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“Sailboat Metaphor”

Originally posted in our August 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. When thinking about establishing a new paradigm in the classroom, the topic of individual needs invariably comes up. Many of us have heard of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and it has almost shown as a pyramid. But, the issue is, Maslow never designed this hierarchy as a pyramid. “Maslow emphasized that we are always in a state of becoming and that one’s ‘inner core’ consists…

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“Is an Optimistic Mind Associated with a Healthy Heart?”

Originally posted in our July 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. Now that we understand that we’ll all go through a period of self-doubt in our work and understand the importance of finding meaning in that work, where do we go from there? How does this knowledge impact us in the day-to-day and our overall well-being? Research over the past few decades has taken the tie between mental and physical health into new territories. We’ve known for…

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“Why You Should Stop Trying to Be Happy at Work”

Originally posted in our July 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. Keeping on the thread of pushing through our own self-critique, we’ll move onto a piece from the Harvard Business Review. In it, the author suggests that happiness at work will often get you the opposite. Instead, we should seek meaning. But what does that mean, and how do we accomplish it? According to the author and research she cites, there are five factors that differentiate meaning…

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“Ira Glass on The Creative Process”

Originally posted in our July 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. Ira Glass, host of This American Life on NPR, has successfully produced high-quality radio for over two decades. But, as he will freely admit, he wasn’t always very good at it. In fact, he claims to have not been up to his own standards for years. And he’s not alone. As Glass earnestly discusses in a series of videos titled On Storytelling, almost all creatives go through…

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“Pandemic-To-Permanent: 11 Lasting Changes To Higher Education”

Originally posted in our June 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter. Now let’s turn to some predictions for the future of education due to the pandemic. While these are just that, predictions, we found some important things to reflect on in this piece. Be it a push to all things virtual, non-degree learning, or pricing models that are severely out of date; the pandemic has brought the future of education forward in many ways. Moreover, as employment…

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