MIT OpenCourseWare(ocw.mit.edu)
ocw.mit.edu
MIT OpenCourseWare
https://ocw.mit.edu/
59 comments
Coursera's Learning to Learn class by Barbara Oakley and her book "Mind for Numbers" [0] really changed my life. Can you point to specific courses and or books, from MIT's OpenCourseWare, that helped you become a confident learner?
[0] https://barbaraoakley.com/books/a-mind-for-numbers/
[0] https://barbaraoakley.com/books/a-mind-for-numbers/
I saw a lot of Physics lectures from Walter Lewin.
A lot of computer science lectures in the CS & EE category. Don't remember the names of lecturers, but almost all of the lectures have a very good flow.
A lot of computer science lectures in the CS & EE category. Don't remember the names of lecturers, but almost all of the lectures have a very good flow.
I can totally relate to this and remember the first OCW. Also from India, I always feel that the web of that era pushed a lot with regards to making an open, knowledge sharing platform.
I remember walking into random rooms on Freenode from MIT (I think) and seeing well known people/professors in there. It was such an inspiration to keep learning.
I remember walking into random rooms on Freenode from MIT (I think) and seeing well known people/professors in there. It was such an inspiration to keep learning.
> "It helped me learn how to learn" …
Raised in the USA, I was extremely fortunate (so many students here and abroad miss out on the sheer good luck of getting several really great teachers in back-to-back succession in school) to have been exposed to some really amazing teachers early in life who taught this exact lesson. Their view of teaching was that if they taught students how to rely on rote book-learning without teaching an accompanying "thirst for knowledge" and the tools to gain that knowledge, then they'd failed at their job as teachers.
When these universities first started releasing so much of their courseware openly like this, I viewed it as one of the great triumphs of the modern Internet, and a huge boon for humanity. I am glad that humanity now has such an abundance of great learning materials available so readily, and saddened by how few humans choose to avail themselves of such opportunity.
Raised in the USA, I was extremely fortunate (so many students here and abroad miss out on the sheer good luck of getting several really great teachers in back-to-back succession in school) to have been exposed to some really amazing teachers early in life who taught this exact lesson. Their view of teaching was that if they taught students how to rely on rote book-learning without teaching an accompanying "thirst for knowledge" and the tools to gain that knowledge, then they'd failed at their job as teachers.
When these universities first started releasing so much of their courseware openly like this, I viewed it as one of the great triumphs of the modern Internet, and a huge boon for humanity. I am glad that humanity now has such an abundance of great learning materials available so readily, and saddened by how few humans choose to avail themselves of such opportunity.
Agree and I would like to echo you. I feel I owe so much to OCW , fundamentals and concepts helped me through early career here in India.
The original SICP course is up on OCW, watched it years ago and it was a treat:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu...
The link says 2005 but don't worry, it is 100% not from 2005, as the video production, hair styles, and general demeanor of people in the video will attest.
> These twenty video lectures by Hal Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman are a complete presentation of the course, given in July 1986 for Hewlett-Packard employees, and professionally produced by Hewlett-Packard Television. These videos are also available here under a Creative Commons license compatible with commercial use.
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu...
The link says 2005 but don't worry, it is 100% not from 2005, as the video production, hair styles, and general demeanor of people in the video will attest.
> These twenty video lectures by Hal Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman are a complete presentation of the course, given in July 1986 for Hewlett-Packard employees, and professionally produced by Hewlett-Packard Television. These videos are also available here under a Creative Commons license compatible with commercial use.
Hal Abelson was also one of the leaders of the MIT OCW initiative. (source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8k8o7zkA1o)
OCW tends to everything about the course, except the video lectures.
I've seen so many courses with newer course-dates but the lectures alone are from older editions of the same course.
I've seen so many courses with newer course-dates but the lectures alone are from older editions of the same course.
They really don't need to re-do the lectures every year, you only need them once.
What's kind of sad are the upper level/graduate courses with no lectures, or the ones that have lectures cut out for IP reasons.
What's kind of sad are the upper level/graduate courses with no lectures, or the ones that have lectures cut out for IP reasons.
Why are they redoing the rest of the course then? If the only change is the date then things are fine. However research does move on, if they need to redo the course materials for any reason that needs to include the lectures.
It still takes time and money to record videos or collect assignments and ensure legal compliance, privacy, accessibility, etc. which often utilizes student labor, where there's an opportunity cost. That is, students, professors, and everyone in-between could be frying bigger fish.
If a course is teaching computer architecture and switches from a hypothetical instruction set to RISC-V, the core of the instruction hasn't changed---memory layout, instruction ordering, digital system concepts.
(The nice thing, Silvina Hanono Wachman uploads a privately recorded version of each semester of the computer architecture class, so we get the classic Chris Terman instruction as well as the modern variant.)
With that in mind, some classes will have a higher relevance churn rate than others and should be updated more often. Other classes might have historically had an amazing instructor and no major development and thus need a really compelling reason to be replaced. (MIT's Introductory Physics comes to mind.)
If a course is teaching computer architecture and switches from a hypothetical instruction set to RISC-V, the core of the instruction hasn't changed---memory layout, instruction ordering, digital system concepts.
(The nice thing, Silvina Hanono Wachman uploads a privately recorded version of each semester of the computer architecture class, so we get the classic Chris Terman instruction as well as the modern variant.)
With that in mind, some classes will have a higher relevance churn rate than others and should be updated more often. Other classes might have historically had an amazing instructor and no major development and thus need a really compelling reason to be replaced. (MIT's Introductory Physics comes to mind.)
> Other classes might have historically had an amazing instructor and no major development and thus need a really compelling reason to be replaced.
SICP occupies an interesting place in this space: computer programs definitely had quite a bit of development, but Abelson and Sussman are amazing and their perspective remains valuable.
Haven't seen that computer architecture course, you seem to suggest it may be another of this kind?
SICP occupies an interesting place in this space: computer programs definitely had quite a bit of development, but Abelson and Sussman are amazing and their perspective remains valuable.
Haven't seen that computer architecture course, you seem to suggest it may be another of this kind?
There is a newer SICP (2004) at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7BcsI5ueSNFPCEisbaoQ...
The architecture course is 6.004, although it is a bit different than Abelson/Sussman. Abelson focuses heavily on software concepts while 6.004 has a strong hardware bent.
The architecture course is 6.004, although it is a bit different than Abelson/Sussman. Abelson focuses heavily on software concepts while 6.004 has a strong hardware bent.
All of these materials are great but they are no substitute for in-person instruction and feedback (I don’t mean sitting in a lecture hall watching a professor scribble on the blackboard for an hour).
The real value of a professor is that because they know the material they can see the gap in your knowledge, where you’re making the mistake, and quickly get you over the hurdle.
This is hard to do when learning by yourself because if you had the knowledge you wouldn’t have gotten stuck in the first place.
I wish there were better communities around learning. Discussion bards, forums, etc. have been terrible substitutes in my opinion for in-person learning. Often a big part of my learning comes from helping and discussing the problems with classmates. I’ve learned as much from my peers as I have from professors.
The real value of a professor is that because they know the material they can see the gap in your knowledge, where you’re making the mistake, and quickly get you over the hurdle.
This is hard to do when learning by yourself because if you had the knowledge you wouldn’t have gotten stuck in the first place.
I wish there were better communities around learning. Discussion bards, forums, etc. have been terrible substitutes in my opinion for in-person learning. Often a big part of my learning comes from helping and discussing the problems with classmates. I’ve learned as much from my peers as I have from professors.
There's relatively new instructional strategy called the "inverted classroom" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom). It's where students read texts and watch online lectures by master instructors, but then go to in-person classrooms to work on problems and get tutoring with individual attention, and the opportunity to interact with other students.
The advantage is that students get really comprehensive exposure to the material. First from a formal lecture and then from in-classroom attention with questions and practice. It's sort of like standard college lectures and recitations with TA's except there's more emphasis on the recitations and the lectures are from really excellent instructors.
The advantage is that students get really comprehensive exposure to the material. First from a formal lecture and then from in-classroom attention with questions and practice. It's sort of like standard college lectures and recitations with TA's except there's more emphasis on the recitations and the lectures are from really excellent instructors.
I remember hearing this from Sol Khan, who must be a fan of Plato because he went on to form an academy.
I’d like to experience it. The model didn’t get started until after I finished college. I’ve done online classes, but they miss the in-person dialog component.
In general the problem is that administration wants to see education “scale” and the flipper classroom is tied to people. You have to get everyone together at the same time and same place (in-person is best, but I guess Zoom might substitute). This puts a ceiling on scaling.
I’d like to experience it. The model didn’t get started until after I finished college. I’ve done online classes, but they miss the in-person dialog component.
In general the problem is that administration wants to see education “scale” and the flipper classroom is tied to people. You have to get everyone together at the same time and same place (in-person is best, but I guess Zoom might substitute). This puts a ceiling on scaling.
Lectures scale well. Once there over more than around 30 people in the room it isn't possible be interactive anyway. So a video of the best lecturer is better than the average lecturer in person. That video of the lecture can have a few students (ideally plants who are scripted to ask the right questions - though this is not an easy thing to get right), but for the most part once you are over 30 students nobody is interactive anyway.
You still need that interactive instruction. The worse professor I had in college was still better than the ones at MIT - I've never been in the same state as MIT which means they were terrible at interacting with me. And of course the in person interaction does not scale.
You still need that interactive instruction. The worse professor I had in college was still better than the ones at MIT - I've never been in the same state as MIT which means they were terrible at interacting with me. And of course the in person interaction does not scale.
> I guess Zoom might substitute
Yes, but not for everyone. I used the pandemic as a chance to get back into classroom and ask a lot of questions, and even deliberately chose my spring courses to be online every evening from Monday to Friday, wouldn't pull that off with commute. But I'm sure other people can get much more in-person, when the interaction starts with eye contact and not only when the student is bold enough to unmute.
Yes, but not for everyone. I used the pandemic as a chance to get back into classroom and ask a lot of questions, and even deliberately chose my spring courses to be online every evening from Monday to Friday, wouldn't pull that off with commute. But I'm sure other people can get much more in-person, when the interaction starts with eye contact and not only when the student is bold enough to unmute.
I had one class like this in college and I loved it. It can be a mixed bag though. I think a lot of people came (and continued to come) to lecture thinking it would be a normal lecture so they wouldn't do any of the reading/slides before class. I'm not sure what they got out of it. On the other hand, knowing the material allowed me to follow along with what was being said and even predict some of the points the professor wasn't going to make in the future.
This is the way all my successful courses were in secondary and post secondary school years ago, except with textbooks rather than videos. The inverted classroom is just learning correctly for people who can't use textbooks (which can be a difficult skill, so I don't mean to denigrate the improvement.)
This is just a rebranding/reinvention of the tutorial system at Oxbridge, so not really that new.
I’m not familiar with it. Do you have more details on how the system works? Was it happening pre-YouTube-ization of education?
It really isn’t, you shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss things.
The best learning method I've experienced was in a course in which we had to summarize a relevant paper in 2 pages for the professor. I have to admit that I didn't learn anything from the professor __in__ the class, but reading a paper (which I chose) and summarizing it was immensely rewarding. In addition to reading the paper (which was pretty technical), I watched YouTube videos of the authors explaining the ideas in simple terms and read about the intuition on their DeepMind webpage. There was this comment on the paper which I read on Reddit (or maybe YT) that basically introduced me to the whole field of transfer learning, which then led me to my current research area. To think that all of this started with one paper (and another course which also touched upon transfer learning but from a causal perspective---"transportability") makes me appreciate this method of learning.
It's not even learn by doing. It's learn by not knowing. The past couple months literally felt walking in uncharted territory because no one in my school knows about my current research method (so no professor can spot my knowledge gap). I have felt down, up, excited, and anxious as I tread carefully in an area in which I have more knowledge-gap than I have knowledge. A sense of suspense and fear, but also great pleasure that comes with exploring something that few people in my field would even try. It's risky but I like it.
It's not even learn by doing. It's learn by not knowing. The past couple months literally felt walking in uncharted territory because no one in my school knows about my current research method (so no professor can spot my knowledge gap). I have felt down, up, excited, and anxious as I tread carefully in an area in which I have more knowledge-gap than I have knowledge. A sense of suspense and fear, but also great pleasure that comes with exploring something that few people in my field would even try. It's risky but I like it.
The issue with all this is that, professionally, we're held by businesses and clients to basically know everything (then there's the legal liabilities I won't touch on).
So the culture is, any admission of ignorance or clear signs of knowledge gaps labels you culturally as being incompetent in your field or profession. So this problem stems well beyond school. In school you get a pass of being ignorant. Once you leave, people falsely assume you somehow miraculously have no knowledge gaps which just isn't remotely realistic for any human. Everyone always has knowledge gaps in some context, including their own fields and even specialities.
We need to change the culture so people can admit or show signs of these gaps to improve. I do it often, if I'm sitting in a meeting somewhere and don't know something I let people know I don't know and will fill that gap or ask them to explain so I can learn. This, from my experience, has made more cohesive teams because people are then more willing to admit their own gaps and teams begin to work together more now there's a bit of a humility baseline.
So the culture is, any admission of ignorance or clear signs of knowledge gaps labels you culturally as being incompetent in your field or profession. So this problem stems well beyond school. In school you get a pass of being ignorant. Once you leave, people falsely assume you somehow miraculously have no knowledge gaps which just isn't remotely realistic for any human. Everyone always has knowledge gaps in some context, including their own fields and even specialities.
We need to change the culture so people can admit or show signs of these gaps to improve. I do it often, if I'm sitting in a meeting somewhere and don't know something I let people know I don't know and will fill that gap or ask them to explain so I can learn. This, from my experience, has made more cohesive teams because people are then more willing to admit their own gaps and teams begin to work together more now there's a bit of a humility baseline.
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It's not supposed to be a substitute, it's the next best thing to being there, when "there" is twenty years and three thousand miles away.
And it's free, for goodness sake.
And it's free, for goodness sake.
> All of these materials are great
I checked a couple of courses, and having just lecture notes in the form of PDF or Powerpoints is not a substitute for the actual topic presented in class. I'd rather have text to read than slides with very few words in them.
I checked a couple of courses, and having just lecture notes in the form of PDF or Powerpoints is not a substitute for the actual topic presented in class. I'd rather have text to read than slides with very few words in them.
"Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required."
In this day and age, when some sites want you to register for the most inconsequential of services / downloads, this really is a breath of fresh air.
In this day and age, when some sites want you to register for the most inconsequential of services / downloads, this really is a breath of fresh air.
Reminds me of the education blogger who did the whole MIT CS curriculum in 12 months: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mit-challenge-2/
He has a whole video series detailing each week on YouTube
https://youtu.be/vmM75fYviLY
https://youtu.be/vmM75fYviLY
In my personal experience, I find extremely difficult to stick with the courses that are mostly video based. Not just from OCW but Coursera, edX, etc.
But what I found is that, for me, a really good way to start learning a new subject is studying from Lecture Notes.
These are generally less dense and more tractable than a whole textbook, and at the same time, you get the written form which I find a bit easier to follow than multiple hours of video.
Of course you miss the depth in some cases, but as introductory content I find them really to the point and easing the learning curve.
But what I found is that, for me, a really good way to start learning a new subject is studying from Lecture Notes.
These are generally less dense and more tractable than a whole textbook, and at the same time, you get the written form which I find a bit easier to follow than multiple hours of video.
Of course you miss the depth in some cases, but as introductory content I find them really to the point and easing the learning curve.
I've found that if there's a project at the end (like in Free Code Camp (I think one or all of those may be a single word), I tend to do much better. Not only does it help me cement things into my brain, but it motivates me to keep going. Not to mention, the learning I get from the videos is OK, but the real learning comes from what I look up to solve the practical.
My issue with lecture notes has been that I always read through them too quickly to grasp the material. On the other hand, videos seem perfectly paced for me or I can change the speed and rewatch things that don't make sense.
There's an aspect of change over time that you get which isn't that easy to show on paper. It helps me better relate one concept to the next.
There's an aspect of change over time that you get which isn't that easy to show on paper. It helps me better relate one concept to the next.
The material at https://openlearninglibrary.mit.edu/ appears a bit more up2date.
True, but incomplete.
Filtering just EE/CS, there are 30 or 35 courses with full video lectures on ocw.mit.edu (which are all hosted on Youtube AFAIK). OLL seems to have four.
Sometimes lectures are linked on a class website e.g. the modern Underactuated Robotics lectures: https://underactuated.mit.edu/
If you're going down the rabbit hole, search "site:https://video.odl.mit.edu/collections/" or videolectures.net or archive.org, or you can search MIT's student pages for class assignments. Honestly, this is the only way to find substantial info on some entire fields e.g. Thermal-Fluids Engineering (2.005 and 2.006) ... or Course 2, in general.
It helps to learn a specific school's curriculum (Stanford and Berkeley also have great resources) and target specific courses. You won't find lectures such as MIT's Inference course by looking on Youtube and OCW alone.
[Not just replying to parent comment] If you plan to teach, sample some lectures by Patrick Winston, Anant Agarwal, Donald Sadoway, robert ghrist, and/or David Malan. The modern approach to engineering instruction seems to be 5 to 15 minute snippets posted online, but these five are among my favorite when it comes to full lectures.
Filtering just EE/CS, there are 30 or 35 courses with full video lectures on ocw.mit.edu (which are all hosted on Youtube AFAIK). OLL seems to have four.
Sometimes lectures are linked on a class website e.g. the modern Underactuated Robotics lectures: https://underactuated.mit.edu/
If you're going down the rabbit hole, search "site:https://video.odl.mit.edu/collections/" or videolectures.net or archive.org, or you can search MIT's student pages for class assignments. Honestly, this is the only way to find substantial info on some entire fields e.g. Thermal-Fluids Engineering (2.005 and 2.006) ... or Course 2, in general.
It helps to learn a specific school's curriculum (Stanford and Berkeley also have great resources) and target specific courses. You won't find lectures such as MIT's Inference course by looking on Youtube and OCW alone.
[Not just replying to parent comment] If you plan to teach, sample some lectures by Patrick Winston, Anant Agarwal, Donald Sadoway, robert ghrist, and/or David Malan. The modern approach to engineering instruction seems to be 5 to 15 minute snippets posted online, but these five are among my favorite when it comes to full lectures.
About a decade ago I needed to know thermo ... a subject I had really disliked as an undergraduate. So I went to OCW and read what seemed to be the same course I’d taken when I was in school. I skipped the lectures, but the course materials were vastly superior to what we’d had. Really glad mit does this.
It is just a fantastic opportunity to watch Prof. Gilbert Strang's lectures.
I just wish I had had access to this when I was in college.
I just wish I had had access to this when I was in college.
Let me start by saying I love OCW. It allows a connection to MIT far beyond simply donating money each year. As an alum of MIT, I find it interesting that the OCW video lectures are generally much better than what I recall the actual classes to be. I am not sure if this is because some classes had multiple instructors and only the best are presented on OCW and/or the Professors and students are especially good for OCW because they know they are being recorded.
A flawed but wonderful resource. Reminds me of the early days of film, before directors understood that film was its own thing with its own affordances, not recorded theater
Still great, though. The format may be ill-fitted to the medium, but any content from people of Strang's human caliber is a rare treat
Still great, though. The format may be ill-fitted to the medium, but any content from people of Strang's human caliber is a rare treat
OCW is really a mix of different things. It was originally pitched as bundles of resources that teachers could use to assemble courses based on an MIT curriculum. Pre-MOOC (and pre-ubiquitous video), it was not really intended to be packaged courses for a student to use directly. There were doubtless some political reasons for the original positioning, but in any case it means OCW courses are a bit of a mixed bag depending upon what someone is looking for.
I want to call out the Introduction to Algorithms [0] course which was the gateway drug into the online courses for me back in ~2009. I learnt CS from this and other open courses from MIT and Berkeley and would forever be grateful for these resources.
[0]: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu...
[0]: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu...
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OCW - deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for democratizing education planet scale.
Now, I know what I'll be doing during summer :D
Many, many times I wished someone had had the foresight to record (only audio was practical at the time) the lectures I had in college.
My fav is anything with Seth Lloyd. He is straight out of central casting for a MIT professor.
So great, so nerdy, so interesting.
So great, so nerdy, so interesting.
What's the best non-monetary way to give back to the MIT OCW program?
They actually have a page on the site for this - https://ocw.mit.edu/give/other-ways-to-contribute/
Nothing exciting. Send them feedback on how OCW made a difference in your life and spread the word.
Nothing exciting. Send them feedback on how OCW made a difference in your life and spread the word.
Such an amazing resource.
something from this site gets posted almost every single month on here, anything new from this share?
How has this evolved over the years?
The main thing is that, in many cases, it's evolved from mostly being whatever raw materials (syllabus, lecture notes, pointers to resources like textbooks) could be pulled together to often being closer to a course in a box more akin to a MOOC.
As I mentioned in another comment it was originally pitched as a resource for would be teachers rather than for students directly.
As I mentioned in another comment it was originally pitched as a resource for would be teachers rather than for students directly.
While I did not learn much, in terms of actual syllabus, I did get exposed to a refreshing teaching style of exploratory learning.
It helped me learn how to learn, how to approach a subject or problem, how to be confident as a learner.
I have never looked back. Today, I am confident that I can learn any subject, with the right books and practice. That confidence helped me grow as an engineer in my job.
Even today, I view these courses and new ones all the time.
An added side effect was the opening up of learning resources from Stanford, Yale, etc.