20 Oct Crack the problem: Step 1- What’s the problem?
03 Sep Why we can’t crack that problem! Changing this
Confusion comes from lack of clarity about the issue at hand. Formulate your problem as a question and clarify the objective, options, and constraints of your problem before plunging into data!
10 Aug Got one of those nonstop-firing brains? Do this.
http://www.businessinsider.com/image/5373d131eab8ea310d52974e/
My brain seems to be going a million miles an hour, every hour. It is constantly busy. I cannot find peace, it bothers me.
Is there a way to stop this? Is it any good anyway?
The good news is, the answer is yes. There is a way. The bad news is that it takes work. Effort. Until you make it a habit (See here about habits).
- My brain is firing constantly because that is what brains do. It’s a muscle.
- What I am really after though, is some relief. A destination. Some point where there is meaning, not noise.
A useful brain is a disciplined brain. The other kind is just torture.
(more…)
A useful brain is a disciplined brain. The other kind is just torture.
09 Jul What is the point of thinking anyway?
The point of thinking is action. Unless we target an action – decisions! – all our thinking has zero impact. Focus your mind away from mindlessless and towards decisions.
What is the point? In other words, what comes out of all this thinking? What should come out of all this thinking?
Take a moment to think about that… 🙂
05 May How to control someone else’s arm with your brain TED.com
What can I say?
Two thoughts:
1 – You can transfer your brain’s electrical signal to another through a wire – it’s really that simple?!
2 – Gage’s group has put together DIY brain science technology. The goal is to promote the teaching and learning of neuroscience in schools – and at your home. You can now do neuroscience at home. Enter the BackyardBrains era: https://www.backyardbrains.com/
28 Apr Hubble @25 – A feast.
This months marks the 25th anniversary of the Hubble telescope in space. And it’s a big celebration.
So how do we measure progress here on Earth?
135,000 times around the planet; 570,000 images of 100 billion galaxies from 370 up. Feast your eyes and mind on what we have learned for our investment in Hubble:
Hubble’s Greatest Hits – National Geographic Magazine.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/
20 Apr Liberal or STEM college education: A false choice?
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, who has one of the most thoughtful programs on TV (CNN Sunday mornings!), has just published a new book, “In Defense of Liberal Education”.
His main fear is that the current trend away from the 4-year liberal arts college education (set in motion by the Great Recession, and rationally supported by the ballooning college price tag), will create a nation of graduates who cannot quite think, write, or speak with clarity and conviction.
(See: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/24/why-the-liberal-arts-matter/)
The counterpoint, of course, is that the country needs engineers and scientists urgently and in numbers. So, if highschoolers keep choosing history, English, and arts majors, where will the STEM competency come from?
I completely agree with the point. And with the counterpoint. And when that happens, I know that we must not be asking the right questions…
Is the problem really that high school graduates choose liberal arts over science? Is this the reason that we don’t have STEM-competent employees in the workplace?
Or is it, that given the level of high-school math and science our students get, it is mostly impossible to get into an engineering or science major, or even, to be excited about math and physics?!
18 Apr Why you should not have an opinion
Opinions are not facts. Don’t use them as such. Opinions are personal, they make everything personal, and shut out nuanced views. Try to probe for any unconsciously known facts that may be hiding behind an expressed opinion. If not there, rethink your position.
- “I think this will be a great, large market for us”
- “I think Jim will make a great VP”
- “We cannot withhold the bonus from the engineering team this year”
- “Our shipping costs are killing us”
06 Mar Instruction is Dead
If you, like me, have spent the many years of mandatory (and optional) schooling sitting at a desk and listening to a teacher ‘teach’, and you now wonder whatever happened to all this information you ‘received’, we have good news and bad news:
The bad news is, we didn’t really learn much of any of this. Really not. It was mostly good until test time, and then it was over. Done. Basically, hugely wasted time. And immensely wasted opportunity. 13 years in K-12, then college and grad school(s), and what remains? It hurts to think about it.
Neuroscience now proves that the 'Sage on Stage' model fails to deliver long-term learning. Intensely experiential, effortful models do that.
But there is also good news: We now know exactly why we did not learn much. Better yet, we know how to really, really learn! Seriously. Neuroscientists have understood enough – maybe just enough still – about the way the brain records, stores and retrieves information, to be able to tell us, conclusively, that… the methods we have been using, the “Sage on Stage” instruction model does not result in ‘real’ learning.
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