It was the perfect storm. The weather was forecast to be perfect. Each student has their own portable chair. And I am getting closer and closer to the end of my teaching career. If it was ever going to happen, this seemed like the right time. So I did it. For the first time in … Continue reading It Only Took 34 Years for Me to Be the “Cool” Teacher
I first wrote about the fun fact that LEGO is the world's largest tire manufacturer, producing over 700 million tires per year, on June 24, 2018. The post got eight views that day, and another eleven the next day. Like most posts, the number of views quickly faded away over the next few weeks. But … Continue reading I Guess People Are No Longer Fascinated by Tires
I'm quite happy that it appears that Dan's column in the Wall Street Journal is back with some regularity because it has always been a great source of material for my blog. And this week is no exception. Here is one of the emails Dan received: Dear Dan, I am obsessed with my blogging stats. … Continue reading It’s Dan Ariely Time!
I've often wondered what it would be like to know someone who was in the movies, and now I finally do. And I have to admit, it's kind of cool. We just watched An American Pickle, which stars Seth Rogen as a Jewish immigrant who gets preserved in a vat of pickles and wakes up 100 years … Continue reading I Knew This Guy Before He Made It to the Big Screen
I was browsing through the Study Finds web site, seeing if there might be something worth writing about, and I was just overwhelmed by the number of possible topics. So rather than pick one and offer my take on the study, I thought I would just share a few headlines and let you pick which … Continue reading Reader’s Choice – Choose Your Own Adventure
Early on at the beginning of each semester, I set aside a day for what I call The Name Game. The “Game” requires each student to come to the front of the room, introduce themselves, and then use a prop or some way to help us remember their name. (Admittedly I stole the idea from … Continue reading The Name Game – 2020 Edition
As part of my preparation for this semester, I had to make sure I was comfortable with the various features of Zoom. I didn't want to be fumbling around in the middle of a live Zoom session with a roomful of students trying to figure out how to record the session, share a screen, or … Continue reading Forget About Learning How to Zoom, I Need to Learn How to Smize
Posts featuring Dan Pink's Pinkcast videos have been a mainstay of my blog for the past year and a half. In fact, this is my 23rd such post. The first 22 posts included topics such as: What If?? Mental Subtraction of Positive Events Creating a Book of Small Experiments Better Feedback in Just 19 Words A Simple, but … Continue reading It Took 23 Posts, But It Finally Happened
Dan Ariely has written several books about irrational decision making, including Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality. His books are both enjoyable and educational. In addition, he has a regular column in the Wall Street Journal called Ask Dan, which has been the basis for many of my blog posts over the past five … Continue reading How to Avoid Behaving Irrationally
Well, it looks like we survived the first week back at school without having to reverse our plans. And I think that's all we can do, just focus on getting through one week at a time. Besides a minor glitch right before school started, Villanova's students seem to be following all the guidelines that have … Continue reading Week One Is in the Books; Just Thirteen More to Go
Borden's Blather 