Playing in the sandbox of hybrid pedagogy, digital pedagogy, active learning, experiential learning, new media, lifewide & lifelong learning, and so on and so forth. What is learning? Where is it happening? How is it happening? For whom?
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer tells a number of stories that challenge the ways Western science constructs knowledge, and therefore understands nature. In one example, she discusses the ways trees help and communicate with each other through symbiotic mycelia. Because experts study individual trees, or via Darwinism, competition for survival/reproduction, it was impossible for […]
Data systems in non-profits are nearly always built to track, manage, and analyze individual clients/service users. In fact, this is a base assumption of such systems, and the vast majority of the literature on the topic supports this assumption. The problem with tracking service users.. well, there’s a lot. Here’s a few: We need not […]
Of the 5 prompts for Conceptualizing better data work in non-profits, Participatory (Action) Research, Evaluation, and Design is the approach I’ve already advocated for the most. In my most recent paper, we suggested that an opportunity for approaching data work in non-profits involves trying to “Build ways for youths and frontline staff to help create […]
This posts belongs to a series, Conceptualizing better data work in non-profits: First steps toward practice, in which I’m developing 5 prompts for orienting non-profit discussions about data work that can be organized toward justice. Each prompt is meant to provoke and ground ideas for organizational change that would include transformations in data work. The […]
This is the second in a blog post series, the introduction to which is: Conceptualizing better data work in non-profits: First steps toward practice. Reggio Emilia is an approach to democratic education that originated in preschools in Italy and is now used around the world in schools across age ranges. It’s worthy of some closer […]
In the last couple years, I’ve published 3 articles regarding the use of data in non-profit organizations. As I see it now, I’ve accomplished 2 out of 3 goals I had when I started this work many years ago as a dissertation project. Each of these stages has been a serious challenge for me. The […]
It came to my attention recently that I’ve not seen (or don’t remember) a place where the politics embedded in popular education pedagogies are made explicit. Even finding the right language for this has been challenging, and I’ve searched under a number of terms. At best, this is described as the “values” of popular education, […]
In fall 2020, I re-designed the course I was teaching to take place entirely online. I wrote, in detail, about the course in a series of blog posts (part 1, part 2, the assignments, the main project, and the content 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). I taught that course for 4 semesters, and have since […]
I teach bachelors and masters social work students, who by and large enter the profession with eyes wide open to the challenges our profession manages, which they encounter daily, while face to face with clients who are involved in a Sisyphean struggle against the forces of capitalism, racism, colonialism, etc. that place a person in […]
We’ve been taught that a cornerstone of good teaching, workshop, and group practice is creating community ground rules or guidelines. The theory is something like: If we create some rules together, we’re more likely to stick to them, and we can do better at creating a safe space. The approach is something like: Collectively discuss […]