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Higher Ed Outsider: Show vs. tell

In the most recent episode of Big Beacon Radio: Transforming Higher Education, guest Jeff Shelton discussed his educational background and how it led him to become the host of the Engineering Commons Podcast. Jeff went back to school to receive his PhD later in life, decades after completing his initial degrees. By the time he returned to school, Jeff had years of professional…

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Art for Engineers: Encouraging More Whole-Brain Thinking

Post contributed by Stuart G. Walesh, Ph.D., P.E. The human brain’s left and right hemispheres have markedly different capabilities. The left hemisphere exhibits valuable verbal, analytic, logical, and linear characteristics while the right hemisphere offers equally powerful nonverbal, emotional, intuitive, spatial, and holistic features. Betty Edwards, in her 1999 book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, says this…

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Guiding Change: Relationships Foster Movements

Post contributed by Dr. Bryan Boulanger When I was little my father used to tell me, “If you want to know what you look like, look in the mirror. If you want to know who you are, look at your friends.” As I’ve grown older and my wife and I have had our own children, I’ve added “If you want…

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Empathy, Connection, and Dealing with Disruptors in the PBL Environment

Post contributed by Chuck Pezeshki    Introduction Folks in the academic community may be following the Halloween costume conflict at Yale, involving the issue of cultural appropriation. You’re probably wondering how this could be relevant to engineering education? It matters for one big reason – Big Beacon, through advancing models of education like Olin College’s, counts on the idea of students…

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