I came across a nice post by John Spencer with the title above (here), and I thought I’d reprint his list of 15 ways to engage reluctant learners below: Be intentional. Know where we are going. Connect it to a real context. Or better yet . . . connect it to a really imaginary, creative […]
Epictetus was a Greco-Roman moralist who shared practical advice and wisdom with his countrymen. Once a slave, Epictetus was freed and then went on to influence his followers, who captured his teachings and passed them down to us. One piece of wisdom that comes to us in the Enchiridion (here), is the following: Some things […]
Karen Salmansohn has a nice blog post (here) in Psychology Today on her use of posters (such as the Big Beacon poster displayed) and flash cards as pattern interrupts. I began calling my daily posters I was writing and designing my “Daily Inspirational Flashcards” — because their goal was to quickly remind people of the positive psychological beliefs and productive […]
When I work with coaching clients, I recommend a variety of resources. Some clients are voracious readers and love book recommendations. Others are more visually oriented, and movies are often a good source of reflection and forward movement for them. httpv://youtu.be/XVer9zA3gfA It’s almost a coaching cliche, but The Legend of Bagger Vance (here) is a terrific movie […]
‘Tis the season of high profile “steps down” as well as interim and late appointments. A google search of “dean steps down” (search results here) reveals a number of smooth and not so smooth cases, but the news in these postings for new appointees is that academic leadership can be rewarding or fraught with career […]
Check out the new Karen Salmansohn designed Big Beacon poster. In working with the themes of the BB manifesto (here), a number of the posters played with whole brains as a theme. Help us design the next generation of posters by answering a few questions: What is your single most favorite web poster? (send a […]
Mark Somerville (Olin College) and my article on Huffington Post on Ten Steps to a Whole New Engineer and a Whole New Engineering Education just was published on Huffington Post (here). For example, step 10 says the following: Step 10: Band all stakeholders together coordinate effective action and collaboratively disrupt the status quo. To date, education reform has largely […]
Here’s a 2008 video of a video we shot at the UIUC in the early days of iFoundry. httpv://youtu.be/puip-bBh4pU The video captures the essence of a programmatic incubator as a way to (a) unleash innovation and (b) respect faculty governance. iFoundry continues to this day (www.ifoundry.illinois.edu) to continue transforming engineering education at Illinois. Other schools […]
I recently had the opportunity to travel to Belo Horizonte, Brazil to work with Alessandro Moreira, Vice-Director (Associate Dean) of Engineering at UFMG, Universidade Federale de Minas Gerais. During the visit, I learned of a special group of students and how they helped the University in its engineering education transformation efforts. On the first day […]
Can you help Mark Somerville and me write a book title? We are producing a book connected to the Big Beacon movement and we are trying to come up with titles that reflect the kind of new engineering, engineering education, and change processed needed for our creative, transformative times. Here are some titles and subtitles, […]