If we study learning as a data science, we can reverse engineer the human brain and tailor learning techniques to maximize the chances of student success. This is the biggest revolution that could happen in education, turning it into a data-driven sc...
I studied in Britain and spent great moments of my life there as a student living in Belsize Park. I admire the British trait of the stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. My wife studied in Britain, too, and both of us have many friends there.
I've done a number of things in the spirit of employee motivation. I tend to be a storyteller and a student of history. I often tell stories of great battles, like the battle of Thermopylae, to inspire teams who face what appear to be insurmountable ...
I tell students that even if they don't like math right now, they can use math as a brain-sharpening tool - a tool that not only builds the foundation for a great career, but that also builds self-confidence, no matter what they choose to do with the...
Teacher compensation isn't the only factor in cultivating great teaching. Other important priorities include changing how we measure student performance, providing more flexibility to teacher-preparation programs, and improving how we train and suppo...
I was rather a poor student, too easily distracted - did a lot of gazing out of windows, fine for training to be a writer, but not a great way to achieve in the classroom. The truth is that I was happy to bumble along and do enough to avoid detention...
When I was 17, I taught music; I had 65 students a week, and I did that for a year. So that's pretty regular. But it was great to give the gift of music to people, seeing them learn. It's great to influence young people in a creative way.
The truly great books are always novels: 'Anna Karenina,' 'The Brothers Karamazov,' 'The Magic Mountain.' Just as with 'Shahnameh,' I browse these books from time to time to remember how a great book works on us or to teach my students at Columbia Un...
There is a whole industry in America of people who want to write, and those who teach it. Even if the students don't end up writing, what's good about them taking the courses is, they become great readers, learning to appreciate the writing.
I couldn't run a tight schedule, and if you're any good at teaching, you get sucked dry because you like your students and you're trying to help them, but you don't have any time left to write yourself.
I wasn't a good student in high school. I wanted to go to college, but they weren't exactly beating down my door to offer me admission, and it's so expensive in the U.S. If you join up for a period, the army will pay your school and provide a stipend...
When I came to M.I.T. in 1960, only 4 percent of the students were female. Today, it's about 40 percent of undergraduates. At Lincoln Lab, they had 1,000 men and two women. But we had a very good boss, and he treated us just like everybody else.
Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right.
With the growth of Harvard from a small provincial college into a great University, a unique paranoia has swept the ranks of local officialdom, furrowing brows throughout University Hall. The lurking fear is that somehow, in the operations of the gig...
I've never bought this idea of taking a therapeutic distance. If I see a student or house staff cry, I take great faith in that. That's a great person; they're going to be a great doctor.
From my first year on the faculty, there was always so much more I wanted to impart to the students. I decided that, rather than waste the last day of class summarizing the semester, I'd spend my time talking about what I'd learned in life that was u...
My students know I have a life, they know I've written about my life. They know some detail, probably more than they know about their physics teacher, but I would've told them anyway!
I once knew a house rather like The Land of Smiles - an old house occupied by a varied collection of young people, mainly students. However none of these people were true models for the characters in the book, though their way of life may have been.
My number one goal was not getting 'A's' - and I proved it. I was a 'C' student. You have to be ready to learn. If you're not interesting in learning, it doesn't work. As I grew older and wanted to learn and desperately wanted inside information, lea...
I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them.
College campuses are a focus of prevention efforts for meningococcal disease because of the increased incidence of the disease during adolescence and young adulthood, as well as transmission from crowded living conditions and social behaviors common ...
