I Learn, Therefore I Am

This is a re-post of something I wrote on Facebook a few years back. Last week, I attended another graduation ceremony and thought about how it still applies. A while ago, I attended the graduation ceremony of my Interactive Multimedia students. I never miss that. It always makes me a little sad to see them leave (that’s another topic on its own) but it is really an exciting, joyful, and proud day. While sitting up on the faculty platform watching all the students coming and receiving their degrees and medals, I noticed that a large percentage of medalists were female. Even though I’m a man, that made me feel twice as proud. Asking why? Well, hold that thought. I’ll get back to it. I’m a big Star Trek fan. Have watched and read them since I was a little kid. Like many sci-fi and fantasy stories, Star Trek is the brain-child of people imagining a better world when the human race has reached a state of peace and friendship among themselves and “boldly goes where no one has gone befo...

My last blog post talked about a study I did on the role of emotions in education. It argued that, despite a strong body of knowledge, the universities are not paying enough attention to affective aspects of education and the emotional needs of students (or staff and faculty, for that matter). When I discuss this subject with other faculty, a common answer involves the lack of resources that prevents them from helping with this situation. How can they relate better with students when they have a large class? How can they spend time with their students when they are overwhelmed with work? How can they put effort into improving their teaching practices when they are rewarded primarily for other things such as research publications and funding? There is no doubt that a healthy educational system requires systematic and institutional support. This includes a wide range of things from better training programs to more impactful reward systems. But it is not helpful to simply assume "...