Professor Gilbert Strang and Dr. Sarah Hansen, sitting in chais in front of a blackboard

Professor Gilbert Strang in conversation with Chalk Radio host, Dr. Sarah Hansen.

MIT OpenCourseWare is proud to announce the premiere of a new podcast series.

By Peter Chipman, OCW Digital Publication Specialist and OCW Educator Assistant

Chalk Radio is a podcast about inspired teaching at MIT, hosted by Dr. Sarah Hansen. The show takes listeners behind the scenes of some of the most interesting courses on campus to talk with the professors who make those courses possible. The guests on Chalk Radio open up to us about the passions that drive their cutting-edge research and innovative teaching, sharing stories that are candid, funny, serious, personal, and full of insights. Listening in on these conversations is like being present in person under the MIT dome, talking with your favorite professors.

About the Guests

In the first episodes, we talk with a nuclear science professor who finds surprisingly entertaining educational uses for MIT’s fission reactor, and with an African studies professor who asks her students to attend theatrical performances out in the “real world.” In subsequent episodes, we meet a math professor who champions the value of getting stuck, the instructors of a popular three-day intensive course on piloting small planes, and a literature professor who wants to teach students to love the movies. And that’s just the first half of the first season!

About the Host

Professor M. Amah Edoh and Dr. Sarah Hansen, sitting in front of microphones in a recording studio

Professor M. Amah Edoh and Dr. Sarah Hansen recording the second episode of Chalk Radio.

Sarah Hansen connects educators around the world to openly licensed MIT teaching materials and approaches through the MIT OpenCourseWare Educator Initiative. Before working at MIT, she was a faculty member in the Education Department at St. Catherine University, and before that she was an elementary school teacher. She holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Minnesota, where her scholarship focused on equity issues in education.

How to Listen

Chalk Radio album artA new episode of Chalk Radio will appear every other Wednesday, starting February 19, 2020. All episodes will be accessible through the podcast’s website, which also includes links to Apple Podcasts and other popular platforms where you can find the latest episodes or subscribe to the whole series.