Academic rigor is an ongoing process of setting conditions to promote learning. It is associated with desirable difficulties, cognitive effort, and time dedicated to academic tasks. Academic rigor fosters student learning, which is the main purpose of higher education. Academic rigor in higher education can help students develop their learning skills, and better prepare them for…
Together with Dr. Carlos Lavin, I’m presenting a session titled Teaching in a Post-TruthSociety: Empowering students as they negotiate digital literacy, identity, and socioemotional learning at the 2023 Annual Conference of the Palmetto State Literacy Association. Some background A 21st-century educational system must educate all students in the effective and authentic use of the technologies…
Habitica (formerly HabitRPG) is a free task and habit building productivity app that utilizes a gamified approach to have you build the health of an avatar through your performance. Gamification is the attempt to enhance systems, services, organizations, and activities by creating similar experiences to those experienced when playing games in order to motivate and…
This week I’m presenting a session with some good friends at NCTE 2022 a session titled What We’ve Learned: Two Decades of Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. Though more learners have technology in their hands than ever before, we ask what has changed in the last twenty years. In this session, participants had…
Learning strategies refer to methods that students use to learn. A learning strategy is an individual’s way of organizing and using a particular set of skills in order to learn content or accomplish other tasks more effectively and efficiently in academic and nonacademic settings. These may range from techniques for improved metacognition to better studying…
Online learning has shown significant growth over the last decade as the Internet and other communication technologies are use to provide learners with the opportunity to gain new skills. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, online learning has become more of a reality in people’s lives. As our classrooms and learning spaces shift from public buildings to…
As protests continue to roll around the globe in response to the unjust murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many other People of Color, many of us are trying to identify meaningful ways to enact real change. These events demonstrate the ongoing patterns of systemic and institutionalized racism that impact African Americans…
Much too frequently things don’t go the way we planned it in our classrooms. I feel like I’ve given this talk much too often to students in my classes over the last couple of years. This has been due to an incoming hurricane, blizzard, tornado, or some other natural disaster. This past week I gave…
I recently wrote a meditation for The Ethics of Digital Literacy, edited by my good friend Kristen Turner. My meditation for the text was focused on the challenges and opportunities in building ethical communities. You can review the submitted version here. In this post, I am sharing materials for a virtual series on the Ethics…
As a member of the Screentime Research Group, I’m often asked about how to talk about some of these concepts with youth. These questions usually center on “at what age should I…” or “how do I talk about…” when it comes to parenting in a digital age. As an example, I recently received this question,…