Category Archives: Education

Appreciative Inquiry and George Mason University’s Strategic Vision

This morning I was fortunate to be part of an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) event at George Mason University. If you’re not familiar with AI, from Wiki: “Appreciative Inquiry is primarily an organizational development method which focuses on increasing what an organization does well rather than on eliminating what it does badly.” The whole purpose of today’s AI was, “to help shape aspects of the new Vision related to Mason’s mission, values and the Mason Graduate (the attributes we wish all of our students have in common by the time they graduate).” Currently, George Mason University is creating a new strategic vision.

During my time as the student body president of Saginaw Valley State University, I contributed to the university’s strategic planning process. I was fortunate that during my time as the president coincided with when the university was in the process of redoing its 5-year plan. I say this because at the AI event today was George Mason University’s student government president. It made me a bit nostalgic about my time in that role.

Getting back to AI: I really like this method. By focusing on the positives of an organization, it certainly feels like there’s a better energy about the process. I could be demonstrating one of my biases, but even the faculty facilitator (who was there at the birth of this method in 1987!) spoke about the importance of steering clear of falling into a trap of opining the things that an organization lacks. Why? Simply stated: that list is never-ending.

The group of folks that I spent morning with really came up with some great ideas. This process gave me a new appreciation for some of the positives of George Mason University. In fact, I even joked with the group that it made me want to forget about moving back to Canada and get a job here at Mason.

Lastly, I wanted to say that today’s event reinforced my enjoyment of being part of strategic planning. While there wasn’t any actual “strategic planning” that happened today, I knew that the things that the larger group (of about 100 people) talked about today would be a data point that could be used by those folks who are doing the strategic planning. So, in a larger sense, today’s event was about strategic planning. And strategic planning is something that I can get really excited about.

Oh, one last thing. There was a really great line that was said during the meeting that the room seemed to love. I captured it in a tweet:

Ecology: Systems Theory in Action

John Green‘s crash course in world history has ended (it had to some time, right?) and he’s now onto a new topic: literature. This version of crash course is going to be smaller (only about 12 weeks), but I’m still excited for it. He’s already two weeks in, so if you’re interested — I’d check it out.

As John Green’s crash course ended, I thought I’d check up on what Hank Green’s new crash course was going to be. Hank, being John’s brother, also does crash course. His first crash course was in biology. As much as I enjoy learning about “life and living organisms,” I didn’t think that my time (at this point) was best used by keeping up with this course. In fact, I did watch a couple episodes to see if I might be wrong (but I wasn’t).

So — what’s Hank’s new crash course? Ecology! I am so in!!

Ecology is a branch within biology that deals with the relations/interactions between organisms and their environment. In essence, ecology is a perfect example of the importance of systems theory. Aside from my elementary school days, my only exposure to ecology was when I picked up Integral Ecology at Chapters to thumb through it — on several occasions.

Hank’s already into the third week of crash course ecology, so if you’re interested, it’s time to catch up! Here’s the first one:

Mind Lab: How Is Our Consciousness Connected to the World?

A little over a week ago, I was introduced to Mind Lab from Japan’s Science and Technology Agency. It. Is. Awesome! There are 4 lessons that take about 15 minutes each, so you could (theoretically), complete the lessons over your lunch break. There are some parts with sound (so you may want headphones), but theoretically, you could skip those parts and still get the gist of the lesson. If you want, you could also bookmark the page and come back to parts. So, if you only had 15 minutes, you could do the first lesson and then go back at a later time when you could finish another lesson (or all the lessons).

In the first lesson, we learn about blind spots, eye saccades, and apparent motion. In fact, you even get to measure the size of your blind spot. In the second lesson, we learn about 3D images in a 2D space, and how shadows effect our perception. In the third lesson, we learn about colors and the way that our brains can interpret the same image in two different ways. Lesson #3 is very intriguing. It reminds me of the those cognitive illusions you’ve probably seen in a psychology class. In the fourth lesson, we learn how contours effect how we perceive the existence of objects. There’s also something else during the last ‘slide’ of lesson #4 that I don’t want to spoil for you — but I really hope that you check it out.

In fact, after you’ve done lesson #4, be sure to come back and check out this link. The implications of what you’ll discover at the end of lesson #4 have been written about in that post.

I also wanted to mention that it’s been pointed out that the interactive nature of these lessons would likely eclipse any way in which they could be taught in the “old-fashioned” way.

The Psychology of Everything from Professor Paul Bloom

Here’s a great animated (!) 45-minute video from Professor Paul Bloom of Yale University explaining psychology through 3 case studies of compassion, racism, and sex. This video is fantastic in just how much you’ll learn about the different areas of psychology in less than 60 minutes. Take some time this Sunday to enlighten yourself about some of the important findings of psychology:

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After having watched the video, what do you think? Any immediate thoughts or ideas? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

Are Grades and Tests the Best Way to Measure Learning?

The other week in class, I was speaking with a classmate about grades and learning. We were opining about how sometimes, getting the right answer (on an assignment) shouldn’t necessarily be the goal of the assignment. That is, shouldn’t learning be the goal? Shouldn’t improving one’s storehouse of wisdom be the goal? Shouldn’t understanding be the goal?

Of course, that is the intention with these assignments — that one will learn/understand the material. After having spent (almost) an entire semester on the other side of the classroom, I certainly have [some] empathy for teachers and their assignments. While I don’t have to report to a department chair, I understand that in order to measure students, there needs to be something measurable and I understand that tests/assignments have become the easy way of doing this. Should this be acceptable, though?

I recently came across an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that addresses this issue:

According to this view, the nature of teaching and learning should be measured instead of relying solely on an outcome like a grade or a test. Students should be exposed to courses and assignments that require them to analyze information and apply it to new contexts, reflect on what they know, identify what they still need to learn, and sort through contradictory arguments.

Such opportunities are described in research literature as “deep approaches to learning.” They figure prominently in Thursday’s release of data from the National Survey of Student Engagement. While Nessie, as the survey is known, has long sought data on those practices, this year’s report replicated and extended the previous year’s findings, which showed that participation in deep approaches tends to relate to other forms of engagement, like taking part in first-year learning communities and research projects.

This article has sparked a great deal of debate in the comments section, too. Here’s one comment that I found particularly on-point:

I do not want to be an apologist for the way things are, because it is always possible to improve our practices and in many respects we are responsible for the critical view the public have of us (honestly, it isn’t all the fault of right wing politicians with an anti-intellectual bent); however, higher ed adminstrators and the higher ed press have to stop treating each new study, each new innovation and each new utterance from some rich person suddenly interested in, but also dismissive of, higher ed (I’m looking at you Bill Gates) as the silver bullet  that is going to transform and save higher ed.  My head is not in the sand, I know higher ed (particularly public higher ed) is going through rough times but the panicked responses of the folks in charge is truly dismaying.

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I once wrote about the need to shift towards Waldorf- & Montessori-like education. When I wrote this, I was thinking more about elementary and high school. I wonder — what should the model look like for college/university? Should it also be Waldorf- & Montessori-like? I don’t know, but it’s certainly a question worth asking.

How The Heck Does The Economy Work, Anyway?

A few months ago, I wrote a post about an online video series I’ve been following by John Green on world history. A few days ago, I learned that two economics professors at George Mason University were starting an online course in the same vein as Stanford. As they’re economics professors, naturally, you’d expect that the course is on economics (it is). In fact, the two professors (Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen) describe the course as:

This course covers theory and empirics and history for the economic growth of developing nations.

I have to say, I’m really excited for this course and I think you should be, too. Similar to my comment about our need to understand the implications of history and the past, I believe we also should have an understanding some of the basic underlying theory of the economy.

There are a few differences between John Green’s crash course and the course being offered by Prof. Tabarrok and Prof. Cowen. First, as I referred to earlier, the economics course is more in the same vein of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Second, there aren’t any fun animations from the Thought Bubble (at least I haven’t seen any, yet). Third, there are multiple videos per lesson. With John Green’s course, there was only one video per week on a given topic. With this course from Marginal Revolution University, there are usually multiple videos for a given lesson. For instance, for the lesson on People (as in, leading thinkers on the economy), there are over 30 videos. Finally, there are practice questions. Practice questions? Yes, practice questions. Meaning, the professors have included practice questions along with the videos to help the viewer interact with the material.

I’ve included the introduction video below.

John Green’s Crash Course in World History

If it wasn’t clear from my series of “,” I would think that one of on the course would lead one to believe that I enjoy learning. (One might also point to my bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees!) In addition to Prof. Sandel’s course, I’ve also been watching another course online: .

is an author (; ) and one half of the . John and his brother Hank post YouTube videos couched in the form of a conversation to each other. It’s very accessible. Hank has a . There are a number of other dedicated YouTube channels to different things that John & Hank talk about: , , and .

Back to Crash Course World History: , I really think that people should have a basic understanding of world history. If that’s too much to ask, I think that I would like to have a basic understanding of world history. Especially because of my inclination to take a ‘systems perspective to things,’ (look for a post on this soon!) I think that having an understanding of the macrolevel events that led to today can help us (me?) gain a better understanding of where we might be headed in the future. If nothing else, it serves as ‘trial and error’ of what’s happened in the past, so as to avoid (or at least attempt to avoid) doing in the future.

The crash course in World History is not yet complete. John Green posts a new one each week. He intends to post 40 episodes and as of this post, he’s posted only 19. That means, there’s still a lot of world history to get to! Each video is approximately 10 minutes long and there tends to be a lot of information crammed in. One is often encouraged to watch the videos more than once and I must say, I’ve definitely done this.

For those interested, here’s the first episode:

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Harvard University’s Justice with Professor Michael Sandel

This past semester I had the good fortune of taking a class in . I rather enjoyed the class and it sparked my interest in deepening the learning on the subject. As a result, I did some digging and came across a course that has been put (Aside: I am a big fan of ). The course is called “Justice” and it is offered by . The professor: .

I find the subject of ethics fascinating. I think it is a subject that everyone should have at least a basic understanding of. That is, I think people should have read some of the basic texts or at least know some of the basic arguments from the different theorists or theories (eg. , , , , etc.).

Back to this course: it’s fantastic! There are 12 ‘episodes’ that are really a total of 24 classes. There’s a different subject each week and the professor really engages the students. There’s a great deal of discussion between the students and the professor on a range of moral issues.Here’s a quote from the professor during what could have potentially become a rather contentious point in the last episode: “We’ve done pretty well over a whole semester and we’re doing pretty well now dealing with questions that most people think that can’t even be discussed in a university setting.”

After watching all 12 episodes, I think that his quote is spot on. The students (and the professor) spoke about a number of contentious and possibly controversial subjects without descending into ad hominem attacks. In fact, the way that the students engaged in civil discourse is what I’d like to think that our politicians and pundits could do to set an example for the citizens of the world.

Here’s a short video preview of the course, in case you’re interested:

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On another note, I’m really looking forward to reading Michael Sandel’s new book called: .

What’s On My iPod: Lectures, In and Around Metro DC, Part 5

iPod, iPods, nano iPod, : Songs, LA to DC
: Lectures, LA to DC
: Podcasts, LA to DC
Part 4: Lectures/Podcasts, Ottawa to DC

In the first four parts of this series, I wrote about the various music, podcasts, or lectures that I listened to on my various road trips. Now that I’m in the DC area on a more permanent basis (completing an MBA), I’m not really in need of a vast sum of lectures/podcasts to listen to as I drive across the country (or between countries). As such, I’ve decided to continue this series and continue taking in extra information, while doing an assortment of activities (commuting, working out, etc.). As with the previous lectures, I’ve obtained all of these from iTunes U and highly recommend you check it out, if you haven’t already.

Making the Perfect Pitch – This was a short lecture (15 minutes) and it was provided by Cambridge University. They interviewed Dr. Darrin Disley, who gave some very poignant advice on the infamous “elevator pitch.” He explained the 9 C’s of elevator speeches, in the form of an elevator speech. The one thing that I pulled from this lecture (which happens to be one of the 9 C’s) is that the elevator pitch should be conversational. The purpose of the elevator pitch is to get the person you’re talking to interested in your pitch (not necessarily sell them on a business plan). The point is just to get the ball rolling.

The Art of the Short Sell – This was a lecture that James Chanos, founder and president of Kynikos Associates, gave to an audience at Yale University. Chanos talked about “10 Lessons From the Financial Crisis That Investors Will Soon Forget (If They Haven’t Already!)” As you can see from the powerpoint presentation, there is so much information in this lecture. The one takeaway for me is that financial history has a way of repeating itself. Chanos says, “Some other firm will be the AIG of the next crisis!”

Lecture, lecture hall, lecture hall students, students, lecturing, students learning, professor, professor lecture, lecture professor, professor lecturing,

The following lectures were part of a series called “Building a Business” and were hosted by Oxford University:

Negotiation Skills – This isn’t the first negotiation lecture I’ve listened to on the road. When the speaker began the lecture, I was surprised to recognize the activity from the first negotiation lecture I heard. There were minor changes, but it was essentially the same game. The main takeaways from this lecture how important creating value really is to the success of negotiations. Many people enter negotiations thinking that there is a ‘fixed pie’ that will be distributed between the parties. Instead, the two parties can, together, create value and in essence, add to the pie.

Managing People, Managing Teams – This lecture was given by Tim Cook, (not the new CEO of Apple), but the Tim Cook that is associated with Oxford University. Cook comes from a hard sciences background, so I thought it would be rather interesting to hear his take on managing people. He talked about transactional analysis and recommend Eric Berne’s book. I had already read it and would say that it’s one of the many methods out there for understanding human interaction. He also talked about some other skills that were important like interviewing and the relationship between managers (and the people they manage), as well as the people they interact with, but have no direct managerial “control” over, like politicians, accountants, etc.

Marketing: Creating and Keeping Customers – This lecture was given by Jonathan Reynolds, a professor at Oxford. Given my limited experience with the marketing literature, it was very informative to listen to this lecture by Reynolds. He covered a lot of ground from internet marketing to social media to e-commerce. Reynolds explores the ideas and principles that are paramount to the field of marketing. Of course, there are some overlaps with other fields (psychology), but marketing is a field steeped in intricacies and — since it is based on humans — continually evolving.

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Do Politics and Economics Mix in School Policy? – This lecture was given by Eric Hanushek and Michael Kirst and contained the perspectives of both politics (Kirst) and economics (Hanushek). students in class, students, class, classroom, teacher, blackboard, chalk, kids, grade school, It was put on courtesy of Stanford University and one of the speakers boasted that Stanford has one of the best institutions with regard to education policy research. One of the lines that struck me about this lecture was when one of the speakers proclaimed something to the effect that when it comes to education policy, everyone has an opinion. They spoke about some of the pitfalls to teacher’s unions (harder to reward excellent teachers, among other things), and they talked about the idea that education policy, for the most part, would be better served by being a local issue.

The Financial Crisis, the Recession, and the American Political Economy: A Systemic Perspective – This lecture, by far, had the longest introduction (to the speaker) of any of the previous lectures I’ve heard. It was given at MIT. Given the variety of work achieved by the speaker, Charles H. Ferguson, I understood why there was such a long intro. Moreover, when the speaker began, I didn’t realize that he was “the guy” who made the movie Inside Job. (Note: this lecture was given right around the time of the release of Inside Job, which of course, later went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary.) While there are many theories as to how/why things happened the way they did, (my two cents), I always find it fascinating to take in more perspectives. I don’t know that there is (or could be?) a singular answer as to why things happened.

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This rounds out the lectures I’ve been listening to since my last post. As always, if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments section (or through some other form: Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

What’s On My iPod: Lectures/Podcasts From A Road Trip, Ottawa to DC, Part 4

: Songs, LA to DC
: Lectures, LA to DC
: Podcasts, LA to DC

In the first three parts of this series, I wrote about what was on my iPod for the trip from LA to DC (by car). More recently, I drove from Ottawa to DC, which allowed me to listen to a number of new podcasts and lectures. In this post, I’ll go over the lectures/podcasts and some of the knowledge I gleaned from them.

I had two podcasts. One of them was from the :

Chicago Booth Podcast: Should Executive Pay Be Regulated? (12/02/2009) – I thought I would start with one of the most interesting tracks I listened to on the trip. Given that I’m about to start an MBA, I thought it would be prudent of me to learn about this topic (executive pay). I will say, I was quite surprised to hear the statistics that the speaker, , offered on the topic. While he raised the point about athletes who make (equal or more) money than the CEOs, the surprising fact was that executive pay (now) is actually down in relation to executive pay from the ’80s. And maybe more poignant, executives make less money than athletes and entertainers.

The second podcast was from :

Nassim Taleb on Living with Black Swans (04/13/2011) – has written a number of articles and books, and is affiliated with some very prestigious institutions. He has so many important things to say, but I think the thing that I found the most transferable was the problem with specialization. He didn’t actually put it this way, but this is how I’m interpreting it. In particular, he talks about how important it is to — in an effort to account for randomness and variability — diversify. If you’re investing, don’t invest in just one company. Don’t invest in just one industry. Don’t invest in just one kind of investment. Or… we could relate it to business, specifically, I’m reminded of the book , by Kevin Maney. In Maney’s book, among other things, he talks about those times within an industry where companies are “blind-sided” by some sort of innovation (example: think about cameras 20 years ago and now how cell phones have revolutionized the way we take pictures). Taleb would argue the importance of guarding against a , which from our example, would be cell phones with cameras.

The remaining 6 tracks were all lectures I downloaded through . If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend it! The first lecture I listened to came courtesy of the  called:

What’s the Point of Economics? – The text from the website: “Evan Davis, BBC Today presenter, outlines five things everyone should know about economics, Mike Kitson looks at the relevance of economics to everyday life and Professor Willy Brown describes the growing impact of the minimum wage over its first ten years.”

There were two lectures I listened to that came from a class at  on Game Theory. I didn’t have the time to listen to every lecture from the course, so I picked two of the higher rated lectures:

02 – Putting Yourselves Into Other People’s Shoes and 03 – Iterative Deletion and the Median-Voter Theorem – I found these lectures highly informative. The first (or should I say second?) lecture gave a really good example of how important it is to put yourself into other people’s shoes. This example is related to how another person would approach a game (the same one that you’re playing) and exemplifies the importance of knowing your “opponent.” Like in one of the podcast, this lesson is very transferable to other parts of life. In the second (or third) lecture,  does a great job of explaining the median-voter theorem, and more importantly, uses the example of political positions to make the theorem more accessible to the students.

The last three lectures I listened to all came from :

Hire the Right People, Carlos Brito – This was an interesting talk, especially because it came from someone I usually wouldn’t necessarily voluntarily hear from. is the CEO of Anheuser-Busch and he has some intriguing ideas that he has put into practice in many of his offices. He thinks that separate offices foster LESS work. In fact, he talks about how, in his experience, having no walls has actually made work easier and motivated people to do more work. It’s his opinion that offices are for people who want to hide and do no work. With the open concept office, he explains how meetings are much “shorter;” 2- or 5-minute meetings can happen much quicker without having to “schedule” everything.

Dave Blakely on Fostering Innovation – From the description of this lecture’s : “In this talk, Dave Blakely presents a set of principles for successful innovation, regardless of an organization’s size, type or location. The heart of any innovation agenda is a carefully chosen interdisciplinary team, typically including members with backgrounds in technology, business, and other relevant industry-specific knowledge. Creative leaps can be inspired by empathetic human research, and insights are distilled in synthesis sessions. Techniques such as brainstorming can help teams to direct their creativity, and prototypes can be used to improve visualization and mitigate risk.”

Changing Behavior and Changing Policies –  runs the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University. To get a better idea of Fogg’s perspective on behavior, I would say (listen to this talk, as it’s only 20 minutes or so), or check out his site: .

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I don’t have any “planned” long trips on the horizon, but I am considering integrating podcasts and iTunes U lectures to daily life. If you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them in the comments, via email, or even on .