When 14-year-old Jahzhia Moralez played a vocabulary game that involved jumping onto her friend like a backpack, she knew Itz’at STEAM Academy wasn’t like other schools in Belize. Transferring from a school that assigned nearly four hours of homework every night, Moralez found it strange that her first week at Itz’at was focused on having […]
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How Learning Black History Can Create Understanding And Empathy Needed To Bridge Racial, Political Divides
NewsOne Featured Video Source: RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images / Getty On the day of the Super Bowl, Matt Gaetz, a Republican member of Congress from Florida, publicly announced that he would not watch one of the most popular sporting events in America. The reason for his boycott? “They’re desecrating America’s national […]
Read More“This MIT Bootcamp shook everything upside down and has given me the spirit of innovation”
A new MIT Bootcamps hybrid program recently convened 34 innovators to tackle substance use disorder from multiple perspectives. Together, they built and pitched new ventures with the goal of bringing life-saving innovations to the field. The Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Ventures program featured workshops, case studies, and interactive sessions with researchers, entrepreneurs, and doctors who […]
Read MoreExposure to different kinds of music influences how the brain interprets rhythm
When listening to music, the human brain appears to be biased toward hearing and producing rhythms composed of simple integer ratios — for example, a series of four beats separated by equal time intervals (forming a 1:1:1 ratio). However, the favored ratios can vary greatly between different societies, according to a large-scale study led by […]
Read MoreBrain surgery training from an avatar
Benjamin Warf, a renowned neurosurgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital, stands in the MIT.nano Immersion Lab. More than 3,000 miles away, his virtual avatar stands next to Matheus Vasconcelos in Brazil as the resident practices delicate surgery on a doll-like model of a baby’s brain. With a pair of virtual-reality goggles, Vasconcelos is able to watch […]
Read More“We offer another place for knowledge”
In the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi, Jospin Hassan didn’t have access to the education opportunities he sought. So, he decided to create his own. Hassan knew the booming fields of data science and artificial intelligence could bring job opportunities to his community and help solve local challenges. After earning a spot in the 2020-21 […]
Read MorePlay it again, Spirio
Seated at the grand piano in MIT’s Killian Hall last fall, first-year student Jacqueline Wang played through the lively opening of Mozart’s “Sonata in B-flat major, K.333.” When she’d finished, Mi-Eun Kim, pianist and lecturer in MIT’s Music and Theater Arts Section (MTA), asked her to move to the rear of the hall. Kim tapped […]
Read MoreSmart glove teaches new physical skills
You’ve likely met someone who identifies as a visual or auditory learner, but others absorb knowledge through a different modality: touch. Being able to understand tactile interactions is especially important for tasks such as learning delicate surgeries and playing musical instruments, but unlike video and audio, touch is difficult to record and transfer. To tap […]
Read MoreEntrepreneur creates career pathways with MIT OpenCourseWare
When June Odongo interviewed early-career electrical engineer Cynthia Wacheke for a software engineering position at her company, Wacheke lacked knowledge of computer science theory but showed potential in complex problem-solving. Determined to give Wacheke a shot, Odongo turned to MIT OpenCourseWare to create a six-month “bridging course” modeled after the classes she once took as […]
Read MoreHow the brain responds to reward is linked to socioeconomic background
MIT neuroscientists have found that the brain’s sensitivity to rewarding experiences — a critical factor in motivation and attention — can be shaped by socioeconomic conditions. In a study of 12 to 14-year-olds whose socioeconomic status (SES) varied widely, the researchers found that children from lower SES backgrounds showed less sensitivity to reward than those […]
Read MoreBridging the gap between preschool policy, practice, and research
Preschool in the United States has grown dramatically in the past several decades. From 1970 to 2018, preschool enrollment increased from 38 percent to 64 percent of eligible students. Fourteen states are currently discussing preschool expansion, with seven likely to pass some form of universal eligibility within the next calendar year. Amid this expansion, families, […]
Read More“MIT can give you ‘superpowers’”
Speaking at the virtual MITx MicroMasters Program Joint Completion Celebration last summer, Diogo da Silva Branco Magalhães described watching a Spider-Man movie with his 8-year-old son and realizing that his son thought MIT was a fictional entity that existed only in the Marvel universe. “I had to tell him that MIT also exists in the […]
Read MoreTeen uses calculus learned through MITx to better understand his cancer treatment
When Dustin Liang was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in June, the cancer consumed his life. But despite a monthlong hospital stay, aggressive chemotherapy treatments, and ongoing headaches, fatigue, loss of appetite, and nausea, the 17-year-old high school senior enrolled in MITx’s class 18.01.1x (Calculus 1A: Differentiation). MITx, part of MIT Open Learning, offers […]
Read MoreThe brain may learn about the world the same way some computational models do
To make our way through the world, our brain must develop an intuitive understanding of the physical world around us, which we then use to interpret sensory information coming into the brain. How does the brain develop that intuitive understanding? Many scientists believe that it may use a process similar to what’s known as “self-supervised […]
Read MoreHow adults understand what kids are saying
When babies first begin to talk, their vocabulary is very limited. Often one of the first sounds they generate is “da,” which may refer to dad, a dog, a dot, or nothing at all. How does an adult listener make sense of this limited verbal repertoire? A new study from MIT and Harvard University researchers […]
Read MoreMobilizing creative learning with OctoStudio
A group of schoolchildren in Chile walk on a hillside, taking photos of plants and animals with mobile devices. They later integrate the photos into animated stories about the local environment. Two friends in Uganda create an interactive game with an animated chicken that moves across the screen as you tilt the phone — and speaks […]
Read MoreLearning how to learn
Suppose you need to be on today’s only ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, which leaves at 2 p.m. It takes about 30 minutes (on average) to drive from where you are to the terminal. What time should you leave? This is one of many common real-life examples used by Richard “Dick” Larson, a post-tenure professor in […]
Read MorePracticing mindfulness with an app may improve children’s mental health
Many studies have found that practicing mindfulness — defined as cultivating an open-minded attention to the present moment — has benefits for children. Children who receive mindfulness training at school have demonstrated improvements in attention and behavior, as well as greater mental health. When the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, sending millions of students home […]
Read More“A whole world of potential learners and potential knowledge to gain”
When Aya Khalifa came to MIT from Egypt for her master’s degree in chemical engineering, she adapted well to a new educational system thanks to class 10.MBC (Math Boot Camp for Engineers). This online resource was developed by the MIT Digital Learning Lab (DLL) and the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering for first-year graduate students […]
Read MoreMIT’s dynaMIT club sparks interest in STEM for middle schoolers
For the past 10 years, MIT students who are members of dynaMIT have taught middle schoolers from under-resourced Boston-area schools vital STEM principles through a variety of games, experiments, and activities. Months of planning by the 24 club members culminate in a two-week learning adventure that involves teaching 40 sixth- and seventh-graders one week, then […]
Read MoreStudy decodes surprising approach mice take in learning
Neuroscience discoveries ranging from the nature of memory to treatments for disease have depended on reading the minds of mice, so researchers need to truly understand what the rodents’ behavior is telling them during experiments. In a new study that examines learning from reward, MIT researchers deciphered some initially mystifying mouse behavior, yielding new ideas […]
Read MoreMIT researchers win grants to develop and test 14 innovative ideas to improve education
The MIT Jameel World Education Lab has awarded $917,526 in Education Innovation Grants to support 14 research projects exploring a range of topics, including electrical engineering, extended reality, physical movement, and ecological sustainability. The grants will support researchers from 11 departments, labs, and centers across MIT. “Our Education Innovation Grants support MIT research that can […]
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