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Archive for the 'Unexpectedness' Category

“Choice” video

Check out this video. Don’t want to give anything away. It’s got quite a visceral punch. (via one of Chip’s students at Stanford)

Triggers and water conservation

Park Howell saw our column about “Triggers” in Fast Company and wrote us with a great story:
In 1999, we created the “Water - Use it Wisely” conservation campaign that was completely built on environmental triggers.  I think we were simply more intuitive (lucky) in our approach than brilliant (good) when creating the campaign, but it […]

The Partition of Africa

Here’s a story we received from Peri Chinoda, an AP & Honors World History Teacher at Hume Fogg Magnet High School in Nashville:
Background Information: In 1885 the Chancellor of Germany, Otto Bismarck, convened a meeting attended by 13 European colonial powers including the USA and the Ottoman Empire. The Africans whose land was to be […]

Wyoming Libraries Mudflap and Idea Judo

Check out this very clever campaign for Wyoming’s libraries. (One bumper sticker offers a more literate twist on a classic: “You can have my book when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.”) And the mudflap girl is a must-see (and, while it would be stretching it to call her a must-buy, she is indeed […]

The lightning and the lottery

I almost spit up my coffee when I got to the punchline on this one.
From Tony Pratt:

I’m a first year teacher (4th Grade) in the New Orleans Recovery School District.  The one common thread that I’ve noticed between the lessons that have stuck was a relation to something the kids were familiar with or interested in.  […]

The Screaming Man in the Four Stroke Engine

Here’s one of our favorite stories so far from the “100 books for 100 stories” contest.  There are still plenty of books to giveaway, so make sure to tell your teacher friends: Email us — heaths@fastcompany.com — a story of a lesson that stuck and we’ll ship you a free signed copy of our book.  […]

Oceanography, amplified

I conducted a workshop recently for high school science and math teachers.  We were working together to find ways to make their lesson plans stickier.  My favorite example came from a couple of teachers who were trying to revamp the oceanography unit.  Below is my own paraphrasing of what they said: 
“We weren’t happy with how our unit on oceanography went last year. […]

Credibility from stating the obvious

From an article on nice-but-cheap bottles of wine in the NYT:
Let’s face it, you can find hundreds if not thousands of bottles in [the $10 or under category], down to the lowest of the low. We cannot try them all and say, “Here are the 10 best.” But we can give you some suggestions as to […]

Unsticking Baby Einstein

The research is in on Baby Einstein videos: “For every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old were shown such popular series as “Brainy Baby” or “Baby Einstein,” they knew six to eight fewer words than other children, the study found.”
Concrete enough for ya?  But if the enduring appeal of the discredited “Mozart Effect” […]

Tanzania post-mortem

Chip and I had an incredible time in Tanzania.  So, let me start by saying this: You know that feeling you get when a full explanation would take 25,000 words, but you’ve only got 500, and you’re afraid to oversimplify, but you’re also afraid to give a vague “neat experience” summary, and this causes a […]