| Your OpenCourseWare Newsletter | March 2025 |
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| Celebrating Open Education Week |
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| Top row, left to right: June Odongo, Bia Adams, and Shreya Mogulothu (photos courtesy of the individuals); bottom row, left and right: Sujood Eldouma and Andrea Henshall (photos courtesy of the individuals); bottom center: Pexels stock image. |
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In celebration of open education as a worldwide movement, every March we participate in Open Education Week, a global, week-long event that showcases nearly 300 talks, presentations, panel discussions, and workshops along with a growing, curated collection of open assets and educational resources available for free online.
To start, MIT OpenCourseWare joined forces with the Open Education Network in a Living Room Conversation to “highlight the depth and breadth of what is openly available as well as the thoughtful and dedicated people behind the resources,” according to Karen Lauritsen, the senior director of publishing at the Open Education Network.
“We believe in the power of shared knowledge to help transform the lives of learners around the world,” says Shira Segal, collaborations and engagement manager at MIT OpenCourseWare. “It is also our aim to connect learners with one another and to find ways to support—and learn from—the open education ecosystem at large.” Read more about the event and collaboration in this Open Education Network blog post.
We also celebrate open learners across the globe who make use of MIT OpenCourseWare and other resources from MIT Open Learning to build new skills, switch careers, and follow their passions. In this Medium article, MIT Open Learning spotlights six inspiring individuals whose use of free educational materials from MIT changed their lives.
We believe that education should be accessible to everyone, everywhere. These stories demonstrate the impact and possibilities of open education, and we can’t wait to hear about your own learning journeys with MIT OpenCourseWare. Please share them with us! |
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| From MIT OpenCourseWare to the MITx MIcroMasters Program: “This is my place, finally” |
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| Photo courtesy of Atou Koffi Kougbanhoun.
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| How does a teacher-turned-data-scientist leverage knowledge from MIT Open Learning resources for a scholarship and career change? Meet Atou Koffi Kougbanhoun, a former high school math teacher from Togo, whose passion for data science took him on a transformative journey that began with MIT OpenCourseWare and culminated in a career at Togo’s Ministry of Numerical Economy and Digital Transformation. Along the way, he gained graduate-level skills from MIT Open Learning’s MITx MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science, too. Read about his inspiring professional development story in this Open Matters blog post. |
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| New Courses and Resources |
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| Image from ES.1803 Differential Equations, courtesy of Dr. Jeremy Orloff and his family. Used with permission. |
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8.902 Astrophysics II
Want to study some really big questions? This graduate-level course tackles some of the biggest, taking a broad look at galactic dynamics and large-scale structure in the universe. Topics include the formation and interactions of galaxies, cosmology, structure formation, cosmic microwave background, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and the thermal history of the universe. The course materials include a description of the final project, in which students worked collaboratively in small groups to run a cosmological simulation using a state-of-the-art cosmological code and then analyzed the output by examining the resulting dark matter density and writing their own halo finder code.
24.906J The Linguistic Study of Bilingualism
One mind, two languages. This undergraduate-level class focuses on the linguistic and psycholinguistic underpinnings of the bilingual brain, seeking to understand what it means to “acquire” a new language. How do we learn our first language so quickly and with so little formal instruction? Is the learning of a second language different from the learning of a first language? And is there a critical period for language learning? To answer these questions, this course considers a range of topics including different models of bilingualism, how bilingualism affects other domains of human cognition, and what imaging studies reveal about the bilingual/multilingual brain.
ES.1803 Differential Equations
This undergraduate-level course, taught in MIT’s Experimental Study Group, was created in collaboration with the faculty in the Mathematics Department who developed the current version of 18.03 Differential Equations. Like 18.03, this course prepares students for the science and engineering classes they will take later in their studies, covering such topics as linear differential equations, first-order differential equations, linear algebra, impulses, Fourier series, partial differential equations, and qualitative descriptions of systems. In this course, you will find extensive materials including lecture notes, in-class problems with solutions, homework problem sets with solutions, MATLAB® tutorials, extensive review materials, and quizzes. |
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RES.18-016 Multivariable Calculus Recitation Notes
The course 18.02 Multivariable Calculus is a General Institute Requirement (GIR); every MIT student must pass the class in order to graduate. Evan Chen, a recitation instructor in the fall 2024 instance of 18.02, has assembled his lecture notes and exercises (with solutions) from that course into an open-access collection, which you can access by following a link from the MIT OpenCourseWare site. The first third of the material covers the basics of linear algebra; the remainder covers traditional multivariable calculus topics including vectors and matrices, partial derivatives, double and triple integrals, and vector calculus in 2D and 3D space.
RES.21G-108 Project-Based Language Learning for Chinese II (Streamlined)
This resource is based on the student project for the spring 2024 MIT course 21G.108 Chinese II (Streamlined). In that assignment, Chinese heritage language students interviewed their family members to explore topics pertaining to Chinese culture, such as social values and practices, education systems, the immigrant experience, or the meaning of the students’ own Chinese names. Based on their discoveries, each student then created an online book with text in Mandarin and decorated with photographs or other illustrations. The resource on MIT OpenCourseWare includes instructions for the project, a detailed grading rubric, and links to nineteen of the students’ books. |
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| A detail from the original 1789 manuscript of the United States Bill of Rights. (Public domain image.) |
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7.003 Applied Molecular Biology Lab and 24.150J Liberalism, Toleration, and Freedom of Speech
Two courses that were published by MIT OpenCourseWare last fall have now been enhanced by the addition of Instructor Insights pages, featuring interviews in which the course instructors reflect on their approach to teaching. Dr. Vanessa Cheung, instructor for 7.003 Applied Molecular Biology Lab, explains the progressive nature of the experiments students complete in 7.003, the usefulness of Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism, and the importance of small-group discussion as a catalyst for student learning, and Profs. Alex Byrne and Brad Skow offer their thoughts on teaching 24.150J Liberalism, Toleration, and Freedom of Speech at a time of intense debate about the limits to free speech on university campuses.
RES.TLL-008 Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC)
This resource, which offers a curated collection of pedagogical materials developed for use in teaching computation courses across the MIT curriculum, was first published in 2021 and has been frequently updated since then to incorporate new materials as they become available. The most recent update incorporates seven new case studies on topics including the use of algorithms in pretrial risk assessments, content moderation on online platforms, the applicability of generative AI in cosmological research, the interpretability of machine learning, cultural representations in text-to-image models, the environmental-justice implications of electronic hardware, and the ethics of cryptographic erasure as a tool for privacy. |
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| Further MIT OpenCourseWare and MIT Open Learning Materials |
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| 15 Free MIT Data Science Courses |
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| Image source: DARPA/public domain. |
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| MIT OpenCourseWare and MITx, both part of MIT Open Learning, offer free online courses covering the foundations of data science–from linear algebra to machine learning. Whether you are starting with foundational math and statistics courses or are looking for more advanced topics like understanding algorithms and using AI, these courses are designed to help you develop real-world data skills at your own pace. Anyone can start learning the basics of programming, data analysis, machine learning, and more, outlined in this Medium article by MIT Open Learning. |
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| Thank You for Your Support |
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A heartfelt thank-you to everyone who supported MIT OpenCourseWare during this year’s MIT 24-Hour Challenge! You and your gift go a long way in helping us share MIT’s educational resources with the world, freely and openly.
If you weren’t able to participate in our giving day challenge but would like to contribute now, we’d be grateful for your support. |
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| Newsletter edited by Shira Segal with contributions from Peter Chipman, production assistance 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 ocw@mit.edu with questions or suggestions. |
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| More free resources from MIT Open Learning are available at: |
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