Learning Ecosystems

Psalm 103:1-12
Of David.

1 Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
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.

6 The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:
8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

University of Michigan becomes country’s first campus to use self-driving shuttles — from wbur.org

Excerpt:

This fall students at the University of Michigan will have a new way of getting around campus. Two self-driving shuttles will cover a nearly two-mile route — a first on any campus around the country.

The project is a partnership with Mcity, a 32-acre testing facility on the campus where tech startups and automakers research self-driving vehicles. Mcity Director Huei Peng joins Here & Now’s Robin Young to talk about the shuttle project.
Interview Highlights

“Autonomous vehicles operate largely in two different ways, generally speaking. No. 1 is fixed route: We’ve mapped the route in advance, driving very slowly, collecting a lot of data. The second type would be free routing. You can literally go anywhere there’s a road on the map. So these shuttles largely rely on the GPS, the pre-planned route.”

To those who celebrate it, Happy Easter to you!
Glory to God in the Highest!

Heavenly Father, LORD Jesus, Holy Spirit,
Thank you for you and for this day which you have made.

Thank you for what you have done, what you’re currently doing, and what you will do in the future.

Looking back on this last academic year…

Thank you for the teachers, administrators, staff, school boards, parents, guardians, coaches, and the numerous other people out there who worked hard to positively impact the hearts, minds, and lives of millions of children and young adults.

Thank you for the small and large victories — the growth — that occurred this last academic year.

Thank you for the teachers who persevered in spite of all sorts of obstacles, odds, and issues — who rose above all of that to positively impact our next generation…our future citizens.

Thank you for providing many teachers with the patience, energy, love and compassion for children, especially for those difficult-to-deal with children that can zap one’s energy and emotions; thank you for the cases where the teachers ended up making life-changing behavioral changes with those children — as well as being personally impacted and taught in the process.

Thank you for the single mom who struggled each day this last year to get her little ones out of bed, dressed, fed, clothed, and delivered to school — and then had to go face the work world herself before having to go pick her kids up again, get them to their extracurricular activities (if that was even a possibility), feed them (if enough food was even around), work through life’s issues with them, and then get them back to bed again…before collapsing into bed, without having much time or energy left for herself.

Thank you for the dad who sat down after long days of work, even when he was tired and wanted some time for himself, and yet ended up helping his son and his daughter with their homework…or having the tough discussions to help keep his kids’ feet on solid ground.

Thank you for the teachers who fought like crazy for those on-the-edge students — those students who were about to drop out of school and head down some slippery paths — yet, due to those caring teachers, were encouraged enough to attempt school for another day, week, month, or year.

Thank you for helping teachers continue to teach, even when they faced numerous agendas coming at them from all over the place.

Thank you for the administrators and the office staff who not only kept things running, but advanced how students learned and helped provide them with the infrastructures/environments to further their learning — who dealt with incredible amounts of stress and had to make many in-the-moment, important decisions.

Thank you for good friends for our students — those friends who cared enough to tell each other the truth, spoken in love; for those who helped make school a less painful, isolating place (for those students who experienced school that way).

Thank you for the wonders of this world — may our students experience more of them. Sustain their curiosities. May they have many moments when learning is enjoyable, fun, playful, creative, and even inspirational.

May you bless the teachers with continued vision and a strong sense of mission; bless them with a caring spirit, with love, compassion, energy, and with fresh/new ideas.

LORD, please strengthen and sustain those students and teachers suffering from health issues, financial difficulties, or from issues at home such as divorce or addictions. For those who bully other students, LORD please soften their hearts and grant them new eyes to see — so that they can perceive and understand the harmful, lasting impacts their hurtful words and actions have on others…then help them turn away from those destructive pathways. Strengthen and encourage those students who feel inadequate — help them know that they, too, can learn and grow.

May you bless the staff and administrators with wisdom; with your wise counsel continue to guide their work– knowing which projects to move forward with, and which ones to stop and drop.

Grant us the insight and the courage to change where we need to change.  Show us what’s in our blind spots.

Guide us as we determine our priorities throughout our nations; may education be high on the lists.

Thank you LORD for our amazing bodies and minds — incredible, amazing work!  May we give you the glory you deserve.

And again, thank you for you LORD!

Thank you for your forgiveness and for your grace.

In Jesus’ powerful name I offer up this prayer of thanksgiving,
Amen.

[From DSC: In the posting below, when I say higher ed, I’m thinking here of traditional 4-year colleges and universities, whether for-profit or non-profit.]

Years ago…President Obama said to higher ed: “You’re getting too expensive. Please take steps to address this, will you?” And student debt continued to mount that year. Many families struggled with how to make getting degrees work within their budgets.

But the year passed, higher ed did little to nothing to address the issue of accessibility and pricing, so President Obama had to once again address higher ed: “Heh…did you all hear me, I said that you’re getting too expensive. Please take steps to address this, will you?”

Higher ed responded, “Yeh, yeh, yeh…we know…we’ve heard you say this before. Thanks…and have a nice day.” And what was unsaid — yet what was lived out — was “Let us run our own show. Please don’t bother us again.”

So another year passed, higher ed again did little to nothing to address the issue of accessibility and the rising cost of attending college. Therefore, even more families and students went into debt (an invisible reality that folks on campus often don’t really “see” being played out in real peoples’ lives). The amount of student debt continued to increase on a national level. At this point, more students and families started to question whether they wanted to go into that kind of debt — would they be ok with the decision to delay the start of their families? Would they be ok with not being able to purchase a home for a while after graduating? Or not being able to save for their retirements for a long while? (Re: this last item, financial advisers often stress how important time is — advising folks to put away money early on in their lives so that time and compound interest can be on their side, working positively on their investments.) So families and individuals begin to ask, “Is college really worth it?” (And I believe it is in most situations today, but that’s not the point of this posting.)

Yet again, higher ed doesn’t respond much…at least not for the most part. While a handful of experiments begin here and there, most of the traditional institutions of higher education pursue the status quo…all the while believing, “The gold ol’ days will return. The period we’re going through is an aberration. Let the status quo continue — it’s working very well for us.” But it wasn’t — and isn’t — an aberration. Student debt continued to mount. More families and students found higher education now out of reach for them.

Meanwhile, higher ed institutions said things like, “Our tuition increases were the smallest within our peer group” or “Our tuition increases were the smallest in years” or “We didn’t increase tuition nearly as much as the other institutions in our state.”

So fast forward and once again, President Obama had to address higher ed: “Heh!!! You’re too expensive! Are you guys hearing me or what?! If you don’t take steps to address this, the Federal Government’s going to get involved. Got it?!”

Then higher ed essentially responded in the same manner, “Yeh, yeh, yeh…we know…we’ve heard you say this before. Thanks…and, again, have a nice day.”

And so it went for the last several years.

Therefore, does anyone blame the President for taking matters to the next level? If traditional 4-year colleges and universities aren’t going to do much to address the accessibility/cost situation, then he and the Federal Government have to get seriously involved.

For others, a federal government that spends more than $140 billion a year on higher education is justified in attempting to get the right bang for its buck.

— from Ry Rivard’s article, New Higher Ed Federalism, at insidehighered.com on 1/12/15

So on January 8th, 2015, President Obama introduced his proposal for free community college for responsible students across the nation who are willing to work hard (see here , here, here, here, or here).

If this moves forward, it could have an enormous impact on those traditional 4-year colleges and universities who blew him off all of those years.

January 8, 2015

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Also see:

• ‘Nontraditional’ but increasingly common barriers to higher education –from huffingtonpost.com by Abby Miller
  Excerpt:
  At the heart of this country’s vast income inequality — an issue which has at last been gaining the urgent attention it deserves — is a growing educational divide. A college degree is the ticket to employment and better quality of life, yet it is more than ever unattainable for those who need it most: the growing number of low-income, first-generation college-going, adult, and immigrant populations; college students who until recently were referred to as “nontraditional”.

Tim Brown: How to Be a Creative Listener — from 99u.com by Stephanie Kaptein

Excerpt:

By actively listening, you can find valuable information to inspire new ideas. The podcasts are rich in examples where innovative ideas have come to light because they listened to more than what was being said. As writer G. K. Chesteron noted, “There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing.”

Also see:

• Become a more creative listener in 30 minutes — from linkedin.com by Tim Brown

Also see this free course: