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Showing posts from August, 2017

Weekend Building Blocks - 25 AUG 2017

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There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! Witty replies. Sexual sins. Optimal learning environments. Renaissance Men. Better understanding of mistakes. Great Zinger!  Buster Benson humorously discusses the use of witty responses used to embarrass or expose an opponent in dialogue. I see zingers used in social media arguments all the time. In an age of digital anonymity, it seems zingers are more and more popular, with less respect and less intent to find middle ground. The points are adding up and the divide is widening. Thoughts?  The Physiophobe: Modern Man Against Reality.  Professor Anthony Esolen uses the word physiophobe to describe a person who fears the way things are. He uses the concept of sexual sin to explain his rationale, but his argument can be extrapolated into a wide array of applications, fields, or topics. The claim that we manipulate the way things are should challenge the way we think about trut

Triage: How to Better Prioritize Your Opportunities & Problems

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In the story of the doctor who attended police SWAT school , one of the skills that I identify in adaptive people is the ability to triage.   In emergency medicine, triage is the process of a hasty evaluation: to determine the threats to life of an injury or illness,  as compared to another patient,  balancing the potential for reward or success, due to an increased demand on limited resources . Imagine a fully staffed, but empty hospital emergency department. No patients. Doctors and nurses sitting around...waiting. In walks an injured person. There is no triaging going on here. It's purely an evaluation and investigation - followed up by all-hands-on-deck response. On its face, the process might look the same as triage...but it's not. There is no second or third patient splitting the attention and resources of the medical staff. Triage is a comparative process. It plots two or more things against each other. It ranks problems and opportunities according to a set

Weekend Building Blocks - 18 AUG 2017

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There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! Pink toy bricks. Cognitive biases. Affective learning. Jerks. The power of "yet" in learning. Why pink LEGO might be bad for girls.  Dr Christian Jarrett writes about some "experiments" run with boys and girls and with colors of their building bricks. (I used quotation marks around "experiments" because it sounds like a bunch of crap.) My kids play with LEGOs - with sets that include rocket ships, ice cream trucks, race cars, princess castles, hot dog stands, superheroes. Then when my kids are done, they go off and play with dolls and Nerf guns. What do these research projects tell us about gender and the roles associated with it?  Overcoming the Biases That Come Between Us. Hunter Gehlbach talks about stereotypes, opinions, echo chambers, and more. He discusses cognitive biases...and why they exist: survival and efficiency. I liked this piece b

Weekend Building Blocks - 11 AUG 2017

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There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! Academic publishing. Abu Ghraib. Sports team captains. Amateurs. Learning myths. Social Sciences Publishing: Time to Stop a Meaningless and Wasteful Game.  Yiannis Gabriel gives a glimpse behind-the-curtain of publishing academic research. He claims the drive to be published in watering down the collection of research studies. This motivation is also adversely affects the teaching side of academia - where less experienced teachers are being put in front of classrooms.  Joe Willis talks at WINx Chicago 2017.  Joe Willis of TeamOne Network did an 18-minute TED-style talk. He shares his experience in the US Army, dealing with the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison embarrassment. Joe discusses his commitment to the cause, and how it negatively affected his relationships outside the Army. His lessons include identity, character, leadership, moral direction, and more. I'm proud

Credibility & Influence: The Bridge to Fostering Change in Others

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We were in the final weeks of the police academy. All of us students, who had not yet earned the privilege to wear full uniform, were seated in a lecture...in various stages of slideshow coma. Through a side door walked one of the academy supervisors - an intimidating veteran cop, quick to point out the fault and slow to praise. I'm not sure I caught him smiling even once, not even under his full walrus-styled gray mustache. He was all business, all the time. We all sat up straight, eyes straight ahead. Then he called out the name: " Hayes! " My name. Why the heck did he want me? No one had ever been called out of the middle of a class like that before... What followed was a one-on-one lecture in a sterile conference room. A conversation that that started in a way I have not forgotten: I'm not exactly sure why, Hayes, but the class listens to you. Everyone is a little anxious to graduate and hit the streets. There's a lack of concentration. I need you