You bet your boots it can. Early in the pandemic I read an article where someone claimed that trust could not be built online — that it was one of the rich ingredients of life we were missing with our new, quarantined existence. Meaningful connections, where trust is built and shared, the author claimed, weren’t possible…

Maybe you’ve recently made a commitment to Inclusive Design. Maybe you’ve found yourself ‘behind’ in the ‘racial awakening’ — maybe you’ve been asleep and missed the awakening of the last hundreds of years. No matter! Now you’re working toward inclusion — you understand it’s an important piece of moving forward…

It was April 14, 1993 — a Wednesday. I was 17. My sister was 19 and was a student at Wash U in St. Louis, Missouri. I was probably a month away from high school graduation. I’d already confirmed I’d be going to Tulane University in the Fall. So, I…

Part 3 (this follows Part 2 here https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/an-attempt-to-disrupt-education-part-2-7a6261fbd81c) In those first few moments we had done a lot of behind-the-scenes work. You see, in those first moments there is a special opportunity. …

Storytelling matters, to state the obvious. But storytelling in the context of teaching and learning might matter more than we acknowledge. What do you remember: the things you memorized a day before an exam, or the things that were contextualized in a moment, in a larger narrative of exploration, discovery…

This follows Part 1 that appears here: https://jesshmitchell.medium.com/an-attempt-to-disrupt-education-cc44e64bce7 All of the details mattered: the door I entered, the hoodie sweatshirt I was wearing, my nervousness, my first time on campus and in this room, that split second first impression — this is the context in which we all began something…

Part 1 — I was nervous. It was the first day of class. I dutifully got there 15 minutes early and sat outside the classroom — thinking of just how to make a good first impression while feeling my heart beat hard in my chest. The class was scheduled to start at 7…

Do we cancel? Should we go anyway? Should we cancel in-person classes? Should we go online? Should we go into the office? Should we encourage remote work? How many people together is too many? Is it time to be deciders? How will we know when it’s the right time to…

So, I want to tell a story of a pretty pivotal moment in my life. I went to University in ‘the city that care forgot’. I knew next to nothing about the place, but I knew that in March, when my hometown in Missouri was a mix of mud and…