Guatemala and more!

11th August 2023

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Barb Giving a Dizzying Array of Talks in Guatemala in September

If you are anywhere in Central America, take a look here and sign up for any of the many different talks, workshops and conferences that Barb will be giving in Guatemala City in the first two weeks of September. If Learning How to Learn has made a difference in your own life, think of how much more impact live classes and discussions with like-minded people—and Barb herself—can make! Here is an overview:

  • Uncommon Sense Teaching: Effective Teaching & Learning, Insights from Neuroscience

Tuesday, September 5, 2023 |  7:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.

Here is Barb’s PowerPoint, to give you a sense of what we’ll be discussing.  Notice the many animations that bring the ideas to life!

  • Learning How to Change

           Friday, September 8, 2023 |  4:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m.

  • Learning How to Learn

           Monday, September 11, 2023 |  1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.

  • Neuroscience Unleashed: Empowering STEM Educators

           Wednesday, September 13, 2023 |  1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.

  • Learning How to Learn

           Saturday, September 2, 2023 |  9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.

Seats are limited, so sign up here now to reserve your spot!

Graphic Illustration—a Great Way to Keep Audiences Even More Focused on Key Ideas

Here is a terrific graphic illustration rendered live by artist Andrea Pescosolido during Barb’s half-day teaching and learning workshop at The Preuss School in San Diego last week.  Seeing brilliant live illustrators like Andrea  is how you can help keep audiences enthralled! (Incidentally, coming up this month, Barb will be speaking at Georgetown Preparatory School in Washington DC and Tower Hill School in Delaware, as well as at Waterloo University in Canada. August is a busy time for teachers!) 

Using Online Learning for Recruitment and Diversification

Many regional colleges and universities still tiptoe around the idea of outreach to high schools in their state. But, as this informative op-ed in the Wall Street Journal observes: “A dozen leading universities, including Stanford, Penn and Howard are already changing the admissions paradigm by offering courses in a hybrid format for students in low-income schools.”

“Through a partnership with the nonprofit National Education Equity Lab, [leading universities] encourage juniors and seniors at low-income high schools to enroll in their courses online. Those who pass receive both high school and college credit. Over the past four years, some 15,000 students have enrolled in these courses and that number should grow dramatically over the next decade. With a pass rate above 80%, these students are doing well and the program is leveling the playing field…. Every college should actively recruit socioeconomically diverse talent.” But this Hechinger Report article describes, it’s easy for colleges to lose money in this arena if they aren’t taking moving into economies of scale, as with MOOCs.

Proposed Panel (with Barb) for SXSW 2024—Please Vote to Support It!

Fred Fransen is the founder of Certell, Inc. an educational non-profit which provides Social Studies curriculum to more than 5,000 teachers who teach more than 475,000 students across the country. . He observes that a significant part of the difference between, say, Harvard and University of Michigan is due to the artificial scarcity which Harvard has created by limiting enrollment. He notes: “Apple Computer does not produce a small number of devices and then charge astronomical prices for them; it produces exceptional products and tries to find as many buyers as it can. If elite schools were really interested in helping underprivileged students, they would open up their admissions to all interested students, not operate a zero-sum game in which a spot offered to a student of one race necessarily denies a spot to a student of another race.”

Fred has proposed a panel for the SXSW EDU 2024 that would explore the question of artificial scarcity in education, scalability in the delivery of educational inputs, the use of technology in creating affordable scalability, and the assessment process (specification grading) necessary to operate an educational institution with open admission. The panelists would include:

  • Nicolas Kristof, NYT
  • Michael Horn: Clayton Christensen Institute and author of From Reopen to Reinvent
  • Richard Vedder, Higher Education economist and former member of the Spellings Commission, author of Going Broke by Degree
  • Barbara Oakley, Professor of Engineering, MOOC expert, and author of Learning How to Learn
  • Julie Young, Founder of Florida Virtual School and VP of Educational Outreach/Student Services and Sr. Advisor to ASU Prep

Here is the voting page link https://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote?search[conference_id]=45. Please vote to support the panel! To vote, you simply need to create an account (a simple process). To easily access Fred’s panel, enter in the Search Proposals field the panel title: “Affirmative Action, Not Words: Rethinking College Access”. 

To vote yes, select the “arrow up”. Also, there’s a comments section to post questions and leave constructive comments. (Sign-up information remains confidential.) 

ChatGPT & AI Teaching & Learning Workshop

There could be little that could be more topical than the 1-Day ChatGPT & AI Teaching & Learning Workshop taking place on September 8, 2023, through Zoom, with Jonathan Brennan, PhD and Lynn Dickinson, MA.  The workshop is $295 ($345 after the early bird pricing ends)—register here.

PKM with Aidan Helfant

Here’s a fun interview of Cornell college student Aidan Helfant with Barb on supercharging your school learning.

That’s all for now. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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