Why You Should Pretend You’re About to be Fired: A Review

I’m  with my friend Aaron Maurer over at CoffeefortheBrain: I think business books have a lot to teach anyone, and The One-Day Contract by Joe Pitino one is no exception. Joe Pitino isn’t satisfied with coaching basketball. He wants to coach your career, too. Confession: I’d never even heard of Joe Pitino

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Chess Resources for Young Players

Chess is über-popular. How do I know? I tried to come up with a handful of resources about it for young players and spent two hours just clicking links without even reading content. This is not a comprehensive list, but it will hopefully give novices and more committed players some ideas

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My Only New Year’s Resolution

I only have one New Year’s resolution this year: show up. Every year, I make a lot of well-intentioned resolutions designed to correct all that ails me. They’re probably very similar to yours and typically include more of some things (exercise, scripture study), and less of others (sweets, criticism). This year,

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Worth Reading Rating System

Amazon does it, and so I do. What it is? Rate books on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being highest. I just use numbers, not stars, and my descriptions that correspond to each number are a little different (“I like it” is just too pedestrian for me). I’m

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Top 5 {Free} Things to Give this Christmas

I said this was for Christmas, but these ideas work all year long. Well, maybe not number 3. But feel free to give me an ornament anytime. I included that because this year as I decorated my tree I was moved to tears by the ornaments given to me by my

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Step Away from the Bullet Points

Brian Housand and I have a thing about presentation design. We like it to be like meat from a disreputable source: well done. At the TAGT conference last week, we presented together on this idea, and our slide deck is available, along with the handout from the presentation. I’ve embedded

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Taking Advantage of Post-test Time

Is it just me, or is time short{er}? “I’ve got way too much instructional time,” said no teacher ever. It seems like every year teachers notice they have less and less “seat time” with their students and more and more to do with that little bit. That means that teachers

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How not to stink at presenting & teaching

I had an absolutely terrific time visiting with Aaron Maurer as part of his podcast series. We were sharing ideas on how not to be a terrible presenter. Lots of tips, along with some ideas about teaching. I think you’ll like it. My dad does, and he’s a tough cookie

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Raising a Renaissance Kid

Archimedes. Omar Khayyám. Leonardo da Vinci. Maria Agnesi. Thomas Jefferson. Goethe. Steve Jobs. All of these people have something in common: they have been described as “polymaths” – people who are experts in multiple fields. Nearly synonymous with the term “Renaissance Man,” a polymath is unconstrained by narrow fields of

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3 Steps to Becoming an Expert in Anything: Part 3

The last level of attaining expert status in any field is to contribute to that field. Although this is less straightforward than the previous two steps because it looks very different in different fields and for different people, the basic premise remains the same: you must further the field. You

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3 Steps to Becoming an Expert in Anything: Part 2

Part 2: The Master’s Degree. Once you’ve made yourself familiar with the fundamentals of your own field of interest, as well as other complementary topics, you are ready for StepTwo. To continue the university metaphor, this is the mirror of a master’s degree – the step where you master what

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3 Steps to Becoming an Expert in Anything: Part 1

Why would anyone want to become an expert, you ask? Because it’s fun. It’s invigorating to really know something deeply or be able to do something well, and it has nothing to do with recognition from other people. Someone recently asked me how I became an expert in the field

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