Beyond Policing AI: Rethinking Assessment Through Authentic Learning and Connectivism

Leon Furze makes an important case: if the best we can do in the age of AI is to tighten surveillance, we’ve already lost.

In all corners of education, we need to stop policing artificial intelligence and focus instead on designing better assessments. GenAI gives us an excuse to have these conversations. AI needs to prompt us to reflect on what matters most: validity, fairness, transparency and of course, learning.

Instead of treating generative AI as a threat to assessment, we should see it as a provocation—an opportunity to reimagine how we measure and value learning. His five principles (validity, reality, transparency, process, and professional judgement) are solid on their own, but when refracted through authentic learning and connectivism, they take on even sharper meaning.

1. Validity becomes authenticity.
Assessment validity isn’t just about matching standards to outcomes—it’s about ensuring that what students are asked to do actually matters. Authentic learning demands that assessments reflect the messy, interconnected problems students will face beyond school. A lab report, a policy pitch, or a podcast that connects with a real audience provides validity in a way a locked-down multiple-choice exam never will. AI doesn’t threaten that kind of assessment; it strengthens it, because students must decide how and when to use the tool responsibly within authentic contexts.

2. Designing for reality means designing for networks.
Furze’s “design for reality” principle resonates strongly with connectivism. The reality is that knowledge no longer lives solely inside a student’s head—it’s distributed across networks of people, resources, and technologies. An assessment that ignores that fact is already outdated. When we allow students to bring AI into the process (declared openly, as Furze suggests), we invite them to practice navigating networks of information, filtering noise from signal, and building connections that mirror the way knowledge flows in the real world.

3. Transparency and trust are relational, not transactional.
Authentic learning environments thrive on trust: teachers trust students to take risks, and students trust teachers to guide without over-policing. Connectivism reminds us that learning happens in community, and that means shared norms around how tools like AI are used. Instead of “thou shalt not” rules, we need open conversations: Why might you use AI here? When might it short-circuit your learning? Transparency becomes less about compliance and more about cultivating reflective practitioners who can articulate their choices.

4. Assessment as process = learning as ongoing connection.
If assessment is a process, not a point in time, then it looks less like a final judgment and more like a portfolio of evolving connections. Students don’t just demonstrate what they know; they show how they know, who they connect with, and how their thinking shifts over time. This is connectivism in action: learning is the ability to make and traverse connections, not the ability to store facts in isolation. AI can become part of that process—as a collaborator, a draft partner, or even a provocateur that challenges their assumptions.

5. Respecting professional judgement = empowering educators as designers.
Authentic learning doesn’t happen in lockstep with rigid policies; it requires teachers to design experiences that matter in their contexts. Connectivism reminds us that teachers are nodes in the network too, bringing their expertise, relationships, and creativity. Respecting professional judgement means trusting teachers to balance the affordances of AI with the human dimensions of belonging, curiosity, and care.

The big takeaway?
AI doesn’t invalidate assessment. It invalidates bad assessment. If the only way an assignment “works” is by pretending students live in a vacuum, disconnected from tools, networks, and communities, then it was never truly authentic to begin with.

For those of us who see learning as both deeply human and deeply networked, Furze’s five principles are a call to action: design assessments that honor authenticity, embrace connections, and prepare students for a world where knowledge is always evolving—and never isolated.

Here are a few ideas to get your creative mind going as you think about redesigning your assessments:

1. Color Mapping Across Disciplines (Art + Science)

Task: Students design a digital exhibit that compares different historical models of color (Newton’s circle, Munsell’s system, RGB cubes). They use AI tools to generate visualizations, then critique the limitations of each.

Authenticity: Color mapping is both a scientific and artistic problem. Students engage in real-world disciplinary practices.
Connectivism: Students link to a network of thinkers (Newton to Roussel), and share their exhibits with peers online.
AI Role: Visualization generator, comparison tool, but students must justify why a model matters for perception or art.

2. Community Podcast: Local Environmental Issues (ELA + Science + Civics)

Task: Students research a local environmental challenge (e.g., water quality, urban green space), create a podcast episode featuring expert interviews, and use AI to help with transcription, sound editing, and draft questions.

Authenticity: Students contribute to civic discourse in their community.
Connectivism: They learn from and connect with real experts and share publicly.
AI Role: Drafting interview questions, transcribing recordings, generating promotional materials—but students remain responsible for the core knowledge and ethical framing.

3. History “What If” Simulation (Social Studies)

Task: Students use AI to model counterfactual scenarios (e.g., “What if the printing press had been invented 200 years earlier?”). They must critique the AI’s reasoning, identify inaccuracies, and build their own historically valid narrative in response.

Authenticity: Historians often test counterfactuals to sharpen their understanding of cause and effect.
Connectivism: Students cross-reference scholarly works, archives, and even online history communities.
AI Role: Idea generator and foil—the flawed AI answers become a catalyst for deeper historical reasoning.

4. Entrepreneurial Pitch for a School Problem (Business + Math + Design)

Task: Students identify a real issue in their school (e.g., cafeteria waste, lack of study space), design a product/service solution, and pitch it to administrators or community members. AI is used for market research summaries, prototype visuals, or cost projections.

Authenticity: Mirrors real entrepreneurial problem-solving.
Connectivism: Students collaborate with community stakeholders and pitch to an authentic audience.
AI Role: Research and prototyping assistant, not a substitute for problem-finding or decision-making.

5. Literature in the Age of Machines (ELA)

Task: Students select a literary theme (identity, power, justice) and compare how a human-authored poem and an AI-generated poem tackle it. They publish a critical essay or multimedia piece reflecting on authorship, creativity, and meaning.

Authenticity: Engages with contemporary debates about art and authorship.
Connectivism: Students link across traditions—classic texts, modern scholarship, AI-driven art.
AI Role: Source of creative “texts” to analyze, not a replacement for analysis.

Why These Work

Each task:

Builds validity by aligning with standards and real-world practices.
Designs for reality, where AI is part of the workflow.
Encourages transparency—students must declare and justify how they used AI.
Emphasizes process, not just a single product.
Relies on teacher judgment to guide reflection and assess growth.

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Teaching the Unmappable: Why Color Defies Easy Charts

For centuries, scientists, artists, and philosophers have tried to pin down a “perfect” way to map color. But here’s the problem: color isn’t just physics, and it isn’t just perception—it’s both. Try to squeeze it into a neat geometric model, and you’ll quickly realize it refuses to stay put.

That’s what makes French video essayist Alessandro Roussel’s latest ScienceClic piece so fascinating for educators. He takes us from Isaac Newton’s prism experiments all the way to modern models of hue, brightness, and saturation. Along the way, he shows why there isn’t just one map of color, but many. Each communicates something different about how humans experience this slippery phenomenon.

So what’s the classroom connection?

In art: Students can compare different models of color—Newton’s circle, Munsell’s tree, the modern RGB cube—and reflect on how each changes the way we think about mixing, matching, or designing with color.
In science: Teachers can use these models to illustrate how physics collides with perception. Why do two people see the “same” red differently? How does light wavelength interact with the human eye and brain?
In interdisciplinary projects: Color mapping opens doors to conversations about how humans create systems to explain the unexplainable. It’s a perfect bridge between STEM and the humanities.

And then comes the kicker for students who think we’ve “solved” everything already: scientists recently managed to engineer a new, so-called impossible color called ‘olo’—a shade outside the traditional visible spectrum.

It’s a reminder that color isn’t just a solved equation or a finished wheel. It’s a living, shifting puzzle that still invites curiosity, wonder, and experimentation.

Imagine giving your students that as a challenge: If color can’t be mapped perfectly, what’s your best attempt?

Can an App Cure Math Anxiety? Duolingo Thinks So.

Most of us have heard (or said) the phrase: “I’m just not a math person.”
Duolingo—the same company that made millions of people practice Spanish while waiting in line at Starbucks—is on a mission to change that story.

You probably know Duolingo as the language app with the slightly unhinged green owl who won’t let you forget your streak. But since 2022, Duolingo has been quietly building something new: a math course. And just like its approach to languages, the company believes it can make math more approachable, less intimidating, and maybe even fun.

Why Math? Why Now?

According to Samantha Siegel, the engineer leading Duolingo’s math push, the choice to focus on 3rd grade and up wasn’t random. Around that age, kids hit fractions—and that’s where things start to go sideways for a lot of learners. Fractions are a gateway. Struggle there, and the rest of math often feels like a foreign language.

Duolingo’s idea: treat math like a language. Build fluency through small, repeatable practice. Create low-stakes games. Give immediate feedback. And—most importantly—reduce the anxiety that creeps in when kids (and adults) start believing math is beyond them.

How It Works

If you’ve ever tapped your way through Spanish verbs or French phrases, the math experience feels familiar—but with some clever twists:

Dynamic problems: Lessons refresh with new numbers every time, so you’re not memorizing answers—you’re actually practicing.
Interactive input: Instead of multiple choice, you might drag the corners of a rectangle to measure area, or handwrite a fraction into the screen.
Visual learning: Geometry isn’t just explained; it’s something you manipulate on the screen.

In other words, the app tries to ground abstract math ideas in movement, visuals, and play.

Tackling Math Anxiety Head-On

Here’s the thing: math anxiety is real, and it’s not just about ability—it’s about confidence. When kids (or adults) tense up at the first sight of an equation, their brains literally struggle to process what’s in front of them.

Duolingo’s bet is that by gamifying the experience, they can lower the stakes. Just like the app makes it totally fine to get a French verb wrong, it’s trying to make it okay to fumble a fraction. In a classroom context, that shift could matter—a lot.

Where It Stands Today

The math course is now baked right into the main Duolingo app, alongside language and even music lessons. Learners can keep their streak going across subjects—whether they’re conjugating verbs, strumming chords, or multiplying fractions. Duolingo hasn’t shared exact numbers, but we’re talking millions of math users already.

And it’s not just for kids. Plenty of adults are using it too—either to brush up on long-forgotten basics or to help their kids without pulling out dusty textbooks.

What This Means for Educators

Is Duolingo going to replace teachers? Of course not. But as a supplemental tool, it’s promising. It gives students a way to practice math outside the classroom that feels a lot more like a game than homework. It also gives parents an accessible, non-threatening entry point into supporting their kids’ learning.

The bigger story here is the attempt to reframe math itself. If Duolingo can help chip away at the “I’m not a math person” narrative—if it can make math feel just a little more like a game and a little less like a stress test—that’s a win.

Final Thought

Duolingo isn’t just teaching fractions and geometry; it’s trying to rewrite how learners feel about math. And in a world where math anxiety holds so many students back, that mission might matter even more than the streaks.

Maybe, just maybe, the next time someone says “I can’t do math,” we’ll have an owl to thank for proving them wrong.

Daring Greatly: The Courage Manual You Didn’t Know You Needed

Blistering verdict: Brené Brown turns vulnerability from a punchline into a power-up. Daring Greatly isn’t self-help fluff; it’s a rigor-backed field guide for stepping into the arena when your brain is screaming, “Nope.” It reads fast, hits hard, and leaves you with language—and habits—that change how you lead, teach, parent, and show up.

Spoiler-free recap (no “cheap seats” commentary included)

Brown’s premise is simple and seismic: vulnerability is courage in action—the willingness to be seen when outcomes aren’t guaranteed. Drawing on years of qualitative research, she maps how shame (the fear of disconnection) drives perfectionism, numbing, and armor… and how shame resilience (naming what’s happening, reality-checking our stories, reaching out, and speaking it) gives us our lives back.

You’ll walk through:

Scarcity culture (“never enough”) vs. worthiness (“I’m enough, so I can risk more”).
Armor types—perfectionism, foreboding joy, cynicism—and how to set them down.
Empathy as antidote (connection > fixing).
Wholeheartedness: living with courage + compassion + connection, anchored by boundaries.

No plot twists to spoil—just a research-driven blueprint that makes bravery behavioral, not mythical.

Why this book still matters (and why your team/family/class will feel it)

It rewires the courage myth. Courage isn’t swagger; it’s risk + emotional exposure + uncertainty. That framing scales from a tough conversation to a moonshot.
It gives you a shared language. “Armor,” “scarcity,” “shame triggers,” “wholehearted”—terms your team can actually use in meetings without rolling their eyes.
It upgrades feedback culture. Vulnerability isn’t oversharing; it’s specific, boundaried honesty. That’s the backbone of psychological safety and real performance.
It’s ruthlessly practical. The book reads like a human-systems playbook: name it, normalize it, and move—together.

Sale

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Brown, Brené (Author)
English (Publication Language)
320 Pages – 04/07/2015 (Publication Date) – Avery (Publisher)

What hits different in 2025

AI & authenticity. In a world of auto-generated polish, human risk-taking is the differentiator. Vulnerability is how we build trust beyond the algorithm.
Hybrid work, thin trust. Distance amplifies story-making. Brown’s “story I’m telling myself…” move is rocket fuel for remote teams and relationships.
Schools & Gen Z. Teens live under surveillance capitalism. Teaching boundaries + worthiness beats any pep talk on resilience.

Read it like a field guide (fast, no navel-gazing required)

Skim for tools, then circle back for depth. Treat each section like a drill you can run this week.
Practice out loud. Say the scripts: “Here’s what I’m afraid of… Here’s what I need… The story I’m telling myself is…”
Pick one arena. A hard 1:1, a classroom norm, a family ritual. Ship courage in small, observable iterations.

For my fellow geeks & builders

If Neuromancer gave us cyberspace, this gives us the social API for courage. It’s the middleware between your values and your behavior under load. Think of shame as a high-latency bug; Brown gives you the observability tools to catch it in prod and roll a patch without taking the system down.

Who will love this

Leaders & coaches who care about performance and people.
Educators & parents building cultures of belonging without lowering standards.
Makers & founders whose work requires public risk and iterative failure.
Anyone tired of armoring up and ready to try brave instead of perfect.

Pair it with (next reads)

The Gifts of Imperfection (Brown) — the on-ramp to wholehearted living.
Dare to Lead (Brown) — her organizational upgrade, perfect for teams.
Crucial Conversations (Patterson et al.) — tactics for high-stakes talk, post-armor.

Final verdict

Five stars, zero hedging. Daring Greatly is the rare book that alters your behavioral defaults. It’s sticky, quotable, and wildly usable the minute you close it. If you build products, classes, teams, or families, this is the courage stack you want installed.

Ready to step into the arena? Grab Daring Greatly in paperback, hardcover, or audio—whichever format helps you practice while you read. (Some links on my site may be affiliate links, which help support this work at no extra cost to you.)

Neuromancer: The book that jailbreaks the future

Blistering verdict: Neuromancer doesn’t predict the future—it jailbreaks it. William Gibson plugs you into a neon-slick, rain-slicked world where data has gravity, money moves at the speed of light, and the line between human and machine is just another corporate asset to be negotiated. It’s fast. It’s razor-sharp. And four decades on, it still crackles like a live wire.

Spoiler-free recap (no ICE burned, promise)

Meet Case—a burned-out “console cowboy” who once rode the matrix like a god until he crossed the wrong people and lost the only thing that mattered: his ability to jack in. He’s offered a dangerous second chance by a mysterious patron with deep pockets and deeper secrets. Enter Molly, a mirror-shaded street samurai with retractable razors and zero patience for anyone’s nonsense. The job? A multilayered, globe-hopping (and orbit-hopping) heist threading megacorps, black-market biohacks, and an AI problem that’s less “glitch” and more “philosophical earthquake.”

The plot moves like a hot knife through black ice—tight, propulsive, and always one layer more ambitious than you think. Every chapter ups the stakes; every alleyway has a camera; every ally might be a contractor. You don’t need spoilers. You need a seatbelt.

Why this book still matters (and why geeks keep handing it to friends)

It gave us our mental model of the net. Gibson’s “cyberspace” isn’t just a word—it’s an interface, a mythos, a feeling. The luminous grids, the consensual hallucination of a shared data world? That’s the cultural operating system we installed long before broadband.
It forged the cyberpunk aesthetic. Street-level grit meets orbital decadence; chrome and sweat; hackers and mercenaries threading the seams of empire. If you love The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell, Cyberpunk 2077, or Mr. Robot, you’re drinking from this well.
It nailed corporate power as world-building. Megacorps behaving like nations. Security as religion. Branding as surveillance. In 2025, tell me that doesn’t feel uncomfortably like a user agreement we all clicked.
It treats AI as character, not prop. Neuromancer asks the questions we’re still arguing about in boardrooms and labs: autonomy, constraint, alignment, and what “self” means when the self can be copied, merged, or monetized.
The prose is pure overclocked poetry. Gibson writes like he’s soldering language: compressed, glittering, and purpose-built. The sentences hum; the metaphors bite; the world feels legible and alien at once.

What hits different in 2025

Identity as a login. Case isn’t just locked out of systems; he’s locked out of himself. That anxiety—who are we without access?—is the backbone of our cloud-tethered lives.
The gig-hacker economy. Contractors, fixers, “teams” assembled like temporary code branches. It’s Upwork with thermoptic shades.
Biohacking & upgrade culture. From dermal mods to black-clinic tune-ups, the book treats the body like firmware—exactly how today’s wearables, implants, and nootropics culture wants you to think.
Algorithmic power. Replace “AI” with your favorite recommendation engine and the social physics hold: it watches, it optimizes, it nudges. The ethics still sting.

How to read it (and love it)

Surf the jargon. Don’t stop to define every acronym. Let the context teach you like you’re a rookie riding shotgun with veterans.
Trust the city. The settings—Chiba City, the Sprawl, orbit—are more than backdrops; they’re tutorial levels. Watch what they reward and punish.
Hear the bassline. The book is paced like a heist film. When it slows, it’s loading a bigger payload. When it sprints, hang on.

If you’re this kind of reader, this book is your jam

You love high-concept, high-velocity fiction that respects your intelligence.
You care about tech culture’s DNA—where our metaphors and nightmares came from.
You’re a world-building nerd who wants settings that feel lived-in, not wallpapered.
You’re into AI, hacking, and systems thinking and want a story that treats them as more than shiny props.

The influence blast radius

Neuromancer is ground zero for the cyberpunk sensibility: the hero is small, the system is massive, and victory looks like carving a human-sized space in a machine-sized world. Its fingerprints are everywhere—console cowboys inspiring dev culture; “ICE” as the vibe under every security audit; fashion, music, and UI design that still chase its cool. Even the way journalists write about breaches and “entering the network” leans on Gibson’s visual grammar. Read it and you’ll start seeing the code behind the cultural interface.

After you jack out: what to read next

Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive (finish the Sprawl Trilogy—richer world, expanding consequences).
Burning Chrome (short stories that sharpen the vision).
Adjacent canon: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (satire-powered rocket fuel), Pat Cadigan’s Synners (media and minds), and Rudy Rucker’s Ware series (weirder, wilder, wonderfully so).

Final verdict

Neuromancer is essential reading—full stop. It’s the rare novel that changed the language we use to talk about technology and remains a pulse-pounding ride. If the Internet is the city we all live in now, Gibson drew the first street map that felt true. Pick it up for the thrills; keep it on your shelf for the ideas that won’t let you go.

Ready to jack in? Grab Neuromancer in paperback, ebook, or audio—however you mainline stories—and let it rewrite your mental firmware. (Some links on my site may be affiliate links, which help support the work at no extra cost to you.)

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow… and the First Day Back

This summer, I did something radical for me: I rested. Fewer obligations, slower mornings, and a little more space to think. Somewhere in that quiet, I read Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow—a story of friendship, creativity, and the belief that no loss is permanent if you just keep playing.

That idea stuck with me.

As educators, every August is our respawn point. A fresh save file. We reset the level, rebuild the world, and invite our students to play again. Some days will be victories, others spectacular defeats, and plenty will be somewhere in between. But if we keep showing up—together—we can win.

In my first newsletter of the year, I’m blending lessons from Zevin’s novel, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken into a hopeful reminder that “tomorrow” is always coming, and the game is worth playing.

📬 Read the full piece here

Sharpen Your Collective Spears: How to Write SMART Goals That Actually Move a PLC

Photo by Polina Zimmerman on Pexels.com

“In a world of infinite meetings, the scarcest resource is a goal people still remember after the coffee goes cold.”—my inner monologue every Tuesday at 7:45 a.m.

The bell hasn’t even rung when the dread kicks in. Our math PLC shuffles into a windowless room, walls plastered with mission statements no one can quite quote. The agenda glows on the projector—review data → craft SMART goal → adjourn—and someone opens last year’s spreadsheet. The cursor blinks like a taunting metronome:

Specific? “Raise Algebra II mastery five percent.”
Measurable? “Benchmarks track that.”
Achievable? “If the moon aligns with spring break.”
Relevant? “District said so.”
Time-bound? “May 15—graduation is May 16.”

Click Save. Google Drive adopts another orphan destined to be rediscovered—unfed and unloved—during next August’s in-service.

SMART ≠ Smart Enough

George T. Doran’s 1981 article introduced SMART as a managerial life-hack for middle managers drowning in vague memos. It worked because clarity beats wish-craft, so the acronym stuck. But teaching isn’t widget manufacturing, and a Professional Learning Community (PLC) is not middle management. Drop the vanilla acronym into a PLC and you often get tidy compliance—polite, forgettable, and incapable of nudging practice. (community.mis.temple.edu)

I’m not here to bury SMART; I’m here to jailbreak it. A goal that’s merely Specific and Measurable can still be pedagogically hollow. “Cover Unit 9 by Friday” is S-M-A-R-T and about as inspiring as a DMV form.

To make SMART sparkle inside a PLC, we have to graft it onto four live wires:

The Science of Learning & Development (SoLD)—brains toggle between threat and reward;
Connectivism—knowledge flows through networks, not warehouses;
Authentic learning anchored in your district’s Portrait of a Learner;
and the 4 Shifts Protocol, an instructional OSHA for deeper learning.

Flash these firmware updates onto the SMART scaffold, and the goal begins to breathe.

SoLD: Wiring the Goal to the Brain

Why does vanilla SMART sputter? Because it’s silent on how humans learn. SoLD research shows brains remain plastic when three conditions coexist: high challenge, high belonging, and obvious relevance. Stress without support drowns the prefrontal cortex in cortisol; stress with support sparks focus and growth. (soldalliance.org)

SoLD’s three non-negotiables translate into PLC design questions:

Do learners feel seen?
Is the work just beyond current mastery?
Can every brain tag the task as useful outside class?

Compare two drafts:

Vanilla — Increase correct factoring of polynomials by five percent.
SoLD-Tuned — By March 1, our Algebra II PLC will co-design three community-based modeling tasks—housing prices, local wage growth, skateboard trajectories—to lift correct use of multiple representations from 52 % to 75 %, measured by a shared rubric at a public expo.

The rewrite injects authenticity (local data), public exhibition (belonging + accountability), and the sort of demanding lift brains find exhilarating instead of paralyzing.

Connectivism: Goals as Network Packets

George Siemens argued that learning is less about what you know and more about how quickly knowledge flows through your network. In PLC terms, the nodes are you, your colleagues, that teacher on Instagram who posts slick Desmos hacks, and the treasure trove of lesson plans fermenting in Google Drive. A goal that stops at student data is a half-closed circuit—knowledge stagnates; momentum dies. (jotamac.typepad.com)

A network-savvy SMART goal spells out connection rituals:

a shared Drive folder where every lesson artifact lives;
a standing five-minute “What I tried this week” round-robin at each PLC;
a Friday Google Classroom prompt where teachers asynchronously swap feedback clips.

Bandwidth is a pedagogy. If the SMART statement doesn’t declare how the signal moves—from teacher to teacher and from student back to teacher—the circuit stays dark.

Authentic Learning & the Portrait of a Learner

Your district likely brandishes a glossy “Portrait of a Graduate”—creative problem-solver, compassionate collaborator, civic-minded innovator. Trouble is, many goals never leave the gated community of state standards; they measure skill fragments in lab conditions and call it progress. Authentic learning demands the opposite: skills unleashed in messy, consequential contexts, judged by audiences who care. Real-world stakes super-charge motivation and memory. (Edutopia)

That shows up in the Relevant clause. Instead of “aligns with KY Standard A2.Q.E,” try:

Students will design statistical dashboards for the city’s housing task force and defend their recommendations at a public forum.

Now the graduate-profile competencies are mission requirements, not hallway décor.

The 4 Shifts Protocol: Deeper-Learning Guardrails

Scott McLeod and Julie Graber’s 4 Shifts—deeper thinking, authentic work, student agency, technology infusion—work like a four-question crash test. Ask them of every draft goal: Does the task demand real cognitive wrestling? Will the product matter outside class? Do learners steer key decisions? Does tech amplify learning rather than merely digitize worksheets? If you answer “no” to any, keep writing. (dangerouslyirrelevant.org)

Most beige goals die on question 2: they yield products destined for the recycling bin, not the community or the Web.

Crafting Goals for PLCs, Not in PLCs

Here’s how our team writes without turning the meeting into a TED-style slog:

We walk in with evidence, not impressions—photos, student reflections, screenshots. We verb-hack mushy words like improve into verbs that signal complexity: design, simulate, defend. Every first-person singular becomes we—collective efficacy is grammatically plural. Before anyone clicks Save, we schedule two mid-cycle check-ins and agree on which artifacts (videos, drafts, rubric snapshots) will anchor them. Finally, we script a diffusion ritual—maybe a 60-second TikTok recap or a slide deck for the next faculty meeting. When sharing is baked into the goal, it doesn’t depend on hero-level willpower later.

A Full-Stack Example

Here’s a possible Algebra II goal :

By April 30, our Grade 10 math PLC will co-create, peer-review, and teach two interdisciplinary projects where students build interactive dashboards using local housing and wage data. At least 80 % of students will accurately interpret variability and propose actionable recommendations, judged by a shared rubric and showcased during a public “Data Night.” The team will meet every other Wednesday to iterate, store artifacts in a shared Drive folder, and survey students’ sense of belonging before and after the unit.

Break-down:

SoLD — belonging survey + public showcase.
Connectivism — Drive folder, peer-review rhythm, community data partnership.
Authentic Learning — city-council-relevant dashboards.
4 Shifts — deeper thinking (stats modeling), authentic work (public policy), agency (students choose variables), tech infusion (interactive dashboards).

The acronym didn’t change, but the genome inside is worlds away from “raise scores five percent by May.”

Dumpster Fires I’ve Authored (So You Don’t Have To)

I’ve written SMART goals that cratered spectacularly. Patterns emerge:

Input worship—“cover all twelve units” tracks what teachers do, not what kids learn.
Equity blindness—averages hide who’s drowning.
Ankle-high ambition—easy feels achievable, but starves growth.
Write-once, read-never—static goals in dynamic systems rot.

The fix is unglamorous: reopen the document, ask where belonging, relevance, or cognitive demand evaporated, and then rewrite.

Why This Matters More Than Benchmarks

A well-coded SMART goal has just two outcomes: teacher practice shifts and student cognition blooms. Everything else—acronyms, rubrics, meeting norms—is scaffolding. When a goal hits all four live wires, classrooms feel weird in the best sense. Students argue over data visualizations. Parents cheer on their children in Instagram stories from public showcases. Teachers trade spreadsheet formulas like favorite playlists. One morning, you realize no one’s counting ceiling tiles; everyone’s too busy debugging and learning in real time.

If that sounds utopian, remember: it’s biology plus bandwidth plus sentences you’ll actually reread. The brain loves hard problems in safe rooms. Networks love traffic. A SMART goal that guarantees both is no longer paperwork—it’s propulsion.

Your Turn

Open last year’s PLC folder, find the stalest goal, and run it through SoLD, Connectivism, authentic relevance, and the 4 Shifts. Rewrite until it hums like good sci-fi—plausible, provocative, people-centric. Then ship it. Invite your students, your admin, and your Instagram teacher circle to poke holes. Iterate. Repeat.

If this dive hit home, subscribe to The Eclectic Educator—my Friday dispatch where pedagogy meets punk rock—and forward this post to your PLC before the next calendar-driven time heist. Let’s make SMART stand for something again.

Oh, and you might want to pick up a copy of Read This Before Our Next Meeting, because most PLCs are 45-minute time vampires and this 90-minute read shows you how to turn them into fast, decision-driven sprints.

Slow Light: When Yesterday Hijacks Today

Ever wondered what life would feel like if your eyes buffered reality the way old dial-up modems buffered videos? Slow Light, the stop-motion stunner from Warsaw animation duo Kijek/Adamski, answers that question with style. It’s nameless hero sees everything on a seven-year delay—kindergarten birthday candles flare up during his first kiss, a forgotten snowball fight snows over a job interview, and so on. Yesterday isn’t lurking in the background; it’s live-streaming right on top of today.

The filmmakers crank up the disorientation to eleven with hand-cut paper sets awash in neon paint. Every frame feels like a pop-up book crossed with a fever dream. Their mini behind-the-scenes reel on Vimeo is a crash course in low-tech wizardry; it’s a reminder that big ideas don’t need Hollywood budgets, just relentless creativity (and a mountain of X-Acto blades).

Turning Slow Light into Authentic Learning

Below are four ways to let this short brain-bender spark real-world, student-centered work. Mix and match, or allow students to design their path.

Lens	Authentic Task	Real-World Connection	Graduate Profile Tie-In
Physics & Neuroscience	Remix the film’s handmade aesthetic in 3D: scan paper sets into Blender and add interactive hotspots that reveal “past vs. present” layers when clicked.	Partner with a local optometrist or university lab for feedback; publish explainer videos debunking vision myths.	Innovative Problem Solver, Effective Communicator
Media Literacy & Storytelling	Analyze how stop-motion’s frame-by-frame illusion mimics the film’s time-lag theme. Teams storyboard their own short that visualizes a cognitive quirk (e.g., déjà vu, false memories).	Submit films to a youth animation festival or stream them during a community movie night.	Creative Producer, Productive Collaborator
SEL & Psychology	Use the protagonist’s delayed perception as a metaphor: How do past experiences color present choices? Students craft personal “slow light” journals, then design advisory lessons to help younger peers understand trauma and resilience.	Collaborate with school counselors to run peer-led workshops on growth mindset and coping strategies.	Empathetic Citizen, Reflective Learner
Design Thinking & Tech	Remix the film’s handmade aesthetic in 3-D: scan paper sets into Blender, add interactive hotspots that reveal “past vs. present” layers when clicked.	Publish the interactive scene on the class website; invite feedback from professional animators via Zoom.	Digitally Fluent Innovator, Self-Directed Navigator

Ready-Made Reflection Prompt

If your own vision carried a seven-year delay, which past moments would you be doomed (or delighted) to relive—and how might that reshape who you are today?

Let students answer in whatever medium they choose—audio diary, comic strip, data viz—then host a gallery walk to surface common themes of perception, bias, and memory.

Bottom line: Slow Light isn’t just artsy eye candy. In the right hands (read: your classroom), it becomes a launchpad for interdisciplinary inquiry, hands-on making, and soul-searching reflection—all hallmarks of authentic learning that sticks long after the credits roll.

h/t to kottke.org

The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne: Watch for Free

Back in ’93, cameras caught Ozzy Osbourne flipping the bird and joking that his “farewell tour” might not stick. Spoiler: it didn’t. The kid who once mucked around bombed-out Birmingham, dabbled in petty crime, and nearly lost his lunch during a slaughterhouse gig instead ended up inventing a whole sub-genre. With a hand-me-down PA and a few blues-loving buddies, he asked the million-dollar question: people pay to be scared at the movies—why not scare them with music?

So Black Sabbath cranked their guitars down to earthquake depth, borrowed their name from a Mario Bava horror flick, and ushered in heavy metal’s Age of Darkness. Ozzy’s unmistakable wail—sometimes a mumble, sometimes a howl—rode those riffs like a banshee on a Harley, turning everyday dread into stadium anthems.

Success nearly killed him (repeatedly), but each meltdown only birthed another reboot: solo records, Ozzfest, and even a reality show that made the Prince of Darkness a household sitcom dad. Nine lives later, Sabbath’s final hometown set finally closed the curtain. Ozzy’s gone, but the persona he forged—equal parts menace, mischief, and resilience—still courses through every downtuned chord that rattles the rafters. Long live the bat-biting legend.

Robert Greene’s Mastery – Why It’s Great for Teachers

a close up shot of a woman molding a clay — Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Teaching can feel like sprinting through sand: every ounce of effort disappears into new mandates, fresh interruptions, and the endless pressure to prove you’re “impacting achievement.” Robert Greene’s Mastery offers a different vision—one drawn from Darwin’s notebooks, Temple Grandin’s cattle chutes, and Mozart’s late-night scales. Greene insists that anyone who treats skill-building as a deliberate, three-phase journey—Apprenticeship → Creative-Active → Mastery—will reclaim momentum and stay in the classroom long enough to matter. Below is a narrative roadmap that translates each phase into research-backed actions you can begin during pre-service week, with evidence that they work and persuasive arguments strong enough to convince even your most overwhelmed colleague to click “Add to Cart.”

Sale

Mastery

Brand New in box. The product ships with all relevant accessories
Greene, Robert (Author)
English (Publication Language)
368 Pages – 10/29/2013 (Publication Date) – Penguin Books (Publisher)

The Pain Behind the Promise

Almost half of American K-12 teachers now say they feel burned out “often or always,” a figure Gallup has tracked since 2022 and one that remains unchanged in 2025 (Devlin Peck). Surveys in Texas peg the fatigue even higher—three out of four teachers report being “exhausted,” with two-thirds eyeing the exits (Houston Chronicle). Attrition follows a cruel curve: novices leave just as their instruction could blossom, while veterans plateau when novelty fades. Greene argues that the path out is not better work-life “balance” but a conscious march toward expertise—because mastery, unlike balance, supplies its energy.

Greene’s Map in Plain English

Greene distills the biographies of history’s stand-out performers into a three-act structure. Apprentices absorb fundamentals until they become second nature; creative-actives recombine those fundamentals in bold experiments; true masters spot patterns others miss and simplify complexity (sipreads.com, Nat Eliason). In copywriting terms, the book is a “big promise” paired with a believable mechanism: you can transform your teaching, and here’s the step-by-step engine that makes it happen.

Phase 1: Apprenticeship—Winning the First 10,000 Minutes

What It Looks Like in a Classroom

Forget the romantic myth of genius; Greene says apprentices log mundane reps under watchful eyes. For teachers, this means treating high-impact moves—such as retrieval questions, spaced review, and explicit modeling—like musicians treat scales.

Retrieval practice. A 2017 meta-analysis encompassing 118 studies found that the technique consistently enhanced learning across age groups and subjects (Retrieval Practice). Start every period with two low-stakes recall prompts. Record accuracy; reteach when the class average dips below 80 percent.
Spaced practice. Neuro-education researchers conclude that revisiting content 24 hours, one week, and one month later maximizes retention for months — and the longer the interval, the longer the memory trace endures (THE EDUCATION HUB). Work those intervals into your warm-ups before adding a single new bell-ringer.
Rosenshine-style explicit instruction. Barak Rosenshine’s ten principles synthesize decades of cognitive-science evidence on how humans learn; short daily reviews and bite-sized explanations sit at the top of his list (Devlin Peck). Film a five-minute segment, then annotate where you checked for understanding.

Why It Pays Off

Feedback ranks among the highest effect sizes catalogued by John Hattie—around d = 0.70, almost double the hinge-point that separates worthwhile strategies from noise (VISIBLE LEARNING). When you wrap each retrieval sprint with “where to next” comments, you are compounding two evidence-based levers at once.

Phase 2: Creative-Active—Turning Fundamentals into Innovation

Once the basics hum automatically, Greene says the apprentice must risk “creative crimes”—small, testable departures from the script that force new neural wiring. In copywriting, this is your product’s “demonstration” moment: show the prospect the payoff.

Mash strategies. Combine retrieval with peer teaching: students quiz partners, then explain answers out loud. Cognitive science calls the blend “elaborative interrogation,” and it deepens transfer of knowledge to novel problems (Progress Learning Blog).
Prototype homework versions. Run spaced problem sets in one class, traditional packets in another, and compare quiz scores a week later. Early field experiments on spaced homework deliver significant gains over cramming (Houston Chronicle).
Document publicly. Greene notes that masters cultivate “social intelligence” by exposing ideas to critique. Weekly reflections posted in a team Google Doc turn tacit hunches into collective knowledge; professional development studies find that peer transparency accelerates skill uptake (Network for Educator Effectiveness).

Phase 3: Mastery—Seeing the Game and Guiding Others

Greene’s masters do two things novices rarely attempt: they compress complexity into elegant patterns and they mentor the next wave. Teacher research echoes him. A 108-study meta-analysis shows mastery-learning programs reliably raise exam performance, especially when experts make criteria explicit and coach students toward them (SAGE Journals).

Spot error trends. Use a simple spreadsheet or dashboard: where do misconceptions cluster? Redesign tomorrow’s mini-lesson to pre-empt those pitfalls.
Open your door. Peer observation, when low stakes and feedback-rich, improves both the observer’s and observed teacher’s practice—and even bumps student test scores in the observer’s class (Network for Educator Effectiveness |).
Coach a novice. Rigorous studies on instructional coaching show that targeted, cycles-based feedback outperforms traditional workshop PD for both teacher retention and student learning gains (Instructional Coaching Group).

Masters, Greene reminds us, aren’t superhuman. They’re relentless editors of their craft—and generosity is their sharpening stone.

A 30-Day Story You Can Tell Yourself

Day 1: choose one micro-skill—say, crafting two retrieval prompts per lesson.
Day 7: film and self-critique a five-minute segment focused solely on those prompts.
Day 14: Invite a colleague to observe for “retrieval density” and provide you with notes.
Day 21: add spaced review intervals; compare quiz data to your Day 1 baseline.
Day 30: Share the results and the film clip in your PLC.

You have now walked Greene’s first two phases, gathered real data, and leveraged peer feedback—three evidence-rich practices stitched into one micro-narrative.

Why the Book Earns a Slot in Your Tote Bag

Greene supplies what most PD skips: a compelling story that keeps teachers in the arena long enough to see evidence payoffs. Retrieval, spacing, feedback, coaching—these are not trends; they’re durable findings across hundreds of studies. Mastery ties them to a motivational arc that protects against the burnout numbers you saw earlier, giving you purpose when enthusiasm wanes.

Call to Action

Teaching is a craft you will never finish, but you can decide today whether the next 180 school days feel like wheel-spinning or measured ascent. Greene’s Mastery is the blueprint. Read the opening chapter tonight. Pick your micro-skill before the coffee brews tomorrow. And start counting progress, not just hours.

Grab the book on Amazon

Sources

Sipreads summary of Mastery phases (sipreads.com)
Nat Eliason review confirming three-phase structure (Nat Eliason)
Devlin Peck teacher-burnout statistics 2025 (Devlin Peck)
Texas AFT burnout survey via Houston Chronicle (Houston Chronicle)
Retrieval-practice meta-analysis guide (2017) (Retrieval Practice)
Spaced-practice summary, The Education Hub (THE EDUCATION HUB)
Rosenshine principles overview, Visible Learning site (Devlin Peck)
Hattie effect-size ranking list (VISIBLE LEARNING)
Instructional-coaching impact study (2024) (Instructional Coaching Group)
Peer-observation benefits article, NEE Advantage (Network for Educator Effectiveness |)
Mastery-learning meta-analysis, Review of Educational Research (SAGE Journals)
Elaborative-interrogation research on retrieval + explanation (Progress Learning Blog)