Chalk Radio season 7 unlocks new ways of understanding one’s potential
By Sara Feijo
For years, MIT’s Chalk Radio® podcast has taken listeners behind the scenes of some of the most interesting courses on campus featuring insights from instructors. Now, in its seventh season, Chalk Radio is debuting a new video format, bringing its audience closer to the action than ever before.
Launched by MIT OpenCourseWare in 2020, Chalk Radio episodes primarily focused on how MIT educators teach. But the conversations have deepened over the years, focusing on guests’ personal lives and how their learning journeys have shaped their research, teaching, and initiatives in their fields.
“Our episodes have gone from tightly narrated conversations with signposts for listeners, to more free-flowing, long-form interviews, to now videos in which our audience feels like they are sitting right here with us in the studio,” says Sarah Hansen, Chalk Radio’s host and the assistant director of open education innovation at OpenCourseWare. “What’s remained consistent over the years, however, is how much MIT instructors care about solving big problems in the world, how generous they are with their knowledge, and how much they believe in learners’ abilities both on campus and online to lend their own insights to solving these challenges, too.”
Guests featured on the Chalk Radio podcast share their teaching materials on the OpenCourseWare website, making it easier for listeners to take a deeper dive into the topics that inspire them. Launched in 2001, OpenCourseWare, part of MIT Open Learning, offers materials from more than 2,500 courses that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum. With an open license that allows the remix and reuse of its educational resources, OpenCourseWare serves as a global model for open sharing in higher education.
Chalk Radio’s seventh season features engaging, casual conversations. “The initial motivation to add the video component was that these great unexpected, funny, and endearing moments were happening between Sarah Hansen and our guests,” says Brett Paci, Chalk Radio’s producer. “While hearing them is great, we also wanted people to see them.”
The first episode went live today and features Andrew Lo, the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor and director of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering at MIT Sloan School of Management. Lo, whose finance lectures on the OpenCourseWare YouTube channel have received millions views, chats about his teaching style and how he makes finance accessible to a broader audience.
The second episode will go live in May. Ana Bell, senior lecturer and a member of the Digital Learning Lab at MIT Open Learning, makes a compelling case for why everyone should learn the basics of programming — just as they learn basic math even if they don’t plan on becoming mathematicians.
“Both guests have that desire to bring everyone along for the ride and make sure everyone feels confident that they can understand these topics and maybe even excel in them,” says Paci, assistant director of OpenCourseWare’s media production. “Andrew Lo and Ana Bell are two of the kindest, gentlest people you’ll ever meet, so getting to produce these two episodes was one of the best experiences I’ve had since we started Chalk Radio over five years ago.”
For Hansen, the guests of Chalk Radio’s new season have opened up new ways of understanding her own potential.
“They have caused me to rethink what I can accomplish in fields that formally felt inaccessible to me, such as finance and programming,” Hansen says. “I am so excited that our listeners may have a similar experience. When we unlock pathways to learning, anything is possible.”
For more information or to watch the new season, visit the Chalk Radio website.
Chalk Radio season 7 unlocks new ways of understanding one’s potential was originally published in MIT Open Learning on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.