The Illinois Model

There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! Changing people's minds. Learning Management Systems. Mount Stupid. Machine learning. Athletes and Navy SEALs.
Why You Should Stop Trying to Change People's Minds.David Marcus talks about engaging with people who hold opinions that are different than our own. In age of social media (and anonymity within it), we need not look far for differing perspectives...and the anger and disrespect that comes with it. What benefit is there to these engagements? LMS Features: What To Look For In a Learning Management System. Dr. Ayesha Habeeb Omer talks about ten features that a learning management system should have. As e-learning, distance learning, blended learning (...or any of the other of the "______ learning" buzzwords) grow in popularity, LMS will equally growing in demand. I've been lucky to be using an LMS that is responsive to the instructional designers' idea…

There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! Defining terms within systems thinking. Student agency. Failing firearms trainers. AI and organizational values. Scribbling ideas.
Tools for Systems Thinkers: The 6 Fundamental Concepts of Systems Thinking.Leyla Acaroglu dials down the intensity and returns us to the basics of systems thinking. Whether you're brand new to it, or been studying it for years, Leyla's piece defines and explains terms in a simple-to-understand method.The Intersection of Critical Thinking and Student Agency. Jenny Pieratt argues that teachers too often (and wrongly!) focus on the outcome of knowledge and less on the process of thought. But how can we develop learners who take control of their own learning? Is it possible to teach our students how to think?A Tale of Two Failures - Part 1: Two way the firearms and tactical training industry gets it fundamentally wrong. Dustin Salomon critiques the l…

There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! Parachuting cats. Silos in policing. Contagious suicide. Organizational change. Dirty fish tanks.
Facing Complexity: Wicked Design Problems. Daniel Christian Wahl delves into "wicked" problems - “a class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications of the whole system are thoroughly confusing.”  More specifically, Wahl addresses the role of "design" within the world of complexity, and the limits of "science." I have recently been spending a lot of time studying design...and I connected a lot of ideas through this piece!Silos - @WeCops Debate. Emma Williams and Ian Wiggett teamed up for this piece. Ian was a recent guest in a #WeCops Twitter chat on silos inside policing. Ian and Emma discuss how silos show up i…

There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! On-task students. War against expertise. Playfully drawing systems. Reductionism. EQ in the military.
The Tyranny of Being On Task. Andrew Miller is an instructional coach (and former classroom teacher). He discusses the pressure for teachers to ensure students remain on-task. This is a futile attempt to increase learning efficiency. While this article is mostly about children and adolescents, there are outside arguments that the same lessons can be translated to adults as well. How can workplace training benefit from these theories? The War on Experts. Dr Gary Klein argues there are five distinct communities fighting against expertise: decision research, heuristics & biases, sociology, evidence-based performance, and information technology. How or can experts learn from and contribute to each of these communities?Nicky Case: Seeing Whole Systems. This is an 80-minute video talk…

One needn't look far to find an online video of some copper somewhere losing his temper.

Relax, gender police. I use the masculine pronoun here because of two reasons: #1. Statistically, there's more men in policing. But more importantly...#2. Women police officers are almost never the star attractions in these cops-flipping-out videos. So back at it...

I'm about to enter my third decade of policing. In nearly twenty years on the force, I've let my emotions get the best of me more than a handful of times. I'm not talking about the tears of sadness after leaving the scene of a brutal crime, a deadly accident, a suicide, a failed family, or an abused kid.

I'm referring to the instances where I unnecessarily responded to someone by taking the low road of sarcasm, intimidation, disrespect, insult, name calling, or attitude. Of those times I can recall, I look back on them with embarrassment. Simply, those were times that I lost.

I got introduced to the concepts of…

There's no value in collecting blocks unless you're connecting them to build something awesome! Assumptions. Kids sports. Data Visualizations. Navy ship collisions. Sales adaptability training.
Assumptions can be a situational awareness barrier. Rich Gasaway comes to us from the fire and medic services. He brings up a discussion on assuming, guessing, estimating, and other time-saving tricks in the world of human decision-making. I'm a believer that we need to make assumptions in chaotic, adaptive environments...especially when the stakes are high and time is crunched. Because variables in complex situations are often unknown and unknowable, experience and intuition is what helps those assumptions be as accurate as possible. How Kids' Sports Became a $15 Billion Industry. TIME magazine's Sean Gregory takes us inside the world of youth sports teams. The journey leads from local, community-based teams to private, national, "professionalized" teams and clubs…