Innovation must wonder why it is as cast as society’s bi-polar child. On the one hand it thrives in business, technology and health-care, domains to which we flock to see the latest gadgetry, invest in start-up opportunities, even volunteer to join beta-testing groups. This past week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a perfect […]
Help Make 2014 a ‘Year of Learning Dangerously’ – and how
Memo from the “Creating Our Best Future” Dept.: As a learning innovator I see widely divergent gestures toward the nurturing of learning across education, gestures that have significant implications throughout society. And in scanning the education landscape my emotions in the past year swung from arm-pumping enthusiasm to head-shaking discouragement. With this in mind and […]
Snakes on a Brain & other Neurological Evolutions to ponder!
This past week brought news from the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that specialized nerve cells in the brains of macaque monkeys respond to images of snakes. The lead researcher, Dr. Lynne Isbell of UC-Davis, surmised that natural selection has favoured primates that strongly respond to snake imagery. This makes good sense […]
STOP THE PRESSES: Activity and Exercise are good for learning!
Unless you’ve been living in a cave the last month, you’ve heard or seen an outpouring of news stories linking exercise and activity to wellness, which in turn is linked to increased workplace productivity and improved cognitive functioning. While this strikes me as a memo from the “Blindingly Obvious Dept.”, I’m going to suspend my […]
Child-Centred Learning & Planetary Health
When I ponder the question: What kind of education system will best support a future characterized by the most robust and vital learning? I find the answer in the natural world. Check out any healthy ecosystem on our planet and you’ll see life sustained by rich, robust biodiversity and complex interactivity. This diversity helps systems […]
Personalized Learning in the news for valid reasons
The first week of September means back to school for millions of kids and young adults in North America. What happens this first week will largely presage the events of students’ learning lives in the coming school year. I’m not talking about what classroom seat is chosen or whether a new math textbook is handed […]
SURPASSING Expectations
The end of July saw the wrap of another very successful Surpass workshop-camp for 26 teens, out of Camp Byng on BC’s Sunshine Coast. Surpass is a week-long experience of multiple activities designed to promote community and personal development. The sub-context to Surpass? Feeling good emotionally and physically; good enough to try out some new things […]
School’s Out! Bring on the school slide(s)
Well, it’s a wrap on another school year as of a few days ago. And with the end of school about a gazillion kids are suddenly ratting around poking their noses in all kinds of places and doing all kinds of nefarious activities. I’m being facetious but the start of summer holidays also brings alarms […]
“Eight Ways of Intelligence” speech deepens our understanding
The subject of human intelligence has become overtaken by too-many wooly headed and cloistered researchers who have reduced it to a series of reproducible tests in a narrow range of competencies. By contrast, I highly commend Annie Murphy Paul‘s recent speech, Eight Ways of Looking at Intelligence (found here) in which she concisely, and appropriately serves […]
“Entrepreneurial Learning” Facing Challenges
To organizational researcher John Seely Brown (co-author: ‘A New Culture of Learning‘, 2011), the “entrepreneurial learner” is one who seizes opportunities to learn anywhere, anytime. With a disposition characterized by questioning, communicating, reflecting, and playing, such learners are increasingly valued in a job-world characterized by rapid and constant change. It’s also a disposition that is […]
Michael’s book, Learn Your Way! SelfDesigning the Life You Really Want, Starting Now is an ERAC-approved middle and high school textbook for career planning and health education courses (British Columbia), and it has received many endorsements. Contact Michael directly to obtain a pdf copy of the book.