Educator’s Notebook #501 (September 28, 2025)
INTRODUCTION
Pedagogy, perspectives, polarization, productivity, and more
A good week of posts.
Two teaching and learning features this week. In one, find an interesting discourse on the difference between teaching for critical thinking and teaching for judgement. The post helpfully includes a series of ideas for what kinds of classroom activities help foster the latter. Also in the features, find one professor’s recounting of a semester experiment with a new type of grading system. It’s a good read if you’re interested trying or encouraging the same.
Also this week, find some delightful gems: a musical about the Underground Railroad to Mexico, a narrative about staring at a painting for three hours (a balm for our attention saturated times), a thoughtful (and sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant) personal glossary, and some excellent STEM reads.
These and more, enjoy!
Peter
PS. Here are some events on my calendar — with more to come in the time ahead. Drop me a line if you’ll be there, too. It would be great to say hello!
- October 15-16 – MASS CUE (Foxborough, MA)
- October 23 – NAMT (NYC)
- January 11-14 – FETC (Orlando, FL)
- February 25-27 – NAIS (Seattle, WA)
- March 9-12 – SXSW EDU (Austin, TX)
What did a journalist notice when staring at a Velazquez painting for three hours? See the post in Arts for more.
Browse and search over 15,000 curated articles from past issues online:
FEATURED
Why Teaching Critical Thinking Is Different From Developing Judgment
“Most critical thinking instruction assumes that teaching analytical procedures will produce good judgment. But procedures alone can't replace the pattern recognition that comes from varied experience in authentic contexts. Students need opportunities to make complex decisions, compare their approaches with expert judgment, and understand the heuristics that drive rapid recognition. This requires fundamentally different learning environments—ones that prioritize realistic constraints, authentic challenges, and reflective comparison over information delivery and procedural practice. Case studies and judgment-oriented games are historically a pain to develop, but not any more with AI’s help. Game design can even be an output of a learning experience, where more experienced learners help design interesting cases that strengthen future students’ thinking.”
Prof Describes Switching From Traditional Grading To Collaborative Grading
“This shift to collaborative grading had two main unexpected outcomes. The first was the ability to course-correct mid-semester… The second was an enormous increase in the completion of low-stakes work.”
ADMISSIONS
ARTS
What Happens When A Journalist Stares At A Painting For Three Hours?
“This isn’t going to work as an article about museum visitors’ contracted attention spans. The gallery isn’t crowded, but everyone who enters goes straight to “Las Meninas” and is absorbed. The Prado doesn’t allow them to take photos, so they look and are hooked. The painting has a gravitational pull. I’ve spoken to a few onlookers. In general, people seem to spend about 10 minutes looking at the painting.”
Music Synchronizes Brain Waves
CHARACTER
DIVERSITY/INCLUSION
ELEMENTARY
GOVERNMENT
More Education Grants Are Cut, Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars
“The administration announced a slew of across-the-board cuts for higher education grant programs, including $350 million for minority-serving institutions."
HEALTH
Tylenol and Autism: Just The Facts
5 Insights On The Relationships Between Free Play And Mental Health
HIGHER ED
HUMANITIES
The Justice Department Has Lost All Pretext Of Neutrality
Ezra Klein And Ta-Nehisi Coates On Bridging Gaps Vs Drawing Lines
Is Civility A Fantasy?
There Was Another Underground Railroad: to Mexico. Now There’s A Musical About it
The Extraordinary Task Of Teaching Social Studies Today
“It’s been a hard few years to be a social studies educator in America. Teachers have taught through two impeachments, several contentious presidential elections, the rise in online misinformation, a pandemic, a racial reckoning that launched nationwide protest movements, and the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They’ve had to help their students parse these events in real time—many while teaching under state laws restricting how they can talk about race, gender, and other issues deemed controversial in the classroom. Now, they’re navigating politically charged headlines about constitutional interpretation and the limits of the president’s executive authority.”
LANGUAGE
A Two-Sided “Personal Glossary” Of Productivity Terms
“Productivity. Definition 1: The religion of people afraid to ask they’re producing, or why… the productive day is the good day, the unproductive day a moral failure requiring analysis and improvement strategies. Definition 2: What revealed itself as something different during that evening in Wyoming when I saw on a boulder the size of a small building and watched the sun set over land that had never been optimized for anything.”
LEARNING SCIENCE
Why Some Memories Are Fragile And Others Stick
Howard Gardner Is Rethinking Multiple Intelligences In Light Of AI
““I think most cognitive aspects of mind — the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, and the creative mind — will be done so well by large language machines and mechanisms that whether we do them as humans will be optional,” he said. “On the other hand, I don’t believe for a minute that aspects of respect — how we deal with other human beings — and ethics — how we deal with difficult issues as citizens, as professionals — can or should be consigned to even the most articulate and multifaceted, intelligent machines.””
PD
PEDAGOGY
“Is Teaching To The Middle Of A Class Settling For Mediocrity”
On “Using Virtual Manipulatives In Math Class”
READING/WRITING
SAFETY
STEM
“Engineers Develop A Magnetic Transistor For More Energy-Efficient Electronics”
“Why Do Wind Turbines Have Three Blades?”
TECH
“Digital Twins” Of Schools Enable Operational Efficiency Simulations
2025 State EdTech Trends Report
“Key Finding 4: Educator professional learning is a focus for state leaders and remains an unmet need.”
GENERAL
This Guy Is Still Skateboarding Across America. He’s In Iowa Now.
"School Choice Programs Mostly Benefit The Wealthy”
On The Purpose Of Independent Schools
A.I. Update
A.I. UPDATE
Human in the loop, risks on rise, human-AI collaboration, and more
Some gems here, too.
In the features, see how the field of radiology is adjusting to the arrival of AI. As in other fields (…), it appears that AI is changing human work, not replacing it. There are lessons to be learned here for how people talk about education. Also, the Pew Research report about how people would react to different experiences if they knew AI was involved in it isn’t really surprising — except perhaps for the number of people who would have little to no reaction at all. I think that is the important insight. It is likely that as AI spreads more and more widely, people (writ large) shrug it off and begin assuming that it is simply omnipresent. What this means for what we value, however — especially our sense of agency and ownership — is where we need to focus our attention.
Also this week: a small surge in writing on AI risks and several posts on how people are using AI. Google’s NotebookLM, in particular, is the sleeper hit. I find it increasingly useful. See the post in Uses and Applications for a new function in the tool.
These and more, enjoy!
Peter
How would you react if you knew AI was involved? See the Feature for more detail.
TECH/AI: FEATURED
“Why AI Isn't Replacing Radiologists”
“In many jobs, tasks are diverse, stakes are high, and demand is elastic. When this is the case, we should expect software to initially lead to more human work, not less. The lesson from a decade of radiology models is neither optimism about increased output nor dread about replacement. Models can lift productivity, but their implementation depends on behavior, institutions and incentives. For now, the paradox has held: the better the machines, the busier radiologists have become.”
“From Speeches To Songs: How Would Americans React If They Found Out AI Was Involved”
“Responses to all seven scenarios lean more negative than positive. But many Americans don’t express an opinion in either direction, with sizable shares saying their view would not change if they learned that AI was used in various settings.”
TECH/AI: EDUCATION
6 Tips For Leaders For Supporting Teacher Use Of AI
“Another AI Side Effect: Erosion Of Student-Teacher Trust”
TECH/AI: ETHICS AND RISK
Kate Crawford: “AI’s Environmental Impact Will Threaten Its Own Supply Chain”
“Now generative A.I. will compete with you for your power, water and land.”
“The Case For AI Doom Isn’t Very Convincing”
“AI Just Created A Working Virus.”
A System For Managing AI’s Quality Control Problem (By Amazon)