Cognitive and learning scientist are finding evidence that brains process the information that is stored in memories. The processing allows the learner to find connections and organize the memories. As a result, what one “knows” is not a collection of discrete facts, but it is integrated and one’s knowledge can be used to create new Read More
I am in the middle of rereading Carl Bereiter’s 2002 book Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age. Among the intriguing ideas is the book is his confrontation of the “mind as a container” metaphor. Recent generations of educators have operated under the assumption that one’s brain is a container and that what we know Read More
Here is another post motivated by my clean out of old files. In 2013, I prepared a conference presentation (which was never delivered due to a scheduling problem). In that presentation, I claimed the dominant model of learning that seemed to be accepted by schools was grounded on six assumptions: I believe the assumptions remain Read More
194: Inquiry and Authentic Assessment I have been looking through old papers I wrote as an undergraduate and graduate student years ago… actually decades ago. In 1997, I enrolled in a curriculum development course and a graduate student, and made this observation: An inquiry-based science curriculum that includes authentic assessment is not familiar to most Read More
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
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
155: Is It Time to Reject Intelligence as a Construct? Decades ago, I first read Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man. The book was published first in 1981, then a revised edition in 1996 which included essays critical of the 1994 book The Bell Curve. It was this second edit that led a colleague Read More
My summer reading always includes listening to Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man. I discovered Gould in 1984 and have been a lifelong fan of his essays and books. Especially this year, I have been thinking more and more about intelligence and the really weak definitions of it that characterizes our understanding of it. Read More
103: Ownership of Knowledge and AI It is July 2025. “The MIT Article” is all anyone is talking about. This is the article on arXiv.org in which researchers compared the essays written by those using ChatGPT, web search, or only their brains. It is a long and interesting preprint article. The article is surely of Read More
For decades, percentages have been the cornerstone of academic assessment, a seemingly objective and straightforward way to quantify student performance. We assign a numerical score, average it out, and present it as a clear indicator of learning. Yet, beneath this veneer of simplicity lies a system riddled with flaws, one that actively hinders effective assessment, Read More