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    Learning 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 the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), to explore exemplary problem-solving in his new book “Model Thinking for Everyday Life: How to Make Smarter Decisions.”

    Larson’s book synthesizes a lifelong career as an MIT professor and researcher, highlighting crucial skills underpinning all empirical, rational, and critical thinking. “Critical thinkers are energetic detectives … always seeking the facts,” he says. “Additional facts may surface that can result in modified conclusions … A critical thinker is aware of the pitfalls of human intuition.”

    For Larson, “model” thinking means not only thinking aided by conceptual and/or mathematical models, but a broader mode of critical thought that is informed by STEM concepts and worthy of emulation.

    In the ferry example, a key concept at play is uncertainty. Accounting for uncertainty is a core challenge faced by systems engineers, operations researchers, and modelers of complex networks — all hats Larson has worn in over half a century at MIT. 

    Uncertainty complicates all prediction and decision-making, and while statistics offers tactics for managing uncertainty, “Model Thinking” is not a math textbook. There are equations for the math-curious, but it doesn’t take a degree from MIT to understand that

    an average of 30 minutes would cover a range of times, some shorter, some longer;
    outliers can exist in the data, like the time construction traffic added an additional 30 minutes
    “about 30 minutes” is a prediction based on past experience, not current information (road closures, accidents, etc.); and
    the consequence for missing the ferry is not a delay of hours, but a full day — which might completely disrupt the trip or its purpose.
    And so, without doing much explicit math, you calculate variables, weigh the likelihood of different outcomes against the consequences of failure, and choose a departure time. Larson’s conclusion is one championed by dads everywhere: Leave on the earlier side, just in case. 

    “The world’s most important, invisible profession”

    Throughout Larson’s career at MIT, he has focused on the science of solving problems and making better decisions. “Faced with a new problem, people often lack the ability to frame and formulate it using basic principles,” argues Larson. “Our emphasis is on problem framing and formulation, with mathematics and physics playing supporting roles.”

    This is operations research, which Larson calls “the world’s most important invisible profession.” Formalized as a field during World War II, operations researchers use data and models to try to derive the “physics” of complex systems. The goal is typically optimizing things like scheduling, routing, simulation, prediction, planning, logistics, and queueing, for which Larson is especially well-known. A frequent media expert on the subject, he earned the moniker “Dr. Q” — and his research has led to new approaches for easing congestion in urban traffic, fast-food lines, and banks.

    Larson’s experience with complex systems provides a wealth of examples to draw on, but he is keen to demonstrate that his purview includes everyday decisions, and that “Model Thinking” is a book for everyone. 

    “Everybody uses models, whether they realize it or not,” he says. “If you have a bunch of errands to do, and you try to plan out the order to do them so you don’t have to drive as much, that’s more or less the ‘traveling salesman’ problem, a classic from operations research. Or when someone is shopping for groceries and thinking about how much of each product they need — they’re basically using an inventory management model of their pantry.”

    Larson’s takeaway is that since we all use conceptual models for thinking, planning, and decision-making, then understanding how our minds use models, and learning to use them more intentionally, can lead to clearer thinking, better planning, and smarter decision-making — especially when they are grounded in principles drawn from math and physics.

    Passion for the process

    Teaching STEM principles has long been a mission of Larson’s, who co-founded MIT BLOSSOMS (Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies) with his late wife, Mary Elizabeth Murray. BLOSSOMS provides free, interactive STEM lessons and videos for primary school students around the world. Some of the exercises in “Model Thinking” refer to these videos as well.

    “A child’s educational opportunities shouldn’t be limited by where they were born or the wealth of their parents,” says Larson of the enterprise. 

    It was also Murray who encouraged Larson to write “Model Thinking.” “She saw how excited I was about it,” he says. “I had the choice of writing a textbook on queuing, say, or something else. It didn’t excite me at all.”

    Larson’s passion is for the process, not the answer. Throughout the book, he marks off opportunities for active learning with an icon showing the two tools necessary to complete each task: a sharpened pencil and a blank sheet of paper. 

    “Many of us in the age of instant Google searches have lost the ability — or perhaps the patience — to undertake multistep problems,” he argues.

    Model thinkers, on the other hand, understand and remember solutions better for having thought through the steps, and can better apply what they’ve learned to future problems. Larson’s “homework” is to do critical thinking, not just read about it. By working through thought experiments and scenarios, readers can achieve a deeper understanding of concepts like selection bias, random incidence, and orders of magnitude, all of which can present counterintuitive examples to the uninitiated.

    For Larson, who jokes that he is “an evangelist for models,” there is no better way to learn than by doing — except perhaps to teach. “Teaching a difficult topic is our best way to learn it ourselves, is an unselfish act, and bonds the teacher and learner,” he writes.

    In his long career as an educator and education advocate, Larson says he has always remained a learner himself. His love for learning illuminates every page of “Model Thinking,” which he hopes will provide others with the enjoyment and satisfaction that comes from learning new things and solving complex problems.

    “You will learn how to learn,” Larson says. “And you will enjoy it!” More

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    Day of AI curriculum meets the moment

    MIT Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) recently celebrated the second annual Day of AI with two flagship local events. The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Boston hosted a human rights and data policy-focused event that was streamed worldwide. Dearborn STEM Academy in Roxbury, Massachusetts, hosted a student workshop in collaboration with Amazon Future Engineer. With over 8,000 registrations across all 50 U.S. states and 108 countries in 2023, participation in Day of AI has more than doubled since its inaugural year.

    Day of AI is a free curriculum of lessons and hands-on activities designed to teach kids of all ages and backgrounds the basics and responsible use of artificial intelligence, designed by researchers at MIT RAISE. This year, resources were available for educators to run at any time and in any increments they chose. The curriculum included five new modules to address timely topics like ChatGPT in School, Teachable Machines, AI and Social Media, Data Science and Me, and more. A collaboration with the International Society for Technology in Education also introduced modules for early elementary students. Educators across the world shared photos, videos, and stories of their students’ engagement, expressing excitement and even relief over the accessible lessons.

    Professor Cynthia Breazeal, director of RAISE, dean for digital learning at MIT, and head of the MIT Media Lab’s Personal Robots research group, said, “It’s been a year of extraordinary advancements in AI, and with that comes necessary conversations and concerns about who and what this technology is for. With our Day of AI events, we want to celebrate the teachers and students who are putting in the work to make sure that AI is for everyone.”

    Reflecting community values and protecting digital citizens

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    On May 18, 2023, MIT RAISE hosted a global Day of AI celebration featuring a flagship local event focused on human rights and data policy at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate. Students from the Warren Prescott Middle School and New Mission High School heard from speakers the City of Boston, Liberty Mutual, and MIT to discuss the many benefits and challenges of artificial intelligence education. Video: MIT Open Learning

    MIT President Sally Kornbluth welcomed students from Warren Prescott Middle School and New Mission High School to the Day of AI program at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. Kornbluth reflected on the exciting potential of AI, along with the ethical considerations society needs to be responsible for.

    “AI has the potential to do all kinds of fantastic things, including driving a car, helping us with the climate crisis, improving health care, and designing apps that we can’t even imagine yet. But what we have to make sure it doesn’t do is cause harm to individuals, to communities, to us — society as a whole,” she said.

    This theme resonated with each of the event speakers, whose jobs spanned the sectors of education, government, and business. Yo Deshpande, technologist for the public realm, and Michael Lawrence Evans, program director of new urban mechanics from the Boston Mayor’s Office, shared how Boston thinks about using AI to improve city life in ways that are “equitable, accessible, and delightful.” Deshpande said, “We have the opportunity to explore not only how AI works, but how using AI can line up with our values, the way we want to be in the world, and the way we want to be in our community.”

    Adam L’Italien, chief innovation officer at Liberty Mutual Insurance (one of Day of AI’s founding sponsors), compared our present moment with AI technologies to the early days of personal computers and internet connection. “Exposure to emerging technologies can accelerate progress in the world and in your own lives,” L’Italien said, while recognizing that the AI development process needs to be inclusive and mitigate biases.

    Human policies for artificial intelligence

    So how does society address these human rights concerns about AI? Marc Aidinoff ’21, former White House Office of Science and Technology Policy chief of staff, led a discussion on how government policy can influence the parameters of how technology is developed and used, like the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. Aidinoff said, “The work of building the world you want to see is far harder than building the technical AI system … How do you work with other people and create a collective vision for what we want to do?” Warren Prescott Middle School students described how AI could be used to solve problems that humans couldn’t. But they also shared their concerns that AI could affect data privacy, learning deficits, social media addiction, job displacement, and propaganda.

    In a mock U.S. Senate trial activity designed by Daniella DiPaola, PhD student at the MIT Media Lab, the middle schoolers investigated what rights might be undermined by AI in schools, hospitals, law enforcement, and corporations. Meanwhile, New Mission High School students workshopped the ideas behind bill S.2314, the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act, in an activity designed by Raechel Walker, graduate research assistant in the Personal Robots Group, and Matt Taylor, research assistant at the Media Lab. They discussed what level of control could or should be introduced at the parental, educational, and governmental levels to reduce the risks of internet addiction.

    “Alexa, how do I program AI?”

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    The 2023 Day of AI celebration featured a flagship local event at the Dearborn STEM Academy in Roxbury in collaboration with Amazon Future Engineer. Students participated in a hands-on activity using MIT App Inventor as part of Day of AI’s Alexa lesson. Video: MIT Open Learning

    At Dearborn STEM Academy, Amazon Future Engineer helped students work through the Intro to Voice AI curriculum module in real-time. Students used MIT App Inventor to code basic commands for Alexa. In an interview with WCVB, Principal Darlene Marcano said, “It’s important that we expose our students to as many different experiences as possible. The students that are participating are on track to be future computer scientists and engineers.”

    Breazeal told Dearborn students, “We want you to have an informed voice about how you want AI to be used in society. We want you to feel empowered that you can shape the world. You can make things with AI to help make a better world and a better community.”

    Rohit Prasad ’08, senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa at Amazon, and Victor Reinoso ’97, global director of philanthropic education initiatives at Amazon, also joined the event. “Amazon and MIT share a commitment to helping students discover a world of possibilities through STEM and AI education,” said Reinoso. “There’s a lot of current excitement around the technological revolution with generative AI and large language models, so we’re excited to help students explore careers of the future and navigate the pathways available to them.” To highlight their continued investment in the local community and the school program, Amazon donated a $25,000 Innovation and Early College Pathways Program Grant to the Boston Public School system.

    Day of AI down under

    Not only was the Day of AI program widely adopted across the globe, Australian educators were inspired to adapt their own regionally specific curriculum. An estimated 161,000 AI professionals will be needed in Australia by 2030, according to the National Artificial Intelligence Center in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), an Australian government agency and Day of AI Australia project partner. CSIRO worked with the University of New South Wales to develop supplementary educational resources on AI ethics and machine learning. Day of AI Australia reached 85,000 students at 400-plus secondary schools this year, sparking curiosity in the next generation of AI experts.

    The interest in AI is accelerating as fast as the technology is being developed. Day of AI offers a unique opportunity for K-12 students to shape our world’s digital future and their own.

    “I hope that some of you will decide to be part of this bigger effort to help us figure out the best possible answers to questions that are raised by AI,” Kornbluth told students at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. “We’re counting on you, the next generation, to learn how AI works and help make sure it’s for everyone.” More

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    Empowering Cambridge youth through data activism

    For over 40 years, the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP, or the Mayor’s Program) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been providing teenagers with their first work experience, but 2022 brought a new offering. Collaborating with MIT’s Personal Robots research group (PRG) and Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) this summer, MSYEP created a STEAM-focused learning site at the Institute. Eleven students joined the program to learn coding and programming skills through the lens of “Data Activism.”

    MSYEP’s partnership with MIT provides an opportunity for Cambridge high schoolers to gain exposure to more pathways for their future careers and education. The Mayor’s Program aims to respect students’ time and show the value of their work, so participants are compensated with an hourly wage as they learn workforce skills at MSYEP worksites. In conjunction with two ongoing research studies at MIT, PRG and RAISE developed the six-week Data Activism curriculum to equip students with critical-thinking skills so they feel prepared to utilize data science to challenge social injustice and empower their community.

    Rohan Kundargi, K-12 Community Outreach Administrator for MIT Office of Government and Community Relations (OGCR), says, “I see this as a model for a new type of partnership between MIT and Cambridge MSYEP. Specifically, an MIT research project that involves students from Cambridge getting paid to learn, research, and develop their own skills!”

    Cross-Cambridge collaboration

    Cambridge’s Office of Workforce Development initially contacted MIT OGCR about hosting a potential MSYEP worksite that taught Cambridge teens how to code. When Kundargi reached out to MIT pK-12 collaborators, MIT PRG’s graduate research assistant Raechel Walker proposed the Data Activism curriculum. Walker defines “data activism” as utilizing data, computing, and art to analyze how power operates in the world, challenge power, and empathize with people who are oppressed.

    Walker says, “I wanted students to feel empowered to incorporate their own expertise, talents, and interests into every activity. In order for students to fully embrace their academic abilities, they must remain comfortable with bringing their full selves into data activism.”

    As Kundargi and Walker recruited students for the Data Activism learning site, they wanted to make sure the cohort of students — the majority of whom are individuals of color — felt represented at MIT and felt they had the agency for their voice to be heard. “The pioneers in this field are people who look like them,” Walker says, speaking of well-known data activists Timnit Gebru, Rediet Abebe, and Joy Buolamwini.

    When the program began this summer, some of the students were not aware of the ways data science and artificial intelligence exacerbate systemic oppression in society, or some of the tools currently being used to mitigate those societal harms. As a result, Walker says, the students wanted to learn more about discriminatory design in every aspect of life. They were also interested in creating responsible machine learning algorithms and AI fairness metrics.

    A different side of STEAM

    The development and execution of the Data Activism curriculum contributed to Walker’s and postdoc Xiaoxue Du’s respective research at PRG. Walker is studying AI education, specifically creating and teaching data activism curricula for minoritized communities. Du’s research explores processes, assessments, and curriculum design that prepares educators to use, adapt, and integrate AI literacy curricula. Additionally, her research targets how to leverage more opportunities for students with diverse learning needs.

    The Data Activism curriculum utilizes a “libertatory computing” framework, a term Walker coined in her position paper with Professor Cynthia Breazeal, director of MIT RAISE, dean for digital learning, and head of PRG, and Eman Sherif, a then-undergraduate researcher from University of California at San Diego, titled “Liberty Computing for African American Students.” This framework ensures that students, especially minoritized students, acquire a sound racial identity, critical consciousness, collective obligation, liberation centered academic/achievement identity, as well as the activism skills to use computing to transform a multi-layered system of barriers in which racism persists. Walker says, “We encouraged students to demonstrate competency in every pillar because all of the pillars are interconnected and build upon each other.”

    Walker developed a series of interactive coding and project-based activities that focused on understanding systemic racism, utilizing data science to analyze systemic oppression, data drawing, responsible machine learning, how racism can be embedded into AI, and different AI fairness metrics.

    This was the students’ first time learning how to create data visualizations using the programming language Python and the data analysis tool Pandas. In one project meant to examine how different systems of oppression can affect different aspects of students’ own identities, students created datasets with data from their respective intersectional identities. Another activity highlighted African American achievements, where students analyzed two datasets about African American scientists, activists, artists, scholars, and athletes. Using the data visualizations, students then created zines about the African Americans who inspired them.

    RAISE hired Olivia Dias, Sophia Brady, Lina Henriquez, and Zeynep Yalcin through the MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) and PRG hired freelancer Matt Taylor to work with Walker on developing the curriculum and designing interdisciplinary experience projects. Walker and the four undergraduate researchers constructed an intersectional data analysis activity about different examples of systemic oppression. PRG also hired three high school students to test activities and offer insights about making the curriculum engaging for program participants. Throughout the program, the Data Activism team taught students in small groups, continually asked students how to improve each activity, and structured each lesson based on the students’ interests. Walker says Dias, Brady, Henriquez, and Yalcin were invaluable to cultivating a supportive classroom environment and helping students complete their projects.

    Cambridge Rindge and Latin School senior Nina works on her rubber block stamp that depicts the importance of representation in media and greater representation in the tech industry.

    Photo: Katherine Ouellette

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    Student Nina says, “It’s opened my eyes to a different side of STEM. I didn’t know what ‘data’ meant before this program, or how intersectionality can affect AI and data.” Before MSYEP, Nina took Intro to Computer Science and AP Computer Science, but she has been coding since Girls Who Code first sparked her interest in middle school. “The community was really nice. I could talk with other girls. I saw there needs to be more women in STEM, especially in coding.” Now she’s interested in applying to colleges with strong computer science programs so she can pursue a coding-related career.

    From MSYEP to the mayor’s office

    Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui visited the Data Activism learning site on Aug. 9, accompanied by Breazeal. A graduate of MSYEP herself, Siddiqui says, “Through hands-on learning through computer programming, Cambridge high school students have the unique opportunity to see themselves as data scientists. Students were able learn ways to combat discrimination that occurs through artificial intelligence.” In an Instagram post, Siddiqui also said, “I had a blast visiting the students and learning about their projects.”

    Students worked on an activity that asked them to envision how data science might be used to support marginalized communities. They transformed their answers into block-printed T-shirt designs, carving pictures of their hopes into rubber block stamps. Some students focused on the importance of data privacy, like Jacob T., who drew a birdcage to represent data stored and locked away by third party apps. He says, “I want to open that cage and restore my data to myself and see what can be done with it.”

    The subject of Cambridge Community Charter School student Jacob T.’s project was the importance of data privacy. For his T-shirt design, he drew a birdcage to represent data stored and locked away by third party apps. (From right to left:) Breazeal, Jacob T. Kiki, Raechel Walker, and Zeynep Yalcin.

    Photo: Katherine Ouellette

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    Many students wanted to see more representation in both the media they consume and across various professional fields. Nina talked about the importance of representation in media and how that could contribute to greater representation in the tech industry, while Kiki talked about encouraging more women to pursue STEM fields. Jesmin said, “I wanted to show that data science is accessible to everyone, no matter their origin or language you speak. I wrote ‘hello’ in Bangla, Arabic, and English, because I speak all three languages and they all resonate with me.”

    Student Jesmin (left) explains the concept of her T-shirt design to Mayor Siddiqui. She wants data science to be accessible to everyone, no matter their origin or language, so she drew a globe and wrote ‘hello’ in the three languages she speaks: Bangla, Arabic, and English.

    Photo: Katherine Ouellette

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    “Overall, I hope the students continue to use their data activism skills to re-envision a society that supports marginalized groups,” says Walker. “Moreover, I hope they are empowered to become data scientists and understand how their race can be a positive part of their identity.” More