When I was a kid, my brother and I built a “roller coaster” in the backyard with a wagon, some scraps of wood, and tons of pipes. Was it safe? Probably not. Did it ever work properly? Not really. But it didn’t matter. We were…
Right now, I’m sitting on an airplane. I mean, I’m not actually sitting on the airplane. I’m in it. Because, if I were on top of it, I wouldn’t be bored. I’d be terrified. Without access to the interwebz, I have nothing to do. I’ve…
A few years ago, I had the chance to teach science in a self-contained classroom (teaching all subjects). I scoured the Internet for examples of great demonstrations that would captivate my students’ attention. It worked at first. I did the typical experiments. You know, add…
Last April, I had the opportunity to deliver a TEDx Talk in Pennsylvania. Here’s the talk: There’s a deeply cultural idea that freedom and opportunity are the key ingredients to creativity. We use terms like “think outside the box” to describe the wild ones who…
It all began the year I taught sixth grade ELL. I had the same group of students all day in a class that, by law, had to be hyper-structured (we had a four-hour block of reading, writing, oral language, and grammar). On Tuesday, we didn’t…
We’ve all been there before. You’re working with a few other people and everything just seems to click. It might be on a ball field or court. Or it might be in a jam session or a rehearsal for live theater. If you’re lucky, it…
In this article and podcast, we explore what it means to shift from a focus on learning disabilities to focusing on learning differences. What does it mean to embrace neurodiversity and help students find their hidden potential connected to their neurological diversity? How can we…
In 2014, Microsoft launched a hugely successful A.I. bot named Xiaoice in China. With over forty million conversations, users often described feeling as though they were interacting with a real human. Microsoft founder Bill Gates described it this way, “’Xiaoice has attracted 45 million followers…
Back in December, I showed ChatGPT to a friend of mine who is also a professor. “I’m not worried about AI in my humanities courses,” she said. “Not at all?” She shook her head. “I know of colleagues who are going back to the blue…
Three years ago, I stood in a high-tech lab at a technical university and stared at the giant flat screen monitor. The professor asked me, “Can you tell me which of these samples was generated via Artificial Intelligence?” At the top, a student had asked…
