Students face a number of unique circumstances that create stress in their lives. Typically, effort in any one class comes in peaks and waves. Overlay 5 classes, and you find yourself with a fire to put out every week. It doesn’t take long before you’re […]
Author: Tony
Hi, I’m Tony. I am an engineering professor, family man, and rock climber living in Las Vegas, NV. I write for students, educators, and early-career professionals about how to live a fulfilling life.
Why Time Management Doesn’t Work for Students and Teachers
The promise of most classic productivity books is: “follow my steps and you’ll be able to get more done, faster.” The promise of most recent productivity books is: “follow my steps and you’ll be able to get the right things done, largely by saying ‘no’ to the […]
Course Coordination and Control
Weeks 1-5 of the semester: lectures, reading assignments, homework (some of which is collected and graded). Maybe a quiz or two. Week 6 of the semester: TESTS! Every semester is the same thing. Each class arrives at big assignments at the same time: tests always […]
Unconscious Self-Sabotage
It’s 10:00 PM, you’ve got 2 assignments due tomorrow, a quiz the next day, and an exam the day after that. You haven’t eaten dinner yet, and you haven’t started either assignment. You think to yourself, “if I could just clear this to-do list, I […]
Too Much Coverage
As we gear up for a new semester, teachers and students alike hope that this will be the best semester ever. We’ve got some work to do, or we will find ourselves in the same place as last semester: busy working without learning, stressed, firefighting, […]
New Semester Resolutions
Think back to the end of last semester. How did that go for you? How much sleep did you lose preparing for exams? Were you overwhelmed with coursework and study that needed doing? Did you simultaneously have several projects and several exams to prep for? […]
Pride Kills Connected Learning
If you spend more than a minute with a good search engine, you can find dozens of explanations of just about any topic. Written articles, blog posts, podcasts, videos, books, slides, and infographics are just some of the many formats. Yet when a teacher sits […]
YOUtopia
The factory is empty. Schools make factory workers. Now what?
Film School [@TonyBrainstorms Guest Post]
Great Teachers in Film. Unanimous: they break the mold of sitting in rows. Students in their classrooms do more than follow instructions. They create. There is a scene with administrators yelling at them. There is a student who doesn’t get it, and the teacher fights […]
Leadership truths are teaching truths
I’ve been reading Living Forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy, and in the last chapter they share three truths about life and leadership: “Self-leadership always precedes team leadership. Leaders… that make the greatest difference are highly self aware and well rounded…they live lives that are […]
