One of the pleasures of academia is working with awesome graduate students. This paper is an example of such a collaboration. Melissa Warr, for some reason or the other, decided to do a network analysis of some of the top-cited papers related to teaching and design....
Contextualizing TPACK within systems and culture
Melissa Warr and I were recently asked to write a afterword to a special issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior. The focus of the special issue was on the kinds of knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) teachers need to successfully integrate technology in...
China, Australia, Nepal & Australia: A zoom tour
Over the past couple of months I have been asked to give presentations at a variety of different conferences or organizations spread across the world. They are archived below. I was invited to give a talk as part of the Dean's Lecture Series at the School of...
Embracing failure (in a first year technology course)
In his book The child and the curriculum; and The school and society John Dewey identified four key impulses for learning that he placed at the foundation of the curriculum. The key education challenge, he argued, is to nurture these impulses for lifelong learning:...
From brains to music
From Brains to Music: a Multi-Faceted Discussion of Creativity with Dr. Anthony Brandt Dr. Anthony Brandt, is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University and is co-founder and artistic director of the contemporary music ensemble Musiqa. He has co-authored...
Let children play: From evolutionary psychology to creativity
As a part of our ongoing series on creativity we recently spoke with Dr. Peter Gray, professor of Psychology at Boston College. Dr. Gray’s interest in creativity emerges as a consequence of his background in evolutionary psychology and interest in how humans (and...
Call: Failure and Creative Risk in Technology-Enhanced Learning
I am excited to announce a call for articles on Failure and Creative Risk in Technology-Enhanced Learning for a special section in the journal Tech Trends, edited by Danah Henriksen, Punya Mishra, Edwin Creely, and Michael Henderson. You can download the the...
Of metaphors & molecules: Bridging STEM & the arts
Update on blog post that was published May 30, 2018 - since the article is now published (2 years since it was accepted for publication). Square Root: Illustration by Punya Mishra What do President Kennedy's speeches have to do with cell biology? And what does the...
Play & Creativity Across the Lifespan
As a part of our series of conversations with creativity scholars we recently spoke with Dr. Sandra Russ, Louis D. Beaumont University Professor, and interim dean at the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychological...
From being to becoming: Keynote by Shawn Loescher
It is rarely that I hear a talk that blows me away. We have all seen the TED talks, and their mutant offspring. The over-hyped music and catchy taglines; the speaker in front of a rapt audience; the crafted delivery with its carefully punctuated pauses and reveals,...
Facilitating collaborative design: New publication
Essential tensions in design. Image designed by Punya Mishra Design facilitators play an important role in the open-ended collaborative design process. This becomes even more important as design based approaches expand to groups and teams that may not be as familiar...
COVID19 & Education
The COVID19 crisis has disrupted education globally at an unprecedented scale. In some ways, we are living through the largest educational social experiment in history! Over the past year I have been involved in a range of initiatives, discussions, interviews, and...
The value of school: Part 2
Note 1: This is the second of two posts on the value of school by Kevin Close and Punya Mishra. Read the first post: What value do schools bring? Note 2: These two blog posts became the basis of an article with Kevin. Full citation and link below: Mishra, P., &...
The value of school: Part 1
Note 1: This is the first of two posts on the value of school by Punya Mishra & Kevin Close. Read the second post: Revisiting Accountability. Note 2: These two blog posts became the basis of an article. Full citation and link below: Mishra, P., & Close, K....
Beware of science envy in designing learning
Mike Crowley has a guest post on the silverlingingforlearning.org site titled: If we need to be right before we move. (If you haven’t read it, I recommend it strongly. Go ahead follow the link above. I’ll be waiting). [Pause] Welcome back. I think Mike makes some...
Corona virus: Silver lining? For learning?
A week or so ago, Yong Zhao reached out to Chris Dede, Curt Bonk, Scott McLeod and me with the question: What would happen to our global and local educational systems, if the Corona virus outbreak lasted for a year? We met a week ago (via zoom, what else) to discuss...
Designing learning futures through reflective practice: 2 of 2
This is the second of two posts on the topic of bringing principled innovation practices to designing learning futures. In this post (by Cristy Guleserian & Punya Mishra) we dive deeper into how these practices of PI connect with our model of design. In particular...
Designing learning futures through reflective practice: 1 of 2
This is the first of two posts on the topic of bringing principled innovation practices to designing learning futures. The first post (co-authored by Punya Mishra & Cristy Guleserian) focuses on the need for designing learning futures, and how the PI practices...
Principled Innovation meets Design: 1 new model and 2 videos
Our college has embraced the idea of Principled Innovation as being a core value that informs everything we do. (More on this in this post by Cristy Guleserian and in the PI framework document). Defining Principled Innovation: Design by Punya Mishra At the heart of...
Designing Theory: New article
Theory is of incredible importance to scholars and researchers. Theories allow us to understand, explain and predict phenomena in the world. That said it is often difficult to say just where theories come from. The standard model—that data lead to laws, that in turn...
Human-Centered values in a disruptive world
I have seen the power of the market… But when it becomes the only language, when it becomes the only way of thinking about the right thing to do, it leaves us with a very impoverished sense of how to live together -- Giriharadas, 2018 Over the past few years I have...
EDUsummIT 2019: eBook released
EduSummIT is a global community of policy-makers, researchers, and educators working together to move education into the digital age. EDUsummIT has been convening every two years since 2009. In each case the participants focus on some significant theme relevant to...
The OofSI/PI 2019 Report
We are a busy group here up on the 4th floor of the Farmer Educational Building—the space where the teams from the Office of Scholarship & Innovation and Principled Innovation hang out. To be fair, we do more than just hang out. There is quite a bit of work...
My journey through design: Keynote at IDC
Design is core to my identity, to who I am. Education is the space within which I function but I try to approach everything I do as a designer. This was not always the case. Back in 1984, I had just graduated with an undergraduate degree in engineering, and if there...
Pragmatic yet hopeful: Talking creativity with Barbara Kerr
Dr. Barbara Kerr is Distinguished Professor of Counseling Psychology, and is co-director of the Center for Creativity and Entrepreneurship in Education at the University of Kansas. She utilizes innovative counseling and therapy approaches to better understand the...
Perspective Taking on creativity with Vlad Glaveanu
Dr. Vlad Glaveanu, is Head of the Department of Psychology and Counseling at Webster University, Geneva; Associate Professor at Bergen University, and Director of the Webster Center for Creativity and Innovation. He co-edits the book series Palgrave Studies in...
TPACK Newsletter, #42 Nov. 2019
Here is the latest pdf version of the TPACK Newsletter (#42, November 2019), as curated and shared by Judi Harris and her team. (Previous issues are archived here.) This issue includes titles, abstract and links to 116 articles, 5 book-chapters, and 34...
Principled Innovation meets Design: The video
Quick summary: In which I disparage the buzzword "design thinking" even while praising the idea of design; point to the value-neutral nature of design and the need for a more principled approach, and end with a video that seeks to capture a vision of principled...
Learning science with the body
We often think and understand the world using our bodies. Our senses and movement shape how we form and process knowledge. Paul Reimer, Rohit Mehta and I explore this idea and its educational implications in a new article published in iWonder: Rediscovering School...
Game of Thrones meets Toyota meets Systems Thinking
Anyone who works in the area of social design knows how important it is to develop a systems-oriented mindset and how difficult it is to do so. One one hand, we know that sustained change is possible only when we work at the level of systems not individuals and...