Beyond the Content - Mindfulness and Test Prep with Logan Thompson - Trending in Education - Extra2/28/2019
In this week's extra, Mike catches up with new author Logan Thompson on his book Beyond the Content: Unlocking the Other Half of Test Prep with a Tailored Mindfulness Approach.
Logan talks about his own path to becoming more mindful and self-aware and how good mindfulness practices have helped to shape who he is as a teacher and a person. Logan discusses how performing on a standardized test doesn't just involve understanding the content and the strategies, it also involves managing one's cognitive and emotional states. Throughout the conversation, Mike and Logan explore the analogy of consciousness as both a Driver and Passengers. Logan provides techniques to manage the presence of the interruptive, distracting, or self-limiting thoughts, aka Passengers, without giving them too much power or attention, while empowering the Driver to get to where she wants to go. We also discuss how Logan's focus on mindfulness and being present connects to social and emotional learning, cognitive and emotional empathy, and the Whole Child and Whole Teacher movements. Listen in and enjoy!
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We dive into learning and education trends to watch in 2019. Using two Forbes.com articles as our jumping off point, we talk trends in STEM, K-12, and higher education.
How will teacher shortages influence the learning and education landscape? Does STEM help lead the way on the whole child learning experience? Can national and local legislation help change the higher education space in the US? Are income-share agreements a viable solution to ballooning student-debt? We discuss all of these topics and more. Listen in and enjoy!
Just in time for Valentines Day, we're joined by KS Wiswell, author of Full Frontal Nerdity - Lessons on Loving and Living With Your Brain. In addition to being an author, KS is also a screenwriter, an improv performer, and also a Kaplan instructor. We dive into the thought process behind her launching a blog and how that grew into publishing her first book. How did a background in improv help her connect topics that few others see as common? What is it like to share personal stories about love and life for everyone to see? How is improv like teaching and how can we use surprise, narrative, and relevance to make instruction more entertaining and compelling.
KS walks us through all this and much more with plenty of laughs along the way.
We take a look at some of the emerging media trends to watch for in 2019. Mike dives into the Gimlet and Anchor acquisitions by Spotify and how audio will continue to be a focal point for advertisers. We also take a look at how small a portion of advertising podcasts currently garner. Does the in-house content creation Spotify is paying for mirror a similar content brand we talk about often? Brandon dives into Super Bowl commercials and #RoboChild. How are robots, or maybe even our fear of robots, shaping the commercials and media we are consuming?
Mike and Dan also provide some insight into the recent news around Jeff Bezos and the parent company of the National Enquirer. We talk about all this and more media trends to keep an eye out for in the coming year. Enjoy!
We tackle a recent article from BuzzFeedNews.com that explores Millennials as the 'Burnout Generation'. Does Anne Helen Peterson's work paint with too broad a brush or do younger generations face a tougher road? How does burnout change the way we might be open to learning? Brandon discusses how every generation faces tough decisions about where their careers might go as they enter college. Mike explores how burnout and pressure around visual identity and online social comparison may be leading to new problems for teens and young people as it relates to their mental health and well-being.
We close with Dan and Mike digging into the growing prevalence of mindfulness and social emotional learning as a potential way to provide coping mechanisms to counter some of the more negative aspects of these trends. It's an important discussion we hope to continue to explore in future episodes.
We take a look back at some of the hottest gadgets at CES 2019 and discuss where some potential crossover to learning may exist. Mike points out the lack of education and learning categories / focus at the trade show. Brandon focuses in on wearables and the tracking of individual data that could help shape how we understand personalized learning. We also discuss the explosion in sensors and how growth in that technology could apply to education and learning. Can sensor help track brain waves and teach us more on how we learn? What could teachers do with a better understanding of their students' engagement and mental readiness?
And of course, if it's our CES show, you know we talk robots as we revisit the Uncanny Valley, robot butlers, and so much more. Join us for a fun listen for the latest and greatest from CES 2019.
The team takes a look at interactive media and interactive video with Netflix's recently released Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch as a backdrop. We talk through how interactive media has grown and developed over the years from Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books and Role Playing Games to interactive video experiences like what Netflix is now offering. We discuss the positive and negative use cases for interactive media. How does an interactive experience change the creative process? Are traditional cinematic auteurs as well-suited for interactive media as say game designers?
Regarding Bandersnatch specifically, did Black Mirror and Netflix get the interactive experience right and the content wrong? We touch on our own reactions to the movie and share where we see similar content in the future growing and even recite some of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky - the genesis of the term Bandersnatch - before we’re through. Listen in and enjoy!
The crew dives into a wide range of emerging macrotrends concerning teachers at the start of 2019.
We begin by taking a look at a recent Wall Street Journal report on the current 'quit rate' in the teaching profession. What could be behind the all-time high in teachers leaving the field seen in 2018? Could the gig-economy and financial pressures be leading some teachers to leave their profession? We also take a look at upcoming strikes in Los Angeles, Oakland, and Virginia and examine how these types of work stoppages can influence learning and provide opportunities to explore civic engagement among students and teachers alike.
We're back with a brand new episode and this week we talk about parenting. More specifically, we discuss proud new papa Mike's first few days on the job and how we learn to be parents. Are there enough formal education opportunities for expecting parents? Do certain societal norms keep us from studying up before we're responsible for another person? How can a parent who wants to learn seek out verified, high-end instruction and avoid the fads? We discuss that and each of our own experiences throughout this episode!
On our first show of 2019, we look back to some of the great guests we had throughout 2018 with this highlight show. Mike and Dan kick off the conversation with a big announcement from Mike and a discussion around the guests you'll hear from through this episode. We'll hear highlights from our conversations with Wendy Zukerman, Rohit Barghava, Tarlin Ray, Melissa Griffith, Debbie Berebichez, and Katie Nielson.
Thank you to everyone who listened in 2018. We look forward to growing in 2019, hearing more voices, and engaging with an even broader audience. |
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