Creativity is often defined as the ability to come up with new and useful ideas. Like intelligence, it can be considered a trait that everyone – not just creative “geniuses” like Picasso and Steve Jobs – possesses in some capacity. It’s not just your ability to draw a picture or design a product. We all […] … learn more→

The Australian Coalition government’s position on young people is best captured by the phrase “earning or learning”. If you are under 30, the government expects you to be studying in an educational institute or working for a living. Leaving the politics aside, the relationship between education and employment is usually a good indicator of labour market […] … learn more→

Eugenics has been science’s toxic brand since the end of World War II. The point was driven home yet again recently when Toby Young, appointee to the UK’s newly established Office of Students, was denounced in the House of Commons for having written favourably of “progressive eugenics”. Young resigned from the post the following day amid complaints […] … learn more→

An important role of being an academic is personal tutoring. Almost daily, a student knocks on my door and we discuss issues that are associated with life at university. Each is ambitious, hard-working and diligent. But if, like me, you’ve noticed an increase in students presenting psychological difficulties, then you are not alone. Student mental […] … learn more→

We need to understand Generation Z better. These young people, born after the mid- to late-1990s, have lived with technology as an embedded part of life. Their experiences have defined what they perceive as “normal”. They are of the digital age. They have made assumptions about how they will engage with learning and life at […] … learn more→

I’ve seen it far more times than I can count: a kid walks onto campus, picks a tough STEM major like Engineering, then, after seeing he can’t cut it there, switches over to something less challenging (but still hard) like Chemistry or Pre-Med. Then after flunking those classes, changes major again and again, until finally […] … learn more→

“Because we don’t have enough offices, we’ll be putting you in temporary trailers…” –Admin announcement. It sounds reasonable enough, until you realize the school has less faculty than ever, despite having more students than ever…the offices were all being taken over by the new administrative hires. When I resigned from the place years later, they […] … learn more→

Back in the 1980s, Bates College and Bowdoin College were nearly the only liberal arts colleges not to require applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores. On Jan. 10, FairTest, a Boston-based organization that has been pushing back against America’s testing regime since 1985, announced that the number of colleges that are test-optional has […] … learn more→

The world’s largest annual consumer technology show — CES 2018 in Las Vegas — ends today and some of the most exciting gadgets this year were on display in the augmented reality (AR) marketplace. This follows the news, announced in December, that 2018 will be the year the previously secretive company Magic Leap joins the […] … learn more→

In societies the world over, teenagers are blamed for staying up late, then struggling to wake up in the morning. While it’s true that plenty of teenagers (like many adults) do have bad bedtime habits, researchers have long since proven that this global problem has a biological cause. In 2004, researchers at the University of […] … learn more→