23,000-Square-Foot Clasping Arms Celebrate Community Resilience in Minneapolis — from thisiscolossal.com by Saype and Kate Mothes
On 06/29/2026,
in art, communications, creativity, society, United States, youth,
by Daniel Christian
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On 06/24/2026,
in Emotion, ethics, faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, parents/guardians, relationships, religion, society, youth,
by Daniel Christian
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear* him;
*From DSC:
Fear here refers to respect or to revere
A psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
The Narrow and Wide Gates
13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
.
— as seen originally here
2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
4 Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds;
rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.
5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
The name of the Lord is a fortified tower;
the righteous run to it and are safe.
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On 06/19/2026,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, Canada, career development, communities of practice, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, experimentation, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, pathways, reinvent, skills, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, tools, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Following are several companies that are using AI to connect people to work. That’s a significant piece of my Learning from the Living [AI-Based Class] Room vision.
These companies were listed on an article entitled,
“Can AI be an effective career coach?”
— from achievepartners.com and Ryan Craig
FutureFit AI
Bridge the gap between talent, training, and employment at scale
AI-powered workforce technology connecting people to careers, employers to talent, and workforce partners to tools for integrated and intelligent workforce systems.
Empowering every job seeker with personalized AI coaching. Helping organizations scale career services and improve outcomes.
Empower Students with Career-Ready Skills
Help students discover career pathways, develop essential skills, and connect with opportunities. PathPilot provides personalized guidance that scales across your entire institution.
- AI-powered career exploration and pathway planning
- Skills assessment aligned with NACE competencies
- Resume builder and interview preparation tools
- Job matching with local and national employers
- Institutional analytics and outcome tracking
- Integration with existing career services systems
Pathific — Design your future
The all-in-one platform that connects your strengths to programs, careers, and real salary outcomes — powered by AI.
High school, post-secondary, newcomer to Canada, or career change — Pathific meets you where you are.
Your all-in-one career compass
Quality career guidance shouldn’t depend on where you go to school, when you start your journey, or where you come from. Using the latest AI and comprehensive Canadian data, we built a platform that gives everyone clear, data-driven pathways to their future. No more one-size-fits-all advice. No more guessing. Just your strengths, connected to real data.
See Where Your Skills Can Take You | Find new career path opportunities with one simple search.
OpportuNext from Signal49 Research is a free-to-use career tool created in partnership with the Future Skills Centre. Using big data, it matches a person’s skills with viable career paths — often including some you have not considered.
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On 06/19/2026,
in apprenticeships, business, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, internships, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, student-related, training / L&D, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
If AI Eats the Entry-Level Job, Where Do Young People Learn to Work? (Ryan Craig, Achieve Partners) — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury; via Ryan Craig
“The public should not be subsidizing colleges whose students lack relevant, paid, in-field work experience.”
That is the trap at the center of this conversation: everyone wants to hire someone with three years of experience, and almost no one wants to provide those three years.
And Ryan’s policy prescription is unusually concrete: pay employers to hire and train apprentices, following the countries that have scaled apprenticeship far faster than the U.S.; require colleges receiving federal student aid to provide relevant, paid, in-field work experience; and build a market of intermediaries that can make the whole thing operational.
Ryan’s view is that higher education remains critically important. But college without meaningful work experience may become a much worse bet, especially for students who cannot afford to guess wrong.
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On 06/18/2026,
in attention, education, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, Learning Experience Design, learning theories, memory, play, research, student-related, teachers, United States, vendors, youth,
by Daniel Christian
3 Retrieval Games to Try in Your High School Classroom — from edutopia by Andrew Atherton
These activities make reviewing content fun, so they can really motivate students to cement their learning.
These games can start or end the lesson, and they sometimes function as a transition within the lesson between topics. I don’t need to use them any longer, but I choose to use the following three games simply because they work really well. They can be used in any class and require very little (if any) preparation. These examples are drawn from the English classroom, but they could be adapted to suit most subjects.
Focusing Attention With a Student-Led Recall Activity — from edutopia.org
By providing every student with an opportunity to actively remember yesterday’s lesson, teachers can set the stage for today’s success.
By asking students to recall information on their own and then compare ideas with classmates, Bechard creates opportunities for each of them to engage with the content.
The process has the added benefit of strengthening retention: “When we remember something we had initially forgotten,” Lee says, “it is coming back into our working memory. It is having another opportunity to go into long-term memory. And so every time that happens, we are actually creating a stronger memory trace for that information.”
By building in a brief, intentional routine at the start of class, Bechard helps students reactivate prior learning, reconnect with the text, and begin each lesson with their attention focused, ready to learn.
How Free Play Supports Attention in Elementary School — from edutopia.org by Cynthia Michelini
Taking a short break outside allows students to reconnect with the world and refocus when it’s time to go back to the classroom.
The breaks were only five to 10 minutes long, and my intention was to ensure that the time outside was never structured, apart from a few guiding principles. Rule one: No teacher instruction. I didn’t want to give my students any direction other than how to be safe outside. Rule two: I encouraged them not to organize anything. Rule three: Just simply take a break. The results of this seemingly simple target surprised me.
First of all, my students’ attention span increased significantly. While this wasn’t a formal research project, trust me when I say that after 23 years of experience, I was shocked to realize how taking kids outside for a short period of time frequently can help support their focus in the classroom.
The IKEA Effect: You Built It, You’re Invested in It — from edutopia.org by Cathleen Beachboard, Nick Brousse
People become more invested when they help shape the systems around them, and teachers and school leaders can use that to create a strong school culture.
The difference is rarely the quality of the system itself. It’s whether the people affected by it helped build it. Psychologists call this the IKEA effect: our tendency to place greater value on things we help create. In one fascinating series of studies, researchers found that even young children valued objects they built more highly than identical objects made by someone else.
This sense of value is not explained simply by ownership. Children still value their creations more, even when they cannot keep them. It’s not explained by effort alone, either—more work doesn’t automatically create more attachment.
Instead, the researchers proposed something deeper: People become emotionally connected to what they help create because it begins to feel tied to their sense of identity. That finding may explain far more about school culture than we realize.
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On 06/18/2026,
in colleges, Daniel S. Christian, drama/theater, Emotion, faith, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, liberal arts, media/film, Michigan, parents/guardians, real-world assignments, relationships, religion, skills, social media, society, sociology, student-related, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, writing, youth,
by Daniel Christian
A screenplay written by a Calvin Prison Initiative student while incarcerated is now screening at film festivals across the country. — from linkedin.com by the Calvin Prison Initiative
From DSC:
I used to work with Calvin film and media professor Geert Heetebrij — who was behind this endeavor. I went to the same church that he and his family attended. I can’t say enough good things about him. He’s just fantastic! By the way, he was there for me when twelve of us didn’t survive the fourth round of layoffs at Calvin (back then it was Calvin College). He periodically — but consistently — checked in on me as the job search continued. He prayed for me (and for my family). His steadfast encouragement meant a lot to me.
I also worked with Sam Smartt, who was also mentioned in the article. Go Geert! Go Sam! And go Calvin for continuing to do your prison ministries! You were one of the first to do this, if not thee first.
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On 06/14/2026,
in change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, education, education reform, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, parents/guardians, policy, political science, skills, society, strategy, student-related, teachers, United States, universities, youth,
by Daniel Christian
The Tyranny of College Admissions: Why It’s So Challenging to Have Real Change in K-12 Education — from gettingsmart.com by Jon Alfuth
Key Points
- College admissions policy shapes K-12 practice. If colleges continue to privilege course sequences, seat time, and grades, high schools will remain constrained in how far they can move toward competency-based learning.
- States and institutions already offer models for change. Wisconsin, Colorado, Indiana, and pilots like CUNY and Michigan Ross show that admissions can incorporate portfolios, demonstrations of learning, and durable skills.
If we could instead orient K-12 education around skill development and application rather than Carnegie Units and grades, we could create a new paradigm for where, when and how students demonstrate college and career readiness. Competency-based education moves schools and systems towards this desirable future that balances knowledge with skills.
Despite tremendous evidence of its potential, efforts to accelerate this shift have been stymied by the tyranny of college admissions requirements and processes. Parents, teachers, administrators and policymakers end up in a quandary. Anyone attempting to shift away from this traditional course sequence is criticized as trying to lock kids out of higher education and we snap back to the way things have always been done.
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On 06/14/2026,
in Alternatives, education, education reform, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, legislatures / government / legal, parents/guardians, policy, student-related, teachers, trends, United States, youth,
by Daniel Christian
American Microschools 2026 Sector Analysis — from microschoolingcenter.org
The National Microschooling Center just published its latest report, the American Microschools 2026 Sector Analysis, it’s most ambitious yet.
This report comprises the most thorough research published to date on microschools in America, examining 1,000 microschools located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Most are currently operating, with prelaunch microschools as well as those which have closed their doors also included.
…
This 2026 edition of the annual American Microschools Sector Analysis series by the National Microschooling Center includes questions on a number of new topics, including ways microschools are impacted by different regulatory and policy stipulations, specifics of educational, business and operational aspects within the microschooling sector. Other questions revisit topics examined in previous studies, to illuminate trends over time and effects of growth and evolution on the ways microschools operate.
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On 06/14/2026,
in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, youth,
by Daniel Christian
The Narrow and Wide Gates
13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
.
.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him.
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
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On 06/10/2026,
in 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, universities, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Rethinking Learning Design in Elementary Schools — from edcircuit.com
Why K–5 leaders must redesign—not just adopt—technology to restore attention, deepen thinking, and align AI with how children actually learn
Rethinking learning design in elementary schools is critical as screen time and AI reshape attention, thinking, and student engagement.
Designing for Thinking, Not Just Doing
At its core, learning design must shift from task completion to thinking development.
This requires creating environments where students:
- Spend time processing ideas
- Work through confusion without immediate answers
- Build persistence through challenge
It also requires clarity around the role of technology.
Technology should:
- Extend thinking
- Provide meaningful feedback
- Support exploration
It should not:
- Replace effort
- Short-circuit reasoning
- Eliminate productive struggle
The goal is not to reduce technology use.
It is to ensure that students remain the ones doing the thinking.
Should We Integrate AI into Our Teaching?: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Deciding When AI Belongs — from Faculty Focus by Norman Eng, EdD
Four Questions for Deciding Whether to Use AI
Question 1: Will this AI tool help students use, recall, and demonstrate understanding of core disciplinary content?
Question 2: Will this AI tool require students to apply their learning to a new context?
Question 3: Will this AI tool support—not replace—independent, evidence-based reasoning?
Question 4: Will this AI integration preserve meaningful human interaction?
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On 06/09/2026,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, economics, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, new business models, parents/guardians, participation, reinvent, society, sociology, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, youth,
by Daniel Christian
OPINION: If higher education wants to rebuild public trust, start with making college affordable — from hechingerreport.org by John B. King, Jr.
Addressing high tuition, food insecurity and child care needs are important first steps
Higher education is under siege, with many students and parents balking at high costs. In a series of op-eds, university leaders lay out their efforts to keep college affordable. This is the first in the series.
For many people across the country, paying for college is the largest investment they will ever make. Increasingly, it’s one that feels out of reach.
Over the past two decades, tuition and fees at private, national universities have jumped by 112 percent; at some “elite” and highly selective schools the annual cost of attendance now approaches $100,000.
If higher education is to rebuild public trust, affordability can’t be an afterthought. It must be at the center of our strategic focus.
Also from The Hechinger Report, see:
- What it’s like to enter the job market in the middle of an AI revolution — from hechingerreport.org by Neal Morton
‘It’s not looking good’: The unemployment rate for recent grads is the highest in five years, but AI is not primarily to blame — at least not yet
Addendum on 6/10/25:
The Real Mission of Higher Education Is Hiding in Plain Sight — from insidehighered.com by John Warner
A guest post laying out a path forward for all institutions.
Most colleges and universities are not actually organized around learning. They’re organized around teaching, research productivity, rankings, revenue, and the preservation of institutional prestige. Students sense this, even when they can’t articulate it. The public senses it, too. Academic researchers themselves have been making this argument for decades, but it has rarely felt more urgent than it does right now.
The Yale report says, wisely, that “trust is earned by doing what you say you’re going to do.” Universities say they’re about learning. The way to rebuild trust is to actually mean it and to build institutions that prove it.
The Yale committee is right that trust must be rebuilt through action over messaging. The most fundamental action, and the one most often overlooked, is this: Get learning right.
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On 06/05/2026,
in education, mathematics, Michigan, parents/guardians, reading, student-related, teachers, United States, writing, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Summer 2026 with the Michigan Learning Channel:
2026 Summer Activity Books Now Available!
Get ready for a summer full of learning, fun, and skill-building! The Michigan Learning Channel’s 2026 Summer Activity Books are now on sale—created to help kids stay engaged, curious, and confident all summer long.
.
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On 06/04/2026,
in colleges, community colleges, Emotion, funding / grants, higher education, learning ecosystem, policy, student-related, United States, universities, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Former foster youth face very low odds of college or workforce success. Some people are trying to change that — from hechingerreport.org by Olivia Sanchez
College-based programs connect students with each other and with basic needs resources
The Guardian Scholars Program at Sacramento State is one of hundreds around the country designed to help students who are former foster youth stay enrolled, thrive academically and graduate with plans to build stable careers. It offers a window into policies that work — from scholarships to housing help to social connections for emotional support — at a time when the federal government has begun focusing renewed attention on these students and holding out the promise of more investment in them.
Former foster youth — a term that includes anyone who has spent time in the child welfare system, typically due to abuse or neglect — have some of the worst college graduation rates of any demographic group. An estimated 8 to 11 percent of former foster youth go on to earn any college degree, compared to 49 percent of adults overall, according to one analysis. They also typically have lower rates of employment and lower earnings than their peers with similar levels of education.
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On 06/01/2026,
in education, education reform, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, Michigan, parents/guardians, participation, research, society, strategy, student-related, teachers, United States, youth,
by Daniel Christian
What Michigan schools reveal about reversing chronic absenteeism — from hechingerreport.org by Jill Barshay
Time-intensive home visits show promise
Absenteeism is a huge and seemingly intractable problem for the nation’s public schools. And Michigan has one of the worst attendance rates in the country.
…
Yet a new study released in May offers hope. Researchers found that some Michigan schools appear to be substantially better than others at getting students to show up, and identified one intervention — frequent home visits to families whose children are absent from class — that was used more often by schools making a difference.
The findings are a reminder that “best practices” recommendations often overstate what researchers actually know. Schools can make a meaningful difference in attendance, but identifying genuinely successful schools is hard, isolating why they succeed is even harder, and simple solutions rarely hold up under scrutiny.
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On 05/31/2026,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, credentialing, curriculum, education, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, leadership, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, pathways, skills, strategy, student-related, teachers, United States, universities, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
What AI-Enabled Education Actually Looks Like When It’s Working for Workforce Students — from gettingsmart.com by Stephen Griffin
Key Points
- Institutions can use AI to make skills, pathways, and job outcomes visible to students and employers in ways traditional transcripts cannot.
- Academic affairs, workforce development, career services, and employers need a shared definition of readiness and competency before tools can deliver meaningful value.
The second is portable competency records. Learning and employment records — AI-enabled documentation of what a student knows and can do, expressed in language employers recognize — are the infrastructure that makes credentials legible across the education-to-employment continuum. When a student can show an employer not just “completed Supply Chain Management 101” but “demonstrated proficiency in inventory optimization, route planning, and logistics software at the industry-recognized level,” the credential stops being abstract. It becomes evidence. Building these records requires investment in tools, yes — but more importantly, it requires faculty, workforce development staff, and employer partners to agree on what competency actually looks like before the technology is ever purchased.
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