for you

a little bit. I don't know.

>> Okay.

>> Actually, too much uh improvements.

>> Might not be.

>> Forget it.

>> But does this work? Uh

>> yes,

>> it does.

Can I just make a quick announcement?

>> Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning everybody. Thank you so

much for coming to celebrate Open

Corser's 25th anniversary with us. For

folks in the room, please take a moment

to silence your phones. Please

appreciate that. And your laptops or any

device. We appreciate that. Thank you so

much.

Good morning.

>> Um, my name is Dimmitri Bert Simas. I'm

the vice provos for open learning. I

have been at MIT 41 years and uh, as

many of you, I love this institution.

Dear colleagues, friends,

dear colleagues, friends, members of the

MIT community and the world. I'm certain

there are people who came um I know

actually some people came all the way

from many far places. 25 years ago at a

time when most universities were asking

how do we monetize online content? MIT

asked a fundamentally different

question. How do we give it away? That

question, bold, counterintuitive, and

unmistakenly MIT, changed the world.

President Charles Vest Chuck, uh, as

he's known, saw what others could not.

He declared that MIT would freely share

its knowledge with anyone, anywhere, an

act of breathtaking institutional

generosity.

Jack understood what that knowledge

unlike material resources grows when you

share it.

Hal Abson was the intellectual architect

who saw that openness was not a threat

to academic academic excellence but its

greatest amplifier. His advocacy laid

the found the philosophical and pra p

practical foundations for everything we

celebrate today. Dig Yu who is in the

audience had the original idea I'm told

he also turned vision into reality with

extraordinary operational skill and

quieted quiet determination he built the

infrastructure and teams that transform

an audacious idea into a living platform

to all three on behalf of this community

and the millions you have touched thank

you

500 million learners ers from villages

in Sapharan Africa, from bustling cities

in South Asia, from small towns in Latin

America and Eastern Europe have come to

MIT's virtual doors and found them wide

open. Six millions more on our YouTube

channel alone.

But let me make it more personal.

Several of my own PhD students have told

me the same story. They grew up far from

Cambridge.

They had talent, drive, and curiosity.

But what they lacked was access. And

then they found OCW, a lecture on

optimization, a problem set that opened

a door they did not know existed.

OCW did not just teach them, it found

them. It reached across oceans and said,

"You belong here." And now they are here

contributing to MIT and to the world.

And yet we are just beginning.

Artificial intelligence, adaptive

learning, immersive digital experiences.

These tools gives us the ability to do

what Chuck, Hal, and Dick dreamed of at

a scale and depth they could scarcely

have imagined.

We will move from open access to open

impact. I aspire ensuring not just that

knowledge is available but it transforms

lives. If OCW prove one thing, it is

this. When MIT opens its doors, the

world walks in.

25 years ago, MIT made a bet on

openness, on generosity, on the belief

that knowledge is a public good. That

bet has paid off 500 millions times

over. To President V's memory, to Hal,

to Dick, and to everyone who made OCW

possible, you gave the world a gift that

keeps giving. Now it is our turn to

carry it forward with the same courage,

the same conviction, and the same

unmistakable MIT spirit. you will see

today that the future of open learning

is bright and it belongs to all of us.

Thank you.

I would like to invite um my colleague

and friend Kurt Newman who heads OCW.

>> Thanks Dmitri and thank you to everyone

for joining us on this wonderful

celebration day. Um, while some of the

numbers that Dmitri has just shared with

you, reaching 500 million learners for

instance, that just tells part of the

story, the true measure of this work

lives in the experiences of the learners

and the educators around the world and

their stories of curiosity sparked,

resilience strengthened, and

opportunities unlocked.

We hear from learners around the globe

who've used open courseware in deeply

personal ways. For some, it begins with

curiosity. For others, it's really a

tool for navigating challenging times.

And for many others, it provides a

flexible, self-directed path for

upskilling and for growth. Take for

example a learner named Thomas from

Chile who first discovered open

courseware. When he was 17 years old, he

explored a course principles of

pharmarmacology to advance his

after-school scientific project of

extracting and studying medicinal

properties of plants and then shared

what he learned with the members of his

16person science group. His story

reflects the power of access to meet

learners where they are and what they're

interested in. He told us speaking in

Spanish, "Thanks to the pharmarmacology

course, I can collect and synthesize the

information we need to learn to prepare

the medicines for our project.

Take advantage of MIT's free digital

technologies and tools." He says, "Keep

an open mind as to how the knowledge can

be applied."

And this is also where the the

distinction an important distinction

between simply free and truly open

knowledge becomes so important. Free

access is powerful and absolutely

necessary. But openness goes further. It

invites participation. It allows

learners and educators not just to

consume knowledge but to adapt it, to

share it, and make it meaningful in

their own communities and their

contexts.

We see that in the ways educators around

the world are using these materials,

enriching their teaching, experimenting

with new approaches, and building a more

connected and collaborative global

learning community. We're grateful to

know that this brave leap into open

education that MIT took 25 years ago has

been in the words of our colleague James

Gapagosclan

of educational technology and learning

resources and distance learning at

College of the Canyons. He says not just

pathbreaking it's been path making for

other institutions to follow

and we see this in the broader momentum

of open education as a movement through

the dedication and leadership of our

colleagues like James the rise of open

textbooks for instance just one form of

open educational resources has already

saved students in the United States and

Canada hundreds of millions of dollars

while also improving their learning

outcomes. comes.

So with this, I'd like to invite my

colleague Dmitri back up to

introduce our very special guest.

As we celebrate 25 years of MIT Open

Courseware, we also recognize the

leadership that continues to carry this

mission forward. It is my honor to

introduce MIT's president, Sally

Kornflum.

President Kornflum. Sally led has led

with clarity and conviction championing

MIT core values of excellence, openness,

freedom of expression, and institutional

independence, especially important in

these trying times. She has also

articulated with remarkable clarity

MIT's mission to advance knowledge to

serve the nation and the world grounded

in merit, access and open educational

opportunity. These are the very

principles that have saved MI have

shaped MIT open courseware which is part

of MIT open learning from the beginning

and that continue to guide the future of

open education at MIT. Please join me in

welcoming Profess uh President Klu.

Thanks so much Demetus and Kurt. Uh and

good morning to everyone here. Uh and a

special greeting to the faculty and

staff who organized today's symposium

and to all the faculty, educators,

learners who share their experiences and

insights today. So, uh, 25 years ago

when OCW sprang to life, I lived 600

miles away. So, I can't say I was at MIT

for 40 years. Um, but even over that

distance, we heard the reverberations

right away and for a long time

thereafter. It was an incredibly brave,

selfless, and bold thing for MIT to have

done. So generous and so generative both

at the same time. Now more than two

decades later, this MIT spirit and

values that inspired OCW, the boldness,

the instinct for service, and the desire

for impact that were really central to

OCW is what drew me here to MIT. So it's

a wonderful honor to join you for this

milestone. And although I wasn't

actually here at the time, in some ways

I feel that I was because MI OCW's

founding story is woven deeply into sort

of the mythology and ethos of MIT. In

2001, the whole world of higher

education was talking about digital

learning. Actually, the world of higher

education, more accurately, was

fretting. Um, no one knew what to do.

And then the institute made a big bet

with the full weight of its reputation.

With the announcement of MIT Open

Courseware, it committed to a 10-year

initiative to do something no university

of MIT stature had ever dared to open

the doors without requiring a key. The

idea was to share lecture notes, problem

sets, syllabi, exams, and video lectures

from thousands of courses. a public

website covering the MIT curriculum.

Now, at the time, the prevailing wisdom

in higher education was to protect the

brand, to be cautious. Actually, I still

hear that about lots of things,

protecting the brand.

But leaders like Chuck Vest, Dick Yu,

Chagaru, Miaawa, and Hal Abson along

with all of MIT's at the time, 950

faculty members saw it very differently.

They believe that the brand of MIT

wasn't something to be hoarded. It was

something to be shared. At its core,

open courseware is a bold digital

manifestation of MIT's fundamental

mission to advance knowledge, to educate

students, and to serve the nation and

the world. By its very existence, it

asserts that the MIT experience should

not be defined by the walls of our

classrooms, but by the reach of our

ideas. Today, this risky experiment has

evolved into a global cornerstone of

educational equity. Open courseware has

cemented MIT's leadership in open

knowledge and access to education. We

have proven, as Demetra said, when you

share excellence, you don't actually

diminish its value, you multiply its

impact. As Curtain and Demetrius both

noted, the numbers are striking. More

than 500 million people have learned

from MIT's materials thanks to open

courseware. In fact, you know, I was in

meeting with some first year students

earlier this year, and I asked a student

how she wound up at MIT. She was in a

sort of underprivileged area. She hadn't

had access to any AP courses. She had

taken five MIT classes before even

applying to MIT. And I think that this

is the kind of story that we hear over

and over again um when we talk to

students who are here at MIT and we talk

to others elsewhere who were touched by

uh the influence of these courses. For

perspective, 500 million is the

population more than the population of

uh US and Mexico. Um, but the true

legacy isn't in the metrics. It's in the

landscape of education that has been

fundamentally reshaped. OCW didn't just

open MIT's doors. It kicked off a global

movement. It inspired universities

across the world to launch their own

open course initiatives, expanding the

open education movement far beyond what

anyone could have imagined in 2001.

Today, OCW is cited in national

education strategies, in by nonprofit

initiatives, by international

development programs. Proof that

openness can scale when you lead with

vision and with courage. It's actually

embodied in things like the teacher in

rural Appalachia using OCW to refine

their physics curriculum. It's in the

high school in Virginia who used OCW, as

I mentioned before, to stand in for AP

coursework not being offered at the

school and a student who found yes, she

could do the work. She could go to

college. And it's in the lifelong

learners living anywhere in the world

who through OCW found the spark to

improve their own knowledge and to

change their communities for the better.

That includes learners like uh Sujud

Aluma from Sudan. Sjude discovered OCW

when she was struggling with her

university's programming courses. She

went on to complete more than 20 OCW

courses, strengthening her skills and

ultimately discovering a passion for

data science. Today, she uses that

knowledge and passion to tackle real

world challenges, including responding

to devastating floods in her own

country. Her story is a reminder of how

open knowledge can transform not only

individual learners but their whole

communities. As you'll hear from

panelists today, open courseware has

broadened MIT's impact to every corner

of the globe. It has democratized the

school the the tools of discovery and

given millions of people the power to

change their lives. We feel its impact

here on campus as well. What we often

don't emphasize enough is that OCW isn't

doesn't just share MIT's teaching, it

improved MIT's teaching. Faculty came to

see their teaching in a new light. They

were able to collaborate across

departments and they embraced digital

tools that have shaped how we educate

our own students. In fact, OCW laid the

groundwork for every digital learning

advance that follows. MITx, MIT Open

Learning, MicroMasters, and now MIT

Learn. Each new platform stands on the

shoulders of this original brave idea.

With MIT Learn, our new online platform,

people have access to even more online

courses and resources from across the

institute, so they can learn with and

from MIT.

In short, the world is different because

of a bold idea that started here. And

I'll note that much of this progress was

made possible by the contributions of

thousands of supporters, including early

funders, the Huelet Foundation, the

Melon Foundation, Abinio, as well as

newer foundations like Arcadia. We're

deeply grateful for all that they do to

support MIT learning. Needless to say,

OCW would be an empty vessel without the

extraordinary intellectual contributions

of our faculty sustained over many

years. So again I do want to thank the

faculty. I want to thank the devoted OCW

staff and team past and present whose

perseverance, creativity and excellence

have powered this for a quarter century.

Their work in curating, organizing,

digitizing, maintaining thousands of

courses is a remarkable collective act

of s service to the world and this is

the legacy being celebrated today. We

know that the work of equitable access

is unfinished. Barriers to highquality

learning still exist, whether

linguistic, economic, geographic, or

technological. MIT remains committed to

lowering those barriers, expanding

reach, and really ensuring that

knowledge is not a privilege, but a

public good. As we look ahead, let's

continue to imagine boldly. Let's keep

asking what knowledge we can share, what

tools we can invent, and whose lives we

can help change next. As AI accelerates

the way we create, personalize, and

deliver knowledge, this mission becomes

even more vital. The world needs

trusted, rigorous, openly accessible

knowledge. And I believe MIT will

continue to lead in this era of

learning. So, thank you all for being

part of the journey. Um, I look forward

to seeing what exciting futures uh you

all will continue to build and to help

enable it in any way possible. So, thank

you

video.

>> There's this consistent vision.

MIT has asked itself in the words of TS

Elliott, do I dear disturb the universe?

And the consistent thing about MIT is

MIT has been willing to say yes.

Thank you all for u joining us here

today. As president of MIT, I've come to

expect top level innovative and

intellectually entrepreneurial ideas

from the MIT community.

>> Today, the word democratize seems very

cliched.

>> We invented that with knowledge and I

think it's a profound thing.

>> We went into this expecting that

something creative and cutting edge and

challenging would emerge, something that

would be consistent with MIT's mission.

But I must admit that open courseware is

not exactly what I had expected.

>> This idea started in 1999 2000 and

people would say there's this thing

called the internet. What is MIT going

to do about it?

>> It was sort of a feeding frenzy on the

possibilities of profiting from

knowledge.

The prevailing idea then was this is a

gold mine for universities to publish

their stuff and market it.

Part of the response was to create this

educational technology council.

The proposal on the table was that MIT

could enter into the space by offering

small modules packaged as a maybe at

that time a CD or some medium like that

whether it could go beyond that. We we

weren't sure

and the financial model conclusion was

it wouldn't work unless we do it at some

scale and at the end of the day it's

really not the pot of gold at the end of

the rainbow.

The question was what can we do that

really reflects MIT's values of

leadership of impact of excellence.

>> The key person really was Dick Yu. He's

the one who really had the initial idea.

>> I know exactly where I was. I was at

home. What I was doing, my wife

remembered where it was.

>> He was getting some food out of his

refrigerator, thinking about all of

this, and suddenly occurred to him

saying, "Why don't we just give it

away?"

>> I've heard it different ways.

>> Hal told us the story, and I don't know

if it's the right story.

>> I I was on an exercise bike at home.

I think I was on exasp

came about that we would give it away.

We won't make a dime but we would get

impact.

Open Courseware is a web-based program

that will provide free access to primary

materials for virtually every course at

MIT.

>> I remember hearing about open courseware

when it first got announced and we're

like, "Yes, this is so right. This is so

much what MIT is about."

>> It literally almost took my breath away.

I thought it was stunning.

No one was open licensing content at

that point in time, let alone full

courses. It was breakthrough thinking in

a lot of

a pretty long time of gee making sure

there's real real support from the

faculty and a lot of hearing, you know,

both enthusiasm and just a lot of

skepticism.

If students can go get this stuff on the

web, why do they need to come get a

university education?

>> People said, "Oh my god, you're giving

your crown jewels away." And many said,

"No, we're not because what is our crown

jewel is thinking. It's reasoning. It's

creating new knowledge. The knowledge

itself should be made available." I

mean, the sheer wisdom of that is pretty

incredible. Actually,

>> we have institutions like MIT and they

can only serve a limited population. But

if you can take the things that are

fundamental to how a faculty member here

teaches, many, many, many other students

can be affected.

The first time ever that my intro to

development class was put on OCW. I

think that very first year I taught more

student than I had ever taught before.

We taught this course on advanced

graduate level deep learning. In just 2

months, hundreds of thousands of people

engaged with the content online. The

fact that something that we worked so

hard to build can spread so far beyond

these institutions doors I think is

amazing.

>> We were able to grow in terms of courses

very steadily but it was one course at a

time, one faculty member at a time.

Growth though in terms of users was

exponential.

The OCW YouTube channel with its 6

million subscribers is the most

subscribed YouTube channel from any.edu

out there. So, an indication of just the

the kind of global hunger for knowledge.

It's about empowering people to actually

use this technology to improve their

lives and improve the world.

I first came upon OCW when I was about

14 years old.

I'm originally from Ukraine and when the

war started and I was trying to find an

opportunity to learn more beyond high

school's curriculum.

I think I started with calculus one. My

English wasn't that good back in the

day, but I was trying to grasp what the

professor was drawing on the board.

>> And that is just one over 101.

>> Then as I learned English more, I became

a big user of the platform.

>> I remember my first interaction with

this. I was looking up something on

YouTube and then I see results of an AI

class in MIT and I remember asking

myself which MIT is this? This can't be

the MIT. Why would they give this out

for free?

>> OCW became this stepping stone

and right now I'm a first year student

here and I'm deeply grateful for that.

If you can inform someone and give them

that knowledge and help them make better

decisions as people, multiply that fact

a thousand times and you know you're

building a better world. In my opinion,

>> it's not only us putting out stuff that

other people can use for free. It's to

encourage other people to improve and

build on it.

One of the cool things about using MIT's

OCW is being able to go in there and use

what works or using it as a starting

point and then adding a bunch of

examples. Somebody gets more, the other

person has to get less. So, we could use

them in a way that actually makes sense

to the things my students need to know.

Me and a few other students, we got this

idea that we can translate OCW materials

into first Ukrainian and then maybe

other languages.

They were really welcoming for us to

translate their materials.

>> It's always good to ask how could it

fail. For most of the courses we've

done, it's caption translation, but also

there is one specific course where we

translated audio and you can turn on the

toggle and professor Kvisher will speak

Ukrainian.

>> It maintains her natural pace, her tone,

and it's really fascinating.

Our

most popular courses tend to be in

calculus and physics and learning to

program.

>> Let's look at what this code's supposed

to do.

>> But a vitally important part of the

education in MIT is the integration of

other disciplines across the social

sciences, humanities, and the arts.

People might not realize that there's a

pretty vibrant set of physical education

experiences reflected on open

courseware, such as videos about scuba

diving and archery.

President Fest's vision was always that

open courseware would be a permanent

part of MIT and for that to happen we

had to make sure that it delivered real

value to MIT.

One of the way in which we're using the

open courseware material is as part of

flip classroom. students who listen to

the video at home and when they come to

class my students do case studies. So

open courseware material is used as very

very very very rich textbook in a way.

I work with many PhD students and every

year two or three of my students would

not be at MIT if it wasn't for OCW.

They learned maybe linear algebra,

quantum mechanics and so forth,

increasing their aspirations to proceed

further in science and technology. So in

addition to helping people, it also

helped MIT because it definitely

attracted people that would ordinarily

not be here.

It's a face that launched a thousand

ships. A lot of later online efforts

look back to open courseware and say

that was the model.

Open courseware was a big part of my

thinking of like well you know what if

MIT could stand on this principle that

certain things should just be free and

available to the world I want to stand

for that same principle. So there's a

direct through line from what MIT did

with open courseware to the existence of

Khan Academy.

This is also maybe my origin story with

open education because when I was going

to start going to college, you know, in

my early 20s, I, you know, six years not

thinking about math at all. Like I

didn't remember anything. I didn't

remember how to add fractions. And so I

actually very heavily used things like

Khan Academy to kind of get me back up

to speed. And for someone who was kind

of taking this not straightforward path,

it was vital.

UCW was a pioneer

in making educational resources

available to the public. The whole open

education resources movement has led to

thousands of open textbooks and many

many open courses that are available on

the web.

>> I've been teaching with almost

exclusively open education resources for

like 10 years now.

It's really made me think about some

things differently because, you know,

education is a human right. Everybody

has a right to learn, not just people

who can afford to pay for it.

If we democratize education, we will

have those future geniuses who can push

society forward.

>> I envision the future where we combine

multimodel data in a more global way in

languages that are not only English but

multiple others

>> is what we call speed. Having a trusted

source like open coursework is critical

for the future and we at MIT are

committed to maintain that.

Courage is not when you do something

because you know it's going to work.

Courage is when you do something because

you're doing it because it's right. Um

and you know there are risks. I mean

there's something very profound about

our ability as an institution

collectively to take the risk when we

make these forays.

If we ever say we won't do something

because it's too risky,

that's not the MIT brand and in fact

it'll take us away from the very thing

that brought us to where we are.

>> Think's next for open courseware and

open education. What is the next 10

years hold? the next 10 years for open

courseware is going to be an adventure.

I certainly don't know exactly where

this will lead just as we didn't really

know 10 years ago where it would lead.

But it's incumbent on all of us to think

hard about it. And it's incumbent on OCW

to listen a lot to its users around the

world for clues to where we could most

productively go because it's impacted

the lives of a huge number of people in

ways that you couldn't possibly have

envisioned.

Thank you.

I thought I might tear up a little bit.

Um, that's a world premiere of that

video. Uh,

congratulations to the whole team that

helped make this happen. Uh, so I'd like

to invite uh the panelists for uh for

this panel with uh three current MIT

faculty to follow up on that as we're as

we're coming up and getting started. Um

just wanted to say um there are so many

people that have helped build this

movement and you know unfortunately we

couldn't uh we couldn't get all their

voices included. Um so I just want to

give another sort of collective big

heartfelt thank you and round of

applause for everyone who's contributed

to make the open education movement

possible.

you know who you are.

So,

OCW at MIT exists because the MIT

faculty have been willing to share their

teaching freely and openly with the

world. And so, I'm so glad to now be in

conversation with three of these faculty

to share their their perspectives more

in the moment. I'd like to start with

Annabelle, senior lecturer in electrical

engineering, computer science and a

digital learning scientist in open

learning's delta team. Delta stands for

disciplinary experts in learning

technology and applications where she

focuses on introductory computer science

education. She teaches and develops

MIT's foundational programming courses

working to make rigorous computer

science accessible to beginners. Um, we

currently have three OCW courses by

Anna. She's also featured in a recent

pot radio video podcast episode where

rubber duck ducks play a really good

supporting role.

Um,

Professor John Gruber is forward

professor of economics and chair of the

economics department here at MIT, former

director of the healthc care program of

the National Bureau of Economic

Research, and a former president of the

American Society of Health Economists

and the Eastern Economics Association,

published more than 200 research

articles, edited seven research volumes,

and has written three books, including

Public Finance and Public Policy, a

leading undergraduate text in its

seventh edition. In 2006, he received

the American Society of Health Economist

inaugural medal for the best economist,

health economist in the nation aged

under 40. During the 1997 98 academic

year, Dr. Gruber was deputy assistant

secretary for economic policy, the

Treasury Department, key architect of

Massachusetts ambitious health reform

effort, and served on the health

connector board, the main implementing

body for that effort. and in 2009 to

2010 served as technical consultant in

the Obama administration worked with the

administration and congress to help

craft the patient protection and

affordable care act

on OCW. John's m introduction to

microeconomics course is the most

visited non- stem subject that we've got

and a brand new version of his public

policy and public finance course is

getting lots of attention. He's also a

recent guest on the Chalk Radio video

podcast and uh you should check out the

bonus content where he responds to some

YouTube comments. It's quite a treat. Uh

Christopher Capzola is the Elting E.

Morrison professor of history from 2022

to 25. He also served as senior

associate dean for open learning in that

role overseeing open education offerings

including open courseware MITx as well

as several other programs. He continues

to facilitate conversations about

generative AI in teaching and learning

at MIT and advocate for open,

affordable, and equitable post-secary

learning in US higher ed. For over 20

years, he's taught US history at MIT and

is the author of two books on US

political history. Chris was also an

early OCW participant starting with

three courses in our big 500 courses

launch back in 2003. So I'd like to

start um with a with a reflection on the

range of reasons that people have for

participating in open coursework. I'd

like to hear from you if I may

professionally and personally why you

choose to do so. So start with you Anna.

You know your introductory programming

courses are collectively I think our

most popular topic in the last few

years. What's motivated you to to share

this stuff with the world on OCW and to

keep doing so?

>> Uh thanks. Uh so both personally and

professionally there I guess two

reasons. So OCW I think came out when I

was in high school and I probably

started using it in undergrad. Uh there

were, you know, probably physics and

calculus courses and a couple of CS

courses originally and I just used them

as resources to help augment my learning

uh with the assignments that were

available for free and the exams that

were available for free and I would

just, you know, use them to just help me

study. And it is absolutely wild to

think that 15 years later, I would then

put my own courses that uh I was

teaching at MIT on OCW. And it was it's

just I was reflecting on that yesterday

and it it was just wild to think about

just that, you know, going from a user

to uh someone who's just now making

these um you know uh materials. It's

just it's been great to have this

opportunity. I just like again I have no

words for that. Um and so that's my

personal reason. Professionally I think

I I've been thinking a lot about the way

students learn and they learn best by

repetition. Um, and so, you know,

repeated exposure to concepts is very

important for students to learn the

materials. And so I feel like if I put

my materials out there, it gives

students an opportunity to see the same

material they might be learning in their

own classrooms in a completely different

light from a completely different

perspective. You know, me, um, you know,

is different than their current teacher.

And so I think, um, that it it helps

them retain the material a lot a lot

better. and it kind of, you know, it's

it's a reinforcement learning uh outside

of their own classrooms. And so, in a

sense, I feel like it's rewarding

students who put in the effort to um to,

you know, who have to put in the effort

to learn, who have students who have

this intrinsic motivation to just go out

there and uh actually understand the

material as opposed to just, you know,

pass the class. So, those are my two

reasons. Personal, I used it, now I get

to contribute. Second, it's just

pedagogically a a good thing to do.

>> Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. Um I have

all kinds of follow-up questions I'd

love to ask, but we're running a little

bit behind time, so going to keep

rolling. Um so to you, John, now you've

also been a long-term participant. In

fact, uh we've done several versions

each of your intro to microeconomics and

and public policy and finance courses.

And you were also one of the first

participants back in 2003. I wonder if

you could cast your mind back to that

early moment when you were first invited

to participate in this thing that we

didn't know what it would turn into.

What what motivated you to to take the

leap?

>> You made it incredibly easy. I mean,

look, we're getting a lot of praise, but

like what's it involve? I got to put a

mic on when I lecture. I got to upload

my problem sets and notes, and you come

back to me and say, "It's done. Look at

it." I'm like, "Okay, that's great." I

mean, what's not to like? You just made

it unbel you. The resources MIT put in

to making this easy for our incredibly

busy faculty are the differencemaker. If

MIT had come to me and said look we want

you to go record a whole bunch of

separate lectures. I would have said no.

Uh basically we are busy busy people and

you have taken the resources to make it

easy. And uh the benefit to me all comes

from something that no one under 45 or

under 50 will understand which is there

used to be a time before phones when you

talk to people on planes. You won't

remember this. And every single time I

sat down next to someone and said I

taught economics, they'd say to me,

"God, that's the worst course I ever

took." And I thought, "How can this be?"

I mean, I said I'm not your favorite,

but it can't be your worst. I thought

it's just taught badly. often it's

taught in high schools by the gym

teacher or the history teacher. They

don't know what they're talking and so

to me the benefit is to be able to get

the world to understand economics uh in

in in much better and and improve their

lives in that way. Wonderful. Thank you.

Um, Chris, um, I'm especially curious,

you know, having published on OCW, then

you took the leap to like join the

family and work with us very closely for

a number of years kind of what what drew

you in to just be that much more

involved in this in this open courseware

work.

>> Yeah. No, it's been uh it was a great

adventure and part of it is, you know, I

blame Sanjay Sarma for um, you know, for

coming up with the idea. Um, but I think

the real answer is I'm going to start

actually with with a with an equation.

And that equation is 4 + 10 equals 16.

Right? So Anna is sitting here saying

like, what's going on over in the

humanities?

>> God, we let this guy in OCW. I'm not

sure we want to teach it our students.

>> So those those are UN sustainable

development goals. Four is education. 10

is reducing inequality. And 16 is just

in democratic institutions. Right? And

so I just fundamentally believe that 4

plus 10 equals 16. And I believe that if

that MIT through open courseware um and

all of our open education initiatives,

right, um has committed, right, to

solving that problem, right? And I just

wanted to kind of roll up my sleeves and

be part of it. And I had the chance to

work with 175 amazing staff members who

make that happen every day.

>> Thank you. Yeah, we're grateful that you

made that Jeep. That

>> four plus 10 equals 16. I'm going to

remember that. Thank you. Yeah. Um I

want to turn a little bit more attention

to the the stories of impact that you've

heard. Um John, you you uh referred to,

you know, the people you sat next to an

airplane who didn't necessarily have a

good experience. Um is there a story of

positive impact that you've heard from,

you know, things that you've shared

yourself or more broadly in open

education that that really stands out

for you?

>> Yeah, I started I'm I'm arrogant enough

that I keep a little folder of all the

nice emails I get. I started to go

through them and rather than just

reading a particular one, I just thought

I would reflect on the incredible

diversity of countries and uh people

that I hear from who say, you know, I

never thought I could take a class of

this quality. I never thought I could

learn so much about economics. Thank you

so much for setting me on this

educational path or for educating me.

And I guess personally I love

particularly the ones that say now I'm

going to go study economics. You know

that's what I wanted. And I love in

particular the messages I I get which

are you know I didn't really know about

economics. I attack your I took your

class. I'm going to go major economics.

I'm going to go further in economics.

And that is uh just incredibly

gratifying.

>> Wonderful. Thank you. How about you

Anna? Anything stand out?

>> Uh I have not been recognized on an

airplane yet. That's very growth mindset

but it's coming.

>> Yeah I know. growth mindset of me. Um,

again, I I don't have any specific

story, but like uh John here, I think

it's just there's um like an incredible

reach that OCW has. So, I've also been

contacted by, you know, students who

have taken the courses and there are

eight-year-olds who have taken the

courses. There are 80 year olds who have

taken the courses. There are students

who are blind who have taken these

courses and successfully gone through

it. Um there are people who you know go

through power outages every single day

and they have successfully gone through

the course and it's just like this

motivation to just you know their love

of learning that just kind of pushes

them on to just continue and you know

complete these courses and also

educators have taken the courses and

have gone on and you know taken some of

the things that we implement in our

classrooms and implemented in their own

like in um Nigeria especially they've uh

taken a lot of things that we've done

and just kind of implemented in their

own. So yeah, just a huge reach and love

of learning.

>> Yeah,

>> amazing to see.

>> Yeah, I'll I'll lift up that investments

that we make to make sure that our

content is accessible in all of the

different manifestations, you know,

really glad to hear that. Chris, any

particular impact stories for you? you

know there I mean there are so many but

I think uh it's worth putting a a thumb

on the scale for the people who take uh

OCW materials and do things with them

that we didn't imagine either in our own

classrooms or at open learning right who

and um and that that's the fundamental

sort of um motivation I think behind

open courseware and and why it's openly

licensed allows for reusing remixing um

and sort of making allowing people to do

creative things with it. And of course

uh some of the that most creative stuff

happens when people need to solve their

own educational challenges, right? And

we heard from Sophia from Ukraine and in

the video and there have been many other

learners who are displaced, refugees,

etc. Um who have like who have not let

that displace or or deter their

educational mission and that's been

super inspiring over the last few years.

>> Good. Thank you. Um, next question I'd

like to ask has to do with how

wonderful it's been to discover OCW's

reach across the whole lifelong learning

spectrum. You know, there was an idea, I

think originally, that it would mostly

be used by other educators in school

settings. And, you know, well over half

of our reach and impact has nothing to

do with people who are officially in

school. And each of you teaches a topic

that feels like especially sort of

resonant with sort of broad citizen

awareness at at this moment, you know.

Um what perspective might you have about

what OCW and open education more broadly

can do to support people's lifelong

engagement in in this field that you are

very deeply connected to? And Chris, I'd

like to start with you. This being a a

moment when so much history is being

made. Yes, more. Yes, more of it every

day. Um uh and

>> I think, you know, I'm going to answer

that question not just um thinking about

American history, although I'll get back

to that, but I think in many ways all of

these big concepts that we talk about

right now around lifelong learning, um

around workforce development, all of

those imagine people who are going to

school forever, right? people who will

who they may get a degree or not but

they will never graduate right they will

always be learners and if you trace that

back to its intellectual roots I think

you get back to 2001 um and the launch

of open courseware right because you

can't be a lifelong learner unless

there's lifelong learning materials out

there right um and I think that in order

to kind of empower those those those

learners um OCW and all of MIT's

initiatives play a real role in

Good. Thank you, John. How about how

about you? So much attention is put on

this thing that we call the economy and

its intersections with people's lives.

What do you what do you hope for there?

>> Look, I think another moment while I was

making history where where we're we're

struggling with democracy as a world

right now and there is a fundamental

link between being well educated and

supporting democracy. uh the the bedrock

of authoritarian leaders is they try to

cut down education. They try to limit

people's ability to understand what's

going on in the world. And the

fundamental resource we can provide to

fight that is free online education so

that people around the world can be

informed about what's really going on

about how to program a computer about

what's going on in history about how

economies work so that they can

understand that they should support free

and democratic societies uh to make the

best decisions and to support people in

the best way. And I just can't think of

a better way than what y'all have done

in making this kind of resource

available freely to people so that all

over the world where their leaders may

be trying to stop them from getting the

education they deserve and need, they're

meeting this human human goal of getting

that education.

and Anna um learning the program has

been for the past bunch of years an

incredible sort of gateway into you know

better jobs and so forth and so much

change a foot with what's happening with

AI. How do you think about this?

>> Uh so I'm not super worried about Gen AI

taking over our uh jobs. I'm super

excited about it because wait, not

because I don't want the jobs because it

will evolve as things always do. So, I

think uh okay, if I wore a hoodie, I'd

put that on right now because like the

thing about computer science is you

think about just hackers supposed to

like write code really quickly and, you

know, come up with, you know, come up

with it quickly and just like type type.

Um, but it's not about that. And I think

that's been a barrier for a lot of

people to get into computer science and

and programming because that is the

misconception. Even now I think that's

the misconception. But with Genai coming

on board, that part of doing the actual

coding is now going to be outsourced

most of the time to Genai. So I

personally think that now the computer

science education is going to go into

the bookend parts of programming

computer science which is the creative

part of coming up with the solution and

you don't need a typy type for that. You

just need a pen and pencil and

creativity. Um and then the other part

is the uh the testing. So you get code

back. How do you know if it's right or

not? And you'd have to do that whether

you did it yourself or whether the AI

wrote it for you. you can't really trust

yourself or the AI. So, both of those

pieces are a lot more creative than just

typy typy type code. Um, so I think it's

going to make programming a lot more

accessible to people um who, you know,

it's no longer like this hacker, you

know, this hacker thing. It's now just

going to be thinking up with uh coming

up with solutions to problems and then

figuring out, you know, well, what are

some tests that I need to run? what are

some possible, you know, ways that I can

break this code or things like that. So,

>> yeah.

>> So, we'll keep learning about that.

>> Keep learning about it and Yeah. Yeah.

>> Good. All right. Um, like to wrap up

with just an open question briefly. Um,

what's a hope that you have for the

future of this work? You know, we're

celebrating the 25 years today and also

projecting forward into the future. Um,

Anna, anything you'd like to start with

there?

>> Um, yeah. So I hope that uh OCW

continues to be offered exactly as is no

strings attached. I think uh learners

know what they're getting into whenever

you know when they see OCW. It's been

the same for 25 years and there's no you

know you know no hidden fees you know

nothing like that. It's a very

incredibly simple model for what

learners get out of it. Right? So you

have useful content and a glimpse into

MIT courses. That's it. And I think I

hope I hope it stays that way because

it's very simple and it works well.

>> Thank you, John.

>> Um I hope that we can find a more

effective hybrid of online learning and

inerson learning to provide lowerc cost

educational opportunities. I I think OCW

has been incredible. It must be continue

to be offered. At the same time, I feel

like the labor market is not yet

recognizing the credentialism of open

courseware because they still want some

of that real college feel. And I I'm

hoping that uh we can figure out a way,

you know, Esther in the video talked

about flip classrooms. We can figure out

a way to effectively partner with what

we're doing with in-person instruction

to provide a lowerc cost educational

alternative. I wish MIT be offered to 10

times as many people. It it can't

physically. it can online. Can we create

in ways that we can take the MIT OCO

material, pair it with some in-person

learning that sort of labor market

values and that people seem to want and

produce much less expensive education

for the masses.

>> Hear that?

>> All right, Chris. So, um, you know,

everybody all morning has been talking

about how big open courseware is and how

big it got and how fast. Um and my hope

actually is that MIT open courseware is

something small right a small part of a

much bigger open ecosystem right and

here it's worth thinking about MIT's

role in the development and adoption of

open software through the MIT license

and other mechanisms the role of MIT

community members in creating and

sustaining the creative commons um and

other tools for creatively sharing uh

work uh the leadership of the MIT

faculty and libraries in MIT's open

access policy, ongoing efforts to

challenge uh the market actions of large

for-profit publishers that disort

distort scholarly uh priorities. Uh

initiatives toward open science um

codified in federal legislation um in

the previous administration that enabled

the rapid broad dissemination of

publicly funded knowledge. Um and more

broadly uh both at our campus and and

beyond uh an open culture of sharing,

giving and openness um to make uh MIT

into the kind of institution that builds

bridges and not walls.

>> Yeah. If I may, sounds like you're

advocating let's keep losing market

share in the open space. Yeah,

>> indeed. What a Indeed. Let's do it.

>> All right. Thank you. Well, please uh

join me in thanking our panelists here.

We're we're we're running just a little

bit behind schedule. We now pretty much

caught up. Um I'm hoping that at the end

of our many of our panels will have an

opportunity for a little bit of Q&A at

the audience. Didn't quite land here.

our next, you know, our next session

will start at 15 past the hour and we

got to turn things around, bring up our

next panelists. Um, so that next

session, learning without limits, how

OCW opens opportunity for curious minds

worldwide. Again, we'll begin uh in

about 12 minutes from now. Please stay

tuned for this panel with learners and

educators.

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water.

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that

number

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>> Hi. It's so great to meet you.

Ah,

hey.

Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat.

Come here.

Hey

Monday.

I can get a hug.

We should get going. You guys

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Yeah.

Thank you.

I

What did I get from there?

May I ask you to take my seat please so

we can get started.

All right, we're gonna get our next

session started

if we can get everybody seated again.

And uh hello to our online participants

as well. Sarah, my colleague Sarah

Hansen, I'll hand it off to you to get

us rolling. Thank you.

>> Thank you so much and thank you to all

of you.

>> I am I think it's just not on.

>> Yay. Welcome back everybody. Thank you

for joining our very special session on

learning without limits. It's wonderful

to see everyone in person and everyone

online. As we mark the 25th anniversary

of Open Courseware, we're not just

celebrating the breadth of knowledge

that's been shared, but we're also

celebrating the impact that it's had on

people around the world. And we're lucky

to be sitting next to some educators and

learners today. My name is Sarah Hansen.

I'm the assistant director for open

education innovation at MIT Open

Learning. and much of my work focuses on

the experiences of educators and

learners. So I really couldn't be more

pleased than to be moderating this this

panel today. Our session brings together

learners and educators whose stories

show the power of curiosity and access.

And I'm really excited for you to hear

directly from them. And bonus for you

today at the end if there's time you'll

have an opportunity to ask them

questions too. So, I'd like to introduce

the panelists. Um, we'll start right

here. Hinata Yamahara is a high school

student, a high school senior from

Georgia whose discovery of OCW opened

the door to his passion for urban

planning and helped him explore far

beyond what a typical high school

curriculum can offer.

>> Yeah,

I know. Please. Yes.

Dr. Victor Odum Muiwa joins us online.

We actually worked together, Victor, a

few years ago, so it's lovely to see

you. Um, he is an associate professor of

computer science at the University of

Logos, a leader in responsible AI

research and a former MIT empowering the

teachers fellow who has used OCW to

strengthen teaching, research, and

innovation capacity across Africa.

Dr. Yeah, please.

You're in the presence of greatness. You

should appreciate it.

>> Thank you. Thank you.

>> Good afternoon, everyone. Good day,

everyone. Thank you.

>> So wonderful to see you, Victor. Dr.

Elizabeth Syler

>> is a professor in the business

administration and economics department

at Worcester State University. You saw

her in the video. She advocates for open

educational resources like OCW and uses

them almost exclusively in her teaching.

And finally, Andrea Henchel is a

superstar. She's a PhD candidate in

aeronautics here at MIT. She's also a

veteran of the Air Force. And I know and

uh she's used OCW to adjust back into

academia. So, I'm really excited for you

to hear her story. So, let's give her a

round of applause, too.

Let's start at the beginning. I'm

curious, what inspired you to learn or

to teach with open courseware?

Was it curiosity, a specific need, or

may maybe even an unexpected discovery?

Um, and Hinata, I'd like for you to

start us off.

>> Sure. Yeah. So, um, is my mic working?

Uh I started off uh with open open

courseware um really unexpectedly. I was

just browsing the web for different uh

like I guess research just getting data

on a topic I wasn't really familiar with

but I wanted to learn more about. So I

was on a train from um Tokus Narita

airport if you guys have ever been

there. It's really far from the city and

you go through nothing to get into the

city. And in those like quote unquote

nothing areas they're building these new

towns and I was really curious to what

those were. And then while I was

researching that on the train, I was

really jet-lagged so I didn't get to

read it until I got to the hotel. But it

was MIT's open courseware course and I

was reading that. I knew nothing. So I

had to do a bunch of research as I was

reading the articles and listening to

lectures and stuff like that. But I got

to know a lot more and then I just kept

on being curious and then you know I was

on a trip to Japan but I just ended up

staying in my hotel room reading about a

bunch of other things.

I kind of wasted my parents' money, but

yeah, it was really nice. Um, I got to

pursue my uh I guess like passion in uh

urban planning. After that, uh I

continued to study it throughout my high

school years and uh open course where I

supported my time through that. It's

free. Um I thought they were going to

ask me for money. They never ended up

doing that. So that was a big part of

me. Yeah. As a broke high school

student, I can't really afford any extra

money to pursue my passion. So yeah,

that's where I got started with Open

Courseware. Nice.

>> Wonderful. And I'm seeing a pattern. So,

>> Professor Gruber talked about talking

about OCW on an airplane. You're talking

about trains. So,

>> Dimmitri, this might be an avenue we

need to explore in the future. Uh,

Victor, how about you? Can you share how

you first discovered OCW?

>> Yeah, thank you. Uh so my first

experience with OCW was based on my

application for the fellowship at MIT

which is the MIT ET program and so I had

to look at uh similar courses to the

courses I teach back home and so that

was my first experience with OCW and

when I actually came into MIT for the

fellowship uh I discover more resources

and then I got glued to it because I

could see a lot of content and more

interestingly the design of this content

made it more interesting to me and uh

that was the starting point. Thank you.

>> Thank you

Elizabeth.

So about 10 years ago, I was going to

teach a new class in teach a class for

the first time in negotiation. And as

you do, I looked at what commercial what

commercial textbooks were out at the

time and picked one and was and taught

from it. And you know, it was okay.

Actually, it sucked. Um, sorry, I'm not

going to tell you what it was. And also

at the same time um my our librarians I

think this was part of a state statewide

thing in Massachusetts but the

librarians at Worester State were really

promoting this thing called open

education resources and I had most of us

had never heard of this and you know

what there were these lists of like you

could go to these websites and look for

stuff and I was like yeah sure there's

going to be something at MIT about

negotiation and guess what there was

>> and so I found a course by that Mary row

I think you're the onbuds asked lots of

nods. I Yeah. Uh the ombbudsman been

here for many years, possibly decades,

uh taught a class for the graduate

business school here for um in 2001. So

her OCW materials are basically a stack

of paper, right? Paper. Yes. And it was

a treasure chest. It was amazing. It was

I didn't only get things that I could

use for my students for free instead of

having them try to

try to go online to pay $8 to buy

something from another school in

Cambridge. And um

yeah uh

I'm really sorry about that.

But also I learned so much about

negotiation because things that I did

not learn any place else because of she

was teaching from her experience with

literally thousands of people in

conflict and solving them

>> and um yeah it was amazing. So

>> thank you. Yes,

>> thank you for sharing that.

>> Andrea, I'd invite you to also share

your story.

>> Thank you so much. If I can say quickly,

thank you Sarah for moderating and I

could not be more grateful to be able to

celebrate 25 years of open courseware

with this incredible group. Um my

journey started

um pretty much by necessity. Um so I was

lucky enough my first assignment in the

military was actually to come to MIT and

earn a master's degree in the department

of aeronautics and astronautics. Um but

my first semester here was a little bit

rough. I got a B and a C in my classes,

which at MIT that's that's not very

good. And actually for my program as

well, I ended up being put on academic

probation, which meant the military was

concerned about my performance and

considering uh having me withdraw from

the program. Luckily, I had a great

active mentor who said, "I think the

issue is that you don't have the linear

algebra background that you need for

these courses." And he asked me if I had

heard of open courseware. And he pointed

me towards uh Professor Gil String's

linear algebra course. And I've I've

heard that he may be there in person. Is

that true?

Fantastic. Professor String, thank you

so much.

I I took two of his courses um between

the fall and spring semester and ended

up uh in the spring semester getting an

A and a B. And literally ever since then

uh because of open courseware I've

gotten all A's in my academic programs

since then I just I can't imagine where

else I would have had such an incredible

tool. Um, so again, Professor String,

uh, the open courseware team, you guys

saved my master's degree, so thank you

so much for that.

>> Thank you.

Open courseware often becomes a

meaningful part of learners and

educators lives. And I'd like to ask

each of you to reflect on how open

courseware has helped you grow

personally, professionally,

how it might have helped you meet a

goal. I think that our audience would

love to hear those stories. Hinata,

would you like to start us off?

>> Sure. Um, well, as you probably know,

I'm 18. Um, I've been having the

privilege to travel a lot. And when my

parents bring me to these cities that

I've never heard of, I often used to

look at them as like, oh, they're just

old cities. They're not really that

important. Or they're, you know, on the

opposite side. They're really new. They

feel really artificial. There's no life

to it. I don't really care. So now after

open courseware, I started to appreciate

like how they actually planned out these

new cities or these old cities. how

they, you know, let's say there was a

river running through the city and then,

oh, they use that river to put business

around it to get people around that

river. Those little things translate to

looking at a bunch of cities and

everywhere I travel at a really

different lens. I feel like that has

really grown me as a traveler. Um, and I

think I'm getting my parents money worth

money's worth as well. So, I think

they'll really appreciate that. But

yeah.

>> Wow, that's neat. So OCW is shaping

literally shaping how you see the world,

how you read the world.

>> Exly. Very different. Yeah.

>> Andrea, can you tell us about your

story? And you know, you you are looking

at the world from the perspective of

aeronautics. So I'm really curious what

perspective

>> OCW is helping you to have.

>> Open courseware has

opened uh no pun intended, but opened

you so many different avenues for me.

But I think the most salient one, the

most memorable one for me was as I was

transitioning out of the military. Uh I

knew I wanted to continue to serve and

just in a different capacity. I wanted

to serve as as an engineer and

researcher and I'd been out of the

classroom for a decade by this point. So

I knew I needed to refresh my academic

skills. I looked online for open

programs and ke kept coming back to open

courseware. It wasn't even deliberate. I

wasn't targeting open courseware. It was

just the courses that I wanted to take

were available on open courseware. And

that's actually what made me decide that

MIT it was MIT robust. I wanted to come

back to MIT for my PhD because of this

attitude of educational philanthropy. I

didn't want to go any place else. I

wanted to come to MIT.

Um I knew I needed to prove that I could

still hack it academically to get

accepted here. Um I wanted to get a

second masters in computer science to do

that. But I didn't have an undergraduate

degree in computer science. So I used

open courseware to computer

architecture, networks, programming and

C algorithms

and

it absolutely 100% set me up for

success. I went to Auburn University. I

scored so high on the baseline test

architecture. The professor told me I

didn't need to attend classes. I did

anyway. Uh and I was able to complete

that program in months including thesis

when it's scheduled for 21. And once I

sent those transcripts to MIT, I was

accepted to the PhD program here. And

again, MIT's open course enabled all of

that. All the professors that offer

their materials, the staff, the

administration, all of you enabled me to

do that. You enabled me to start this

new career to continue to serve as an

engineering researcher.

>> I feel so proud to be part of the team

that enabled you to do that because I

feel like you're making such a

difference in the world. And if I can be

even like an atomsized piece of that um

just feel very lucky.

>> Victor, I am

>> Victor, I am so curious how open

courseware has shaped your teaching in

the past. I've been able to talk with

you about your dedication to education.

Um could you tell the audience a little

bit about that?

>> Yeah, thank you. Uh so uh I remember

when I came to MIT that was in 2013 that

should about 13 years ago uh and one of

the professors managing the fellowship

program told me you have to go to take

6005 and check out what it's all about

that was elements of software

construction and so I was interested in

raising very solid worldass software

engineers. So that was my goal and when

I look at the course I saw that that was

well structured and designed course. Uh

it was very very interesting. So even

for me as a professor I had to learn a

lot of things. Yeah. And I had to even

sit down to in class apart from using

OCW to even sit down in class and see

how it's been taken live as well. And so

that was a really turning point because

it made me to see how the um MIT

students have been prepared for the

future and uh how the world content and

the whole evaluations everything design

how they design and so I learned a lot

and I applied the same approach back

home and sincerely I've got a lot of

positive feedbacks people getting jobs

in the global companies after taking the

course design when I came back to

Nigeria based on that course uh people

getting jobs at Google Microsoft because

of the content and the structure of the

course. So I I actually followed it and

redesign my own course back up. It was

really a very good experience and uh I

love the way the um the recitations

I design and also I mean things around

the assignment and very interesting not

only software construction I also use

this another course which is human

interface design user interface design

or postgraduate was also very

interesting so one of the things I found

there was at times when you use

textbooks you don't get everything you

want because uh this the flow flow in

the books may not be good enough for you

to actually help you to learn. But I see

that the way the courses are designed I

mean they are not following textbook per

se but the designing a way how do we

communicate knowledge to people and get

them to understand it from beginning to

the end. So I see that holistic design

that changes the way people learn and

make sure when somebody come to a

classroom as a novice or you follow the

material because it's based on a MIT

curriculum really and you come in as a

novice then you come out of the class at

the end of the semester you come out as

a as a mini expert. So I think that is

very interesting design and that has

actually also helped me also in

designing my courses back home. Thank

you.

>> Thank you.

It's one of the things I love about open

courseware is that we share not only the

content but the how the teaching happens

and that seems to have been important in

your journey.

>> So thank you for sharing that Elizabeth.

How about you?

>> Yeah. Um so I'm going to say this in

maybe two sentences but to be clear this

is a very longterm nonlinear process.

untethering my classes, untethering my

teaching from a textbook because

teaching, you know, because teaching a

textbook is just how we've always done

it has made me question so many other

things about how we've always done it.

So many other assumptions and I'm going

to leave you all to find your own

examples for that because I think you

probably can.

>> Yeah. Thank you.

>> So this sort of leads into my next

question which maybe we'll start with

you then and that's about barriers. So

one of the most powerful aspects of open

knowledge is how it can remove barriers.

So my question would you like to see

>> I don't remember what my I don't

remember what I said for this. Okay. Oh

right. Okay.

>> Let me let me ask the question.

>> My notes are in. Yeah.

>> Um can you share a moment when OCW

helped you overcome a challenge whether

academic, financial, personal or

something related to access?

>> Sure. Um one challenge that I think just

just two challenges really fast. One is

the uh public discourse around higher

education and to be clear I work for a

public institution right so we are

supposed to be serving the entire public

um but the public discourse around

higher education and it's been I don't

know 20 years about just oh go to

college and get a better job

>> that's it which is not the function of

public higher education historically and

not what I believe or not only what I

believe so just the fact that OCW exists

thank you keep keep doing this. Okay.

The other one and the other one is

really small for my student for my

classes because um are really micro not

small

is that um it's probably not a stretch

to say most MIT students are good at

school. Yeah. Um my students maybe do

not come in a lot of them do not come in

thinking they are good at school. A lot

of my students have came in with people

telling them that they are not good at

school that they are bad at many many

things. And um

so when I teach this class in particular

and I tell them look these materials

came from a graduate class at MIT and

yes you guys can do this too and I mean

I have to scaffold I have to you know

give them other support which is normal

because they're 18. Um they're like

what? Sorry.

>> How many consulting firms have you

worked at? None. Okay. Um

>> not yet.

>> Not yet. Not yet. Well, that's it. Not

yet. Right.

But they're like, "What? I can What? I

can do this?" Yeah. Of course you can.

>> Yes. Yes. You can do a whole lot more

than you think you can. You can do more

than people have told you you can.

>> Yes.

>> So, yeah.

>> Thank you.

>> Yeah. That's huge.

>> Um, I love the idea that open courseware

is a yes, you can.

>> Yeah.

>> I love that.

>> We might have to put that on some swag.

That's good.

>> Andrea, how about you? What barriers has

open courseware removed for you?

>> Gosh. So, and not just for me, for so

many of the people I mentor as well. So,

I talked about, you know, having these

um asynchronous

uh courses and materials available meant

that I could get the material that I

wanted on the timeline that I wanted

anywhere. So, anytime, anywhere, 100%

free as Hinata highlighted. And it was

important not just for my journey, but

now that I'm getting to mentor other

veterans, service members,

underrepresented, non-traditional

applicants, you know, getting to tell

them, hey, it's okay if you work strange

hours or you travel a lot or, you know,

money is tight. you can take worldclass

courses to prepare for whatever is next

for you, whether you're going straight

into the workforce or or whether you're

going into an academic program. Um, and

it's because of open courseware.

And

you know, it it also means something to

the people who are applying to these

selective academic programs to put on

their application that they're preparing

using open courseware courses. people

recognize open courseware for how high

quality it is and what it means to be an

independent learner taking those

courses. And so a lot of the people that

I've I've had the opportunity to mentor

have been accepted to these very

selective programs having used open

courseware to help get themselves there.

And if I can jump on what Elizabeth said

as well also that attitude of hey this

is from MIT the number one engineering

school in the world. you've taken this

course from this number one engineering

school in the world. Yes, you can you

can learn at that level. You can be at

institutions like this. So removing

mental barrier I think is is also

critical.

>> Thank you Victor. Has OCW helped remove

any barriers for you or your students?

>> Yeah, thank you. Like I said earlier, uh

the first thing is that it's made my

students even including myself to kind

of learn from the best professors. Even

though you're not having physical

contact with them, but from the

materials you created, you're having

learning from the best of the best.

Yeah, that's the first thing. So you are

getting exposed to knowledge that um

that MIT students are having. uh and so

that alone changed the understanding of

the students and secondly what it did

was also to make them to understand uh

the global market when you see the

content that's preparing student for

global market and you are using the it

makes to understand you're not just

trying to get ready for the market in

your country but you're getting ready

for the market a global market so this

barriers of entering the global market

was removed because when they go through

the content it makes them really ready

for a global market. So that was one of

the biggest barriers it's remote and

making them to see the kind of

difficulty that uh the best university

in engineering like mentioned by the

kind of difficulty the kind of problems

they give to their students. So when you

do that your confidence level goes up

and then you become more confident that

if they can do that and you are doing it

here then that means you are fine that

means you can compete anywhere in the

world. So confidence level increased and

also they get ready for global market.

Thank you. That's so um interesting that

the common theme that we've heard so far

um is lifting the confidence barrier

that it's a confidence enabler. That's

so interesting. Um we might circle back

to Hinata after we fix our technical

problems, but um I'd like to move us on

to the next question

and this is unexpected impacts and

surprises. So OCW has a way of

surprising us. I know it surprised me

when I saw the the job opening online

11 years ago. I was like, "This can't be

real. Like, OCW can't be real. Like, we

can't be like giving this away for

free." So, the very premise of it

surprised me. And I'd love to hear from

each of you how OCW has created surprise