Prof. Parag Pathak, winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, speaks to The Wall Street Journal’s Michelle Hackman about his research on school choice. “What I sometimes find frustrating in conversations about student achievement is they often get sidetracked from the issue of school quality,” Pathak says. “Our job as researchers is exploring the nuances and subtleties.”
In a VICE News Tonight climate segment, MIT postdocs Volodymyr Koman and Seon-Yeong Kwak explain their technique for making plants glow in the dark to a first-grade class in Boston. Following a demonstration mixing plant glucose with the specialized nanoparticles, one student exclaims in disbelief, “no battery or anything!”
Prof. Duane Boning, faculty co-director of MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program, talks to Forbes contributor Jim Lawton about preparing future leaders and workplace learning in the digital age. “The LGO model,” says Boning, “gives students a different way of thinking about their roles.”
Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg are donating $30 million to an MIT and Harvard initiative to improve child literacy. Reach Every Reader, which will be funded for five years, “will combine scientific research with new methods of tracking and predicting students’ reading abilities,” writes Jordan Graham for The Boston Herald.
The Associated Press reports that Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are donating $30 million to Harvard and MIT, to help improve literacy skills in elementary school students. “[S]truggling to read can be a crushing blow with lifelong consequences,” said President Rafael Reif.
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are donating $30 million to Reach Every Reader, an MIT and Harvard initiative that aims to tackle low elementary school literacy rates. Students younger than third grade will be the focus as “early intervention can have the most profound effect on turning students into proficient readers,” writes James Vaznis for The Boston Globe.
Mel King, who founded the Community Fellows Program in 1996, spoke to Crystal Haynes at Boston 25 News for a feature about his lifelong efforts to promote inclusion and equal access to technology. Haynes notes that King, a senior lecturer emeritus at MIT, “is credited with forming Boston into the city it is today; bringing groups separated by race, gender and sexuality together in a time when it was not only unexpected, but dangerous.”
Lecturer Amy Carleton speaks with Times Higher Ed reporter Holly Else about how she uses Wikipedia in her courses. Carleton explains that by asking students to write new pieces and add information to existing Wikipedia entries, she is attempting to help students “start to understand how important it is to have a high-quality source to back up any statements that they are making.”
During a broad-ranging conversation with Tom Moroney of Bloomberg News, President L. Rafael Reif discusses why education, the free-flow of talent and federal investment in fundamental scientific research are key components to America's success. Reif explains that, in his view, the foundation of our future is, “talent and believing that our research and investments will benefit the American economy.”
WBUR’s Fred Thys reports on how MIT faculty members are drawing on their experience with online courses to design more immersive case studies. “We really want students to feel like they're on the ground with us, investigating with us what is going on in a particular place,” explains Danya Sherman of the MIT Case Study Initiative.
In an editorial about online learning, The Boston Globe highlights a recent digital learning conference held at MIT, during which, “experts convincingly portrayed innovative online offerings as a key tool for helping those of modest means move up the economic ladder.”
Washington Post reporter Martin Weil writes about this year’s recipients of the Rhodes Scholarship. Two MIT students were named Rhodes Scholars this year - Mary Clare Beytagh and Matthew Chun. Weil writes that Chun is, “designing the first prosthetic knee intended specifically for use in the developing world.”
Boston Magazine reporter Hayley Glatter spotlights how two MIT seniors - Mary Clare Beytagh and Matthew Chun - were among this year’s winners of the Rhodes Scholarship.
AP reporter Gene Johnson writes about this year’s group of Rhodes Scholars, which includes two MIT students, Mary Clare Beytagh and Matthew Chun. Johnson highlights how Chun, “leads a team designing the first prosthetic knee for use in the developing world.”
The MIT Sloan School of Management is ranked third in Bloomberg Businessweek’s list of the Best Graduate Business Schools of 2017, reports Shahien Nasiripour. “Surveys of recruiters, alumni, and students, as well as recent graduates’ success at landing jobs and securing high starting wages” are used to determine the rank of the schools listed, Nasiripour explains.