A post I have had in my “drafts” pile for some time… based on my readings of Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man For centuries, there has been a recurring, politically expedient project in Western thought: the attempt to measure the immeasurable complexities of human ability, distill them into a single, quantifiable number, and Read More
Category: Teaching & Learning
How AI Helps Teaching and Learning
I have a stack of books about artificial intelligence waiting to be read. The field is emerging quickly, so my reading focuses on how AI has and can affect work, life, and society. Madhumita Murgia’s 2024 book Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI was the most recent book of this genre I have Read More
AI’s Role in Education
This post originally began with discussions of an article in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence with my colleagues. We were talking about AI an teaching, and the article “Shaping integrity: why generative artificial intelligence does not have to undermine education” by Tan and Maravilla which was published in 2024 ( https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2024.1471224) captured much of my thinking. Read More
The Enduring Mismeasure: Why IQ Tests Fall Short
As school returns, I am hearing comments about “intelligence” return to my media feeds and in chatter amongst people who purport knowledge of teaching and learning. This seems a good opportunity to post again on the dubious evidence if IQ as it is commonly understood. For decades, IQ tests have shaped perceptions of intelligence, often Read More
Naturalistic Teaching
Many are familiar with the observation that (for example) outside of the mathematics classroom, students are less able to solve mathematics problems than they are in the mathematics classroom. Also, when asked to perform mathematics on a test, a student may score well, but when given a real-world situation (even in a word problem closely Read More
Metacognition: How We Become Competent
Metacognition is the process by which individuals think about their own learning. It is often described as an internal dialogue as it is a process in which the learner makes meaning of what has happened in his or her brain. While teachers can provide prompts and other tasks to facilitate reflection, metacognition is largely an Read More
Learning: It’s All About the Problem
We often see learning as absorbing information, but what if teaching became a dynamic journey of problem-solving? Problems are far more interesting and informative than learning outcomes for motivating students. At its core, effective teaching embraces the “problem-centered principle,” stating learning flourishes when students acquire knowledge and skills by tackling real-world problems or tasks. This Read More
Avoid Black Box Learning
AI is all the rage right now. Students use it. Faculty complain about it. Bosses are trying to figure out which jobs can be replaced by it. We are all trying to figure out just how this technology will affect us. It is a challenging time, and responsible educators are actively participating our collective negotiation Read More
Intelligence: AI Reviews The Mismeasure of Man
Until COVID, I did not read audio books. Now, I read them all the time. (Yes, listening to an audio book is reading; I learn as much from listening as from reading print. I use audiobooks for different purposes, sometimes listening to a book before buying a print copy, or listening to books I’ve already Read More
Teaching in the AI World: A Time for John Dewey
106: Teaching in the AI World: A Time for John Dewey I’ve been as educator for a long time. In the 1980’s, the folks who taught me how to do the work connected me with John Dewey. I have continued to read his work over my career and wondered what he would have thought of Read More