While everyone has had more than enough challenge in the last 18 months, my new book, Risky Teaching, explores how risk and uncertainty can be used productively in and out of the classroom to increase learner engagement and prepare students for a world of ambiguity and volatility. Learn how a student project idea from a … Continue reading Risky Teaching

My new book, Risky Teaching: Harnessing the power of uncertainty in higher education is scheduled to come out later this summer from Routledge Press. Below is an excerpt from the Introduction and an outline of the chapters. And, yes, I had proposed this topic BEFORE the pandemic hit. Who knew we would all be talking … Continue reading Learning to Embrace Uncertainty

In ecology, ecotones are often more diverse and species rich than the individual habitats viewed separately. This makes some intuitive sense. Whether it's biological habitats, music, or food, things get interesting when elements clash, combine, and intermingle. It made me think that the same might be said for teaching. There are at least 3 of ways we might, in education, teach more at the ecotones.

Recently while giving a teacher development workshop I was surprised to learn how many in the audience were unfamiliar with the old standby "think-pair-share." If there is one simple, effective, and easy to implement technique that applies to virtually any educational context, the think-pair-share (TPS) is it. Every teacher should have this in their toolbox. … Continue reading One simple tool every teacher should have in their toolbox

In my workshops and conversations with teachers and faculty from across the educational spectrum (K-16), I often find a tendency to falsely divide teaching into "experiential" and "traditional" methodology. Often, proponents of experiential education disparage traditional education as ineffective and outdated. On the other side, teachers who are less familiar with experiential methods sometimes pigeon-hole … Continue reading The Experiential Continuum

What would you say if I told you that a team of four students from a small liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana came up with an idea (“Magic Bus Ticketing”) that could improve the lives of 10 million people living in poverty all around the world? What if I told you the same group … Continue reading Saving the World Through Project-Based Learning

Geographer Alastair Bonnet's recent work Off The Map: Feral places and what they tell us about the world introduced me to a new term: "topophilia." I am familiar with E.O. Wilson's notion of "biophilia"-- that there is an innate relationship between human beings and the "more-than-human-world" but I had not considered the related idea of … Continue reading Topophilia and Education for Placefulness

Every year, I present a message to the incoming first year students at Earlham College who elect to come to college early to participate in August Wilderness-- an outdoor pre-orientation program of three weeks that takes place in Utah (backpacking) and Canada (canoeing). What follows is my message from this year (2015). "On behalf of … Continue reading Living and Learning Adventurously: A Message to Incoming First Years