The Educator's Notebook

featured articles

Caltech Allows STEM Admission Requirements Through Khan Academy
LA Times - 8/31/23

“In a groundbreaking step, the campus announced Thursday that it will drop admission requirements for calculus, physics and chemistry courses for students who don’t have access to them and offer alternative paths to prove mastery of the material… One of Caltech’s alternative paths is taking Khan Academy‘s free, online classes and scoring 90% or higher on a certification test.”
What Works In High School Reform Strategies
MDRC - 6/1/23

“Reviewed 13 evaluations of comprehensive reform efforts, identified the features of the models evaluated, and categorized them to create a high school reform framework that can be generally applied. The authors hope that school and district leaders can compare their current efforts with the framework to identify how they might refine or augment those efforts.”

admissions

Journalist Reflects On How A.I. Might Hurt, Or Help Admissions
New York Times - 9/1/23
NYT Used A.I. To Write Essays For Harvard, Yale, And Princeton”
New York Times - 9/1/23
“Colleges Wrestle With A.I.-Generated Admissions Essays”
New York Times - 9/1/23

adolescence

A Senior-Freshman Mentoring Program, For Course Credit
EdWeek - 8/28/23

“The overall goal is for the seniors to provide guidance to their younger peers about day-to-day stressors and challenges, but also teach the incoming students important academic skills, including study habits and techniques, organization, time management, goal setting, conflict resolution, interview preparation, and notetaking. The curriculum is based on the book “Role Models: Examples of Character and Leadership” by Joseph M. Hoedel”

assessment

College Board Head Of AP Program Discusses The State Of AP
EdWeek - 8/28/23

athletics

92,000+: World Record For Attendance At A Women’s Sporting Event Broken At A Volleyball Match In Nebraska
Quartz - 8/31/23

“A new record for the largest audience to attend a women’s sporting event has been set, and it wasn’t a FIFA Women’s World Cup match—it was a college volleyball event in Nebraska… The sold-out match, held in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s football stadium, brought in 92,003 attendees. The previous world record attendance for a women’s sports event was a UEFA Champions League game between Barcelona and Wolfsburg on April 22, 2022, which drew 91,648 people.”

character

“Stop Resisting Change” - And How To Accept It
New York Times - 8/30/23

“Allostasis is defined as “stability through change,” elegantly capturing the concept’s double meaning: The way to stay stable through the process of change is by changing, at least to some extent. If you want to hold your footing, you’ve got to keep moving.”
“The Cynical Genius Illusion: ..Debunking Lay Beliefs About Cynicism And Competence”
Personality and Psychology Bulletin - 5/20/18

“Cross-cultural analyses showed that competent individuals held contingent attitudes and endorsed cynicism only if it was warranted in a given sociocultural environment. Less competent individuals embraced cynicism unconditionally, suggesting that—at low levels of competence—holding a cynical worldview might represent an adaptive default strategy to avoid the potential costs of falling prey to others’ cunning.”

cognitive science

Three (Well, Two) Classroom Habits For Retrieval Practice
Retrieval Practice - 8/31/23

creativity

Austin Kleon Interviews Beth Pickens On Making Art
Austin Kleon - 8/29/23

“Last week I had the pleasure to chat with art coach Beth Pickens, author of Make Your Art No Matter What and Your Art Will Save Your Life. Beth and I share many of the same core messages, but I come at making art from the inside of being a working artist and Beth comes at it from the outside of working with artists, so she picks up things that I miss.”

diversity/inclusion

Celebrating Unsung Heroines Of Philosophy
Stanford - 8/28/23

“Female philosophers, often overlooked from the philosophical canon, are getting long-overdue recognition in a special radio series from “Philosophy Talk,” the nationally syndicated radio program hosted by Stanford scholars.”
Investing And Trade Can Reduce Political Polarization
Stanford Graduate School of Business - 8/28/23

“When people from different backgrounds agree on a common set of metrics and buy into the same market, it allows them to see that everyone is connected and that their trust in the market is reciprocated and reinforced by others.”

health

“Top 7 Questions About Fall Vaccines Answered”
Your Local Epidemiologist - 8/29/23
“5 Ways To Improve Air Quality In Schools”
New York Times - 8/27/23
On The Importance Of Clean Air In Schools
New York Times - 8/27/23

higher ed

“Postsecondary Education Linked to Volunteerism, Better Health”
Gallup - 8/30/23

humanities

A Fascinating Geopolitical Long History Of Ukraine
Uncharted Territories - 8/29/23

“Ukraine is lucky enough to have some of the best land in the world: It’s fertile, with flat plains, sufficient rain, rivers for agriculture and silt, and chernozem, the most fertile soil in the world. It’s perfect for trade, with rivers for north-south exchange, flat steppes for east-west trade, and access to the sea for trade with the Mediterranean and the rest of the world… Why Is Ukraine Not a Global Superpower?”

leadership

Autonomy As The Reward For Performance? (Via Apple)
Inc. - 8/31/23
More Data Suggesting Recruitment And Retention As Priorities
EdWeek - 8/28/23
Online Learning As A Supplemental Revenue Stream?
NBOA - 8/18/23
"Geopolitics Resilience: The New Board Imperative”
McKinsey - 8/8/23

reading/writing

“Common Proverbs As Video Game Tutorials”
McSweeney’s - 8/23/23

“Distant grass will always have a greener hue. You can fine-tune the appearance of distant grass in Settings > Graphics.”

sustainability

“America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow”
New York Times - 8/28/23

“The Times analyzed water levels reported at tens of thousands of sites, revealing a crisis that threatens American prosperity.”

tech

“Wikipedia Will Survive A.I.”
Slate - 8/24/23

tech/ai

“A.I. In Education: 7 Realistic Steps For The New Academic Year”
A.I. Educator - 9/2/23
How Teachers Are Using ChatGPT, From The Makers Of ChatGPT
OpenAI - 8/31/23

“We’re sharing a few stories of how educators are using ChatGPT to accelerate student learning and some prompts to help educators get started with the tool. In addition to the examples below, our new FAQ contains additional resources from leading education organizations on how to teach with and about AI, examples of new AI-powered education tools, and answers to frequently asked questions from educators about things like how ChatGPT works, its limitations, the efficacy of AI detectors, and bias.”
Another Great Overview: “An Introduction to Teaching with Text Generation Technologies”
Colorado State - 8/31/23

“We hope this collection offers something for teachers with all levels of comfort with technologies—from teachers seasoned with digital writing technologies to teachers approaching the entire domain with trepidation. To that end, we have made the teaching resources in this collection as accessible as possible.”
School District Goes All In On Teacher Use Of ChatGPT, GenAI
EdWeek - 8/29/23
Generative A.I. And The 500 Year History Of Intellectual Property
Benedict Evans - 8/27/23

“If you put all the world’s knowledge into an AI model and use it to make something new, who owns that and who gets paid? This is a completely new problem that we’ve been arguing about for 500 years.”

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More On A.I. And The Recent Copyright Case
Guardian - 8/26/23
Four Guidelines For Academic Resilience In An Age Of A.I.
Harvard Graduate School of Education - 8/24/23

“Create a curriculum that is process-oriented, not product-oriented. AI should not be used to replace the “thinking” or ability to recall facts that product-oriented learning often asks of students. Rather, Dede and Cao suggest developing process-oriented learning approaches that encourage students to find answers with their own logic and reasoning. “We need to equip students for a world full of uncertainties and challenges and prepare them to do the complex work of problem-solving,” they write. “Embracing a messy process rather than becoming good at following “cognitive recipes.””
Is The A.I. Boom A Mirage?
Dezeen - 8/21/23

workplace

Why Having A Comfortable Classroom Matters
Character Lab - 8/27/23

other

“Animated Knots”
Animated Knots - 9/1/23
“The Dungeons & Dragons Players Of Death Row”
New York Times - 8/31/23
The Paradox Of American Satisfaction With Education
Gallup - 8/31/23

“Americans’ satisfaction with the quality of K-12 education in the U.S. has fallen six percentage points in the past year to match the record-low 36% reading on this measure, which Gallup has tracked for 24 years. In contrast, parents of K-12 students remain largely satisfied with the quality of the education their oldest child is receiving, as 76% say they are “completely” or “somewhat” satisfied, significantly higher than the 67% low on that measure from 2013.”
An Amazing Research Story About A Mysterious Pedestrian Bridge
Tyler Vigen - 8/28/23

“This pedestrian bridge crosses I-494 just west of the Minneapolis Airport. It connects Bloomington to Richfield. I drive under it often and I wondered: why is it there? …I often have curious thoughts like this, but I dismiss most of them because if I answered all of them I would get nothing else done.”
ChatGPT Writes A Parody Start-Of-School Note To Parents
Ethan Mollick - 8/28/23

“Dear Parents and Guardians, We hope you had a rejuvenating summer break! As we embark on another exciting academic year, we're thrilled to introduce some groundbreaking, utterly necessary, and slightly confusing -learning platforms to enhance your child's educational experience.”

The Educator's Notebook

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Articles on September 03, 2023

featured articles

admissions

adolescence

assessment

athletics

character

cognitive science

creativity

diversity/inclusion

health

higher ed

humanities

leadership

reading/writing

sustainability

tech

tech/ai

workplace

other