Guest Thinkers — August 2, 2011

When it comes to learning and teaching, why do we ignore the voices of students?

When the truth is just around the corner … what’s your posture?

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When your organization has a chance to see itself as its customers do, do your leaders crowd around, trying to glean every insight they can about the story and your future, or do they prefer the status quo?

There are more mirrors available than ever. Sometimes, though, what’s missing is the willingness to take a look.

How many schools make changes in their day-to-day learning and teaching practices based on actively-solicited feedback from students? Not many.

Is it because we don’t really want to know? Or because we don’t know what to do with the information that we’d receive? Or we don’t think that students have anything to tell us? Or … ?

Image credit:love sign

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Technology & Innovation

Is Computer Progress at an End?

Researchers fear that computer acceleration is about to meet its limits. Constantly increasing the number of transistors on chips could require too much power to run economically.