Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Seeing the Big Picture from Space (Astronaut Jeff Hoffman)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Seeing the Big Picture from Space (Astronaut Jeff Hoffman)
Over the years, Sarah Hansen has interviewed the creator of the “Women of NASA” minifigure series as well as a professor of astronautics and former deputy administrator of NASA. Now, for the first time, she interviews an actual astronaut, Jeff Hoffman, who teaches aerospace engineering and systems engineering at MIT. In this episode, Prof. Hoffman describes his experiences in space and how one’s understanding of the world is changed by seeing it from the outside, as a finite sphere, with our seemingly boundless sky revealed as just a thin layer of breathable atmosphere. So far this broadening of physical perspective has been limited to a select few, but Prof. Hoffman tries to achieve an analogous broadening in his students’ mental perspective by introducing them to the Conceive Design Implement Operate (CDIO) framework, an approach to engineering education that uses student-designed-and-built projects to develop teamwork and professionalism and to help students envision the big picture of the systems being designed: what they are intended to be and how they will be used in the real world by actual people, whether on the ground or in the vacuum of space.
Relevant Resources
MIT OpenCourseWare
The OCW Educator Portal
Professor Hoffman’s systems engineering course on OCW
Professor Hoffman’s aerospace engineering course on MIT’s Open Learning Library
Professor Hoffman’s full video interview with Sarah Hansen
Professor Hoffman’s faculty page
CDIO approach to engineering education
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions
Connect with Us
If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you!
On our site
On Facebook
On Twitter
On Instagram
Stay Current
Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.
Support OCW
If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going!
Credits
Sarah Hansen, host and producer
Brett Paci, producer
Dave Lishansky, producer
Show notes by Peter Chipman
Connect with Us
If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you!
Call us @ 617-715-2517
On our site
On Facebook
On X
On Instagram
On LinkedIn
Stay Current
Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.
Support OCW
If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!
Credits
Sarah Hansen, host and producer
Brett Paci, producer
Dave Lishansky, producer
Jackson Maher, producer
Show notes by Peter Chipman
View all episodes
By MIT OpenCourseWare
4.9
4141 ratings
Over the years, Sarah Hansen has interviewed the creator of the “Women of NASA” minifigure series as well as a professor of astronautics and former deputy administrator of NASA. Now, for the first time, she interviews an actual astronaut, Jeff Hoffman, who teaches aerospace engineering and systems engineering at MIT. In this episode, Prof. Hoffman describes his experiences in space and how one’s understanding of the world is changed by seeing it from the outside, as a finite sphere, with our seemingly boundless sky revealed as just a thin layer of breathable atmosphere. So far this broadening of physical perspective has been limited to a select few, but Prof. Hoffman tries to achieve an analogous broadening in his students’ mental perspective by introducing them to the Conceive Design Implement Operate (CDIO) framework, an approach to engineering education that uses student-designed-and-built projects to develop teamwork and professionalism and to help students envision the big picture of the systems being designed: what they are intended to be and how they will be used in the real world by actual people, whether on the ground or in the vacuum of space.
Relevant Resources
MIT OpenCourseWare
The OCW Educator Portal
Professor Hoffman’s systems engineering course on OCW
Professor Hoffman’s aerospace engineering course on MIT’s Open Learning Library
Professor Hoffman’s full video interview with Sarah Hansen
Professor Hoffman’s faculty page
CDIO approach to engineering education
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions
Connect with Us
If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you!
On our site
On Facebook
On Twitter
On Instagram
Stay Current
Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.
Support OCW
If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going!
Credits
Sarah Hansen, host and producer
Brett Paci, producer
Dave Lishansky, producer
Show notes by Peter Chipman
Connect with Us
If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you!
Call us @ 617-715-2517
On our site
On Facebook
On X
On Instagram
On LinkedIn
Stay Current
Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.
Support OCW
If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!
Credits
Sarah Hansen, host and producer
Brett Paci, producer
Dave Lishansky, producer
Jackson Maher, producer
Show notes by Peter Chipman
More shows like Chalk Radio
View all
Freakonomics Radio
31,989 Listeners
Economist Podcasts
4,163 Listeners
WSJ What’s News
4,338 Listeners
Conversations with Tyler
2,451 Listeners
Nature Podcast
762 Listeners
WSJ Tech News Briefing
1,641 Listeners
The a16z Show
1,091 Listeners
Talk Python To Me
585 Listeners
The Quanta Podcast
532 Listeners
The Long Run with Luke Timmerman
125 Listeners
HBS Managing the Future of Work
106 Listeners
The Journal.
6,089 Listeners
Google DeepMind: The Podcast
204 Listeners
People I (Mostly) Admire
2,066 Listeners
Hard Fork
5,512 Listeners