiple co-authors but also to be based on the work of an even larger group of people—not only professional economists but also psychologists, teachers, NGO workers, and so on. (Fittingly, Duflo’s and Ellison’s teaching is collaborative as well; they work together as co-instructors on the course 14.310x Data Analysis for Social Scientists, available on both MITx Online and MIT OpenCourseWare.) Other topics covered in the episode include why online shopping isn’t as cheap as it seems like it should be and why you should disable some of your spreadsheet’s default settings.    Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal Professor Duflo’s faculty page Dr. Ellison’s faculty page 14.310x Data Analysis for Social Scientists on MIT OpenCourseWare14.310x Data Analysis for Social Scientists on MITx OnlineMITx MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science 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 FacebookOn XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

This conversation with Prof. David Kaiser, who teaches physics and the history of science at MIT, covers a vast timespan, from the beginning of the universe to the present day. Prof. Kaiser explains that inflationary cosmology helps connect our understanding of quantum fluctuations—what he calls the “jitters” that particles undergo at subatomic levels—to the irregular distribution of matter in the universe. What’s most exciting, he says, is that simulations based on inflationary theory produce predictions that closely match detailed measurements of the cosmos. Later in the interview, Prof. Kaiser discusses how he teaches his course on 20th-century science, seeking to demythologize Albert Einstein (“He was no Einstein as a young person!”) and examining the historical context of the development of nuclear weapons as portrayed in the 2023 film Oppenheimer. He hopes his students will learn to see science not as happening in isolation but as a product and producer of historical events and cultural changes. Lastly, he discusses what he’s learned from his years of teaching the course, and in particular how he helps students who are anxious about writing papers to overcome their fears.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProfessor Kaiser’s faculty page (MIT Physics department) Professor Kaiser’s faculty page (MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society) STS.042 Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics In The 20th Century on OCWMIT’s communication requirementOppenheimer (2023) on IMDBContainment (2015) on IMDBMusic 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 XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

Paradoxically, urban planning professor David Hsu doesn’t consider himself a “city person,” but he has great appreciation and enthusiasm for cities as places where meaningful steps can be taken toward climate mitigation. In this episode, Prof. Hsu explains that urban planners can help move cities to take action to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the construction, heating, power, and transport sectors. But he observes that the most lasting and successful actions are ones that are implemented democratically, with the consent and participation of the affected communities. To win over those communities, he says, technical experts have to learn to communicate solid facts using math that even a layperson can follow. And they need to learn that sometimes there can be more than one defensible position in response to a given problem—which is why Prof. Hsu often asks his students to read multiple papers that take conflicting positions on a particular problem, and to evaluate which paper’s (or papers’) arguments are more persuasive. Because in the end, it’s people who need to be persuaded to take action against climate change—solutions won’t implement themselves.         Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal Professor Hsu’s faculty page 11.165J Urban Energy Systems and Policy on MIT OpenCourseWare 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 FacebookOn XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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

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 OpenCourseWarePBS NOVA video on making a kitchen cloud chamber 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 FacebookOn XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay 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