One of the hardest things to do as a teacher is make the learning relevant for students. This is somewhat easier when I teach a college class than it was when I taught K12, but many students take a class just for credit and aren’t really invested in the skills. Part of this reinvention process will be getting students to understand and leverage their strengths effectively. This means letting go of the reigns and letting students decide the ways in which they want to be assessed and how they want to practice their skills.

It’s hard to answer the question of what it means to be a university until we answer the question of what it means to be a K12 institution. Maybe the more useful place to start is what it means to be a kid. When I was growing up, K12 was where you learned the “basics” so that you could “figure the rest of it out” in college. Even the special classes in high school weren’t really that specialized (although I’m sure there has been SOME progress in this regard….

How do you turn a standard essay assignment into a platform for real-world skills and broader impact? Last semester, one of my students shocked me with a simple request: to complete their mini-essay as a podcast instead. When I said yes, the student seemed shocked that I was so easily swayed. But truthfully, the way we assess students is going to change rapidly over the coming months and years. There are so many things that are about to change in the world of education.

The last two keynotes I delivered were to audiences I don’t typically present to: PR and marketing professionals. One of the most important takeaways, based on audience feedback, seems to be this… Using Generative AI can seem like a really scary thing. I mean, even if you use these technologies, can you even explain how they work? It feels complicated, technical, and for the longest time it was hard to use something like generative AI without also having some knowledge of programming, APIs, etc.

It is a rough job market at the moment. Although the unemployment statistics tell a more rosy story, I work with so many clients who are sending out application after application and rarely getting interviews. Sometimes, this happens even after they’ve hired resume writers, coaches, etc. And other career coaches have confirmed they, too, are seeing this pattern with their clients. What was a shorter road a few months ago may be a much longer road now.