Weekend reads

Constructivism vs. Constructivism vs. Constructionism (Computing Education Research Blog), by Mark Guzdial. Mark does a helpful compare/contrast of three terms (yes, “constructivism” is in there twice) that are kicked around a lot in education research, often without knowing precisely what they mean.

Speaking of education research: Why Professors Doubt Education Research (EdSurge), by Jeff Young. This interview with anthropologist Lauren Herckis takes a nuanced look at why many professors are skeptical about education research even while they embrace scholarship in their disciplines.

Fundamentalist U (Inside Higher Ed), by Scott Jaschik. An interview with Adam Laats about his new book on the history and evolution of evangelical higher education in the US. As a former faculty member at such an institution, I can attest that fair, nuanced treatments of this sector of higher ed are few and far between, and Laats seems to get it right.

The Workplace is Killing People and Nobody Cares (Insights by Stanford Business), by Dylan Walsh. This article was circulated around Steelcase a lot this week. It is yet another interview with the author (Jeffrey Pfeffer) of a new book, focusing on the toll that modern workplace practices can have on health and well-being of workers. Apply what you read to higher ed.

Creating Structure to Go Deep (zenhabits), by Leo Babauta. As a kind of antidote to the previous article, Leo gives some practical advice for how to build in time and space for deep focus in your life. Again, apply freely to higher ed.

Finally, some nerd fun: Integrate Google Sheets and Jupyter Notebooks (Counting Calculi), by Kevin McLaughlin. Kevin gives a step-by-step method for connecting Google Sheets to Jupyter Notebooks so that data from Sheets can be pulled in automatically to pandas or R computations, and conversely outputting data to Sheets. Looks like fun! Useful, too, for those using Chromebooks.