MIT Press is making its academic titles free to view as part of a new open access model called Direct to Open, reports Jack Grove for Times Higher Ed. “From 2022, all new scholarly monographs and edited collections published by MIT Press will be openly available on its e-book platform rather than sold directly to libraries or readers as single titles,” writes Grove.
Forbes contributor Mary Juetten spotlights how a group of MIT alumni recently published a book, “Points of You,” which chronicles some of the struggles youths often face as they enter adulthood. “In this book we aimed to share real and unfiltered accounts of what we wish we’d known while growing up,” says Minha Fahmi ’19. “By presenting the perspectives of four very different people, we hope that teenagers and young adults can find understanding and new points of view.”
Graduate student John Urschel speaks with Education Week reporter Kevin Bushweller about his work aimed at encouraging more students of color to pursue studies in the STEM fields, particularly math. “What really matters is resources, what really matters is how much a child is nurtured and fed things,” says Urschel. “This is just my opinion, but I would say that, by and large, if I had to choose between giving a child a little bit more innate math talent or a little bit more resources, I think, really, resources is what is a very good and bigger predictor [of future success].”
Prof. Sherry Turkle’s new book, “The Empathy Diaries,” is a “beautiful book,” writes Dwight Garner for The New York Times. “It has gravity and grace; it’s as inexorable as a fable; it drills down into the things that make a life; it works to make sense of existence on both its coded and transparent levels; it feels like an instant classic of the genre.”
Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks with Wired reporter Arielle Pardes about her new memoir, “The Empathy Diaries,” her views on screen time during the pandemic and finding connections during a time of physical distancing. “When people have great intent, and great desire, and full attention to turn this medium into something extraordinary, they can,” says Turkle of the internet. “The trouble is, we’re more likely to use it to make some money, to scrape some data, to turn it into something other than its highest form.”
In her new memoir, “The Empathy Diaries,” Prof. Sherry Turkle takes readers on her journey from “a working-class Brooklyn childhood to tenured professor at M.I.T.,” writes Casey Schwartz for The New York Times. “The title of her new book reflects one of Turkle’s preoccupations,” notes Schwartz. “As we disappear into our lives onscreen, spending less time in reflective solitude, and less time in real-life conversation with others, empathy, as Turkle sees it, is one of the casualties.”
Writing for Inside Higher Ed, Joshua Kim spotlights Prof Justin Reich’s new book, “Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education.” Kim writes, “‘Failure to Disrupt’ is an argument for educational tinkering over radical disruption. Reich sees potential in scaled online learning to benefit some learners in some circumstances.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money about his book, “Why Nations Fail,” whether the attack on the U.S. Capitol signals difficulties for U.S. institutions, and how politicians can create more shared prosperity through a “good jobs” agenda. "We are still at a point where we can reverse things," Acemoglu says. "But I think if we paper over these issues, we will most likely see a huge deterioration in institutions. And it can happen very rapidly."
Forbes contributor Sharon Goldman spotlights Prof. Yossi Sheffi’s new book, “The New (Ab)Normal,” which examines how companies shifted their operations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Goldman writes that in the book, Sheffi “details how businesses grappled with the chaos of the pandemic, and explores what enterprises are likely to do to survive and thrive in 2021 and beyond, after the pandemic starts to subside.”
Vice President for Open Leaning Sanjay Sarma speaks with Jeffrey Young of EdSurge about how the brain works when understanding new concepts. "I question a lot of the structures and dogmas in education that are very closely held, but not necessarily based on science,” says Sarma. “And if we have the courage to reexamine these assumptions and reconstitute education, there's an incredible opportunity to change the game.”
New York Times reporter David Leonhardt spotlights Prof. Jonathan Gruber and Prof. Simon Johnson’s book, “Jump-Starting America,” which explores how collaboration between the federal government and private companies has led to some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs.
Prof. Sinan Aral’s new book, “The Hype Machine,” has been selected as one of the best books of the year about AI by Wired. Gilad Edelman notes that Aral’s book is “an engagingly written shortcut to expertise on what the likes of Facebook and Twitter are doing to our brains and our society.”
Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Danny Crichton of TechCrunch about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the future of social media. Aral notes that he believes a starting point “for solving the social media crisis is creating competition in the social media economy.”
Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with New York Times editorial board member Greg Bensinger about how social media platforms can reduce the spread of misinformation. “Human-in-the-loop moderation is the right solution,” says Aral. “It’s not a simple silver bullet, but it would give accountability where these companies have in the past blamed software.”
Forbes contributor Derek Newton writes about Prof. Justin Reich’s new book, “Failure to Disrupt,” noting that the book is a “must-read for the education-invested as well as the education-interested.”