| Your OpenCourseWare Newsletter | May 2025 |
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| Chalk Radio Podcast with Video Continues |
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| Image by MIT OpenCourseWare. |
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| MIT OpenCourseWare’s Chalk Radio® podcast—with video—continues! Learn about Python, the importance of having a growth mindset, and the use of rubber ducks as a debugging strategy in this interview with Dr. Ana Bell, an MIT senior lecturer who has been programming since she was twelve and now teaches popular introductory courses in computer science. She discusses how everyone, even in the age of AI, can benefit from learning the basics of programming, and how programming can help you choose your own adventure. This episode is available both on YouTube and the Chalk Radio website. Read more about Chalk Radio’s turn to video to further explore how MIT educators teach in this Medium article by MIT Open Learning. |
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| News from MIT OpenCourseWare |
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| Shape the Direction of MIT OpenCourseWare by Completing Our User Survey! |
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| Image by MIT OpenCourseWare.
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| The MIT OpenCourseWare User Survey is open! Help shape the future of MIT OpenCourseWare by completing this short, anonymous survey. We’re eager to hear from you: What do you love about OCW? How do you use our free, high-quality educational resources in your life? Anything you’d like to see improved? Your voice and perspective matters and is important to us—your response will help us refine our offerings and chart new directions for our future growth. Read more about the survey, our desire to better understand our learners, and how we are driven by “data, not guesswork” in this Open Matters blog post. We can’t wait to learn from you, and thank you in advance for your participation! |
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| AI-Enabled Translations of MIT OpenCourseWare Material |
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| Photo courtesy of Sofia Lipkevych, image by MIT Open Learning.
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The usual language of instruction at MIT is English, so naturally the course materials on MIT OpenCourseWare are (with a few exceptions) in English as well. This can present an obstacle for users who haven’t had the opportunity to study English. But the Ukrainian Leadership and Technology Academy (ULTA), established by two Ukrainian MIT students, may be showing the way forward.
ULTA recently embarked on a collaboration with MIT OpenCourseWare to create Ukrainian-language versions of the materials from some of MIT’s most popular and foundational courses. The ULTA team’s approach, which you can read about in this MIT News article, employs multiple AI tools including a specialized tool that recognizes special mathematical characters in documents, a browser extension that translates video captions in real-time, and a dubbing editor that replicates the original speaker's tone, pace, and emotional delivery.
The ULTA team is continuing to expand their set of Ukrainian-language MIT content (they’re currently working on adding translations to the lecture videos in 9.13 The Human Brain), but their greatest achievement may be in showing how AI tools can expand access to learning for users worldwide. We at MIT OpenCourseWare salute them for their vision and dedication! |
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| Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe with MIT OpenCourseWare |
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| Photo courtesy of Martina Solano Soto, image by MIT Open Learning. |
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| How does a passion for physics drive this seventeen-year-old student from Spain to solve the mysteries of the universe? Martina Solano Soto deepened her understanding of math and physics with free materials from MIT OpenCourseWare and the MIT Open Learning Library, both part of MIT Open Learning. “When I was fourteen, I started to browse and wanted to find information that was reliable, dynamic, and updated. I found MIT resources by chance, and it’s one of the biggest things that has happened to me.” Now she is diving deeper into quantum mechanics, black holes, and general relativity with MIT OpenCourseWare’s graduate-level courses. Learn more about Martina’s inspiring journey in this MIT News story. |
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| New Courses and Resources |
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| Image from Pixabay is in the public domain (CC-0). |
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2.79J Biomaterials-Tissue Interactions
This graduate-level course covers the principles of materials science, chemical and mechanical engineering, and cell biology as applied to the development of implantable and injectable devices. The course analyzes the mechanisms underlying the healing of wounds and the regrowth of tissue after implantation of biomaterials/devices in various organs, with attention to matrix synthesis, degradation, and contraction. Among the other topics covered in the 25 lecture videos are the design of implants and prostheses based on biomaterials-tissue interactions, comparative analysis of permanent and biodegradable implants, and criteria for restoring physiological function to tissues and organs. |
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6.4590 Foundations of Information Policy and 6.S087 Foundation Models and Generative AI
The materials from these two courses are hosted on external websites maintained by the instructors but accessible through links from the courses’ respective pages on MIT OpenCourseWare. The site for 6.4590 Foundations of Information Policy, a graduate/undergraduate course on the interaction between law, policy, and technology, includes a course schedule with lecture notes, suggested readings, in-class activities, and samples of student papers. The site for 6.S087 Foundation Models and Generative AI, an undergraduate course taught during MIT’s Independent Activities Period, provides a nontechnical explanation of generative AI via thirteen lecture videos from the 2023 and 2024 iterations of the course. |
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| (Photo by Stefan Bollmann. Source: Wikimedia Commons. License: Attribution.) |
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RES.21M-001 Heavy Metal 101
Welcome back to “the most BRUTAL class ever offered at MIT!” The instructor-maintained site for this course, taught annually by MIT alumnus and our Open Learning colleague Joe Diaz, has now been updated with all-new lecture videos from the course’s 2025 iteration. Many of the videos feature guest speakers whose knowledge of heavy metal runs the gamut from scholarly expertise to practical experience to fanatical devotion. Videos from the previous four years of Heavy Metal 101 are also accessible at the course archive, which (like the main course site) you can reach via a link from the course page on MIT OpenCourseWare. |
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| Further Materials and News from MIT Open Learning |
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| Navigating the MIT Libraries Open Educational Resources Guide |
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| Curious to learn more about open educational resources (OERs) like the materials openly available on MIT OpenCourseWare, and how to assess an item’s openness for remix and reuse? MIT Open Learning’s intellectual property team has produced a new video—now available on MIT OpenCourseWare’s YouTube channel!—that covers the MIT Libraries Open Educational Resources Guide. Learn how to categorize and navigate OER repositories and materials with the help of Carlos Gutierrez as he discusses OERs: how they can be used, how to search for them, and the difference between Open License and Open Access materials. |
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| National Academy of Engineering Electees on MIT OpenCourseWare |
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| Top row, left to right: Martin Zdenek Bazant, Moshe Ben-Akiva, Charles Cooney, and Yoel Fink. Bottom row, left to right: Tomás Lozano-Pérez, Kristala Prather, Eric Swanson, and Evelyn Wang. Collage: MIT News |
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| Learn from the top engineering professors in the world with MIT OpenCourseWare! Several recent electees to the National Academy of Engineering for 2025 provide their MIT course materials for anyone in the world to access for free. Interested in the growth of the biotech industry? Charles Cooney’s contributions to biochemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing propelled the field. Curious about robot motion planning? Learn about Tomás Lozano-Pérez’s molecular design innovations. From engineered microorganisms to advances in transportation and infrastructure systems, MIT faculty are leading the way in chemical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, and more. Explore free engineering courses from across MIT Open Learning in this Medium story. |
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| Your Support is More Important Than Ever |
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The generosity of learners, educators, and friends like you makes it possible for OpenCourseWare to share reliable, dynamic, and up-to-date educational materials from MIT with learners like Martina — freely and openly. If you’re in the position to support our efforts to continue opening MIT’s curriculum to the world, please consider making a donation to OpenCourseWare today.
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| Newsletter edited by Shira Segal with contributions from Peter Chipman, production assistance and contributions from Stephanie Hodges, and resource development by Duyen Nguyen and Yvonne Ng. |
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| We want to hear from you! How can MIT OpenCourseWare help you in your educational endeavors? Write to us at [email protected] with questions or suggestions. |
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| More free resources from MIT Open Learning are available at: |
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