Mingzhi Education Forum - “Unreasonable Effectiveness”: Where Learning and Life Converge
Throughout our lives – even in childhood and adolescence – we learn more in the time we spend outside school than in the classroom. Might the world be a wiser and happier place if more of our out-of-school learning time could be spent on substantive subjects and positive values? In this presentation I will explore the world of informal learning: what it looks like, how it happens, and what educators can do to take advantage of it. I will argue that informal learning has the power to tackle a surprisingly wide range of subjects and exert a profound impact on students, and that formal schooling at all levels could benefit from taking advantage of the attributes of informal learning. The talk will unfold in three parts: developing a practical theory of informal learning; examining in depth several case studies to identify successful practices; and exploring potential implications for higher education.
Joe Blatt is interested in the effects of media content and technology on development, learning, and civic behavior. His courses span both formal and informal settings. Blatt directs the HGSE Faculty Focus on Teaching project and programs the “Entertainment through Education” series of Askwith Forum presentations. He was also co-creator and initial project director of the Usable Knowledge website, which makes HGSE faculty research available and accessible to practitioners.
Blatt's expertise in children's media has led to consulting and advising relationships with many major production companies, including Sesame Workshop, WGBH, Walden Media, PBS Kids, and Pokemon. For more than twenty years he created educational multimedia and broadcast television programs, currently as president and executive producer at RiverRun Media. Before serving as executive producer of Scientific American Frontiers, the PBS magazine series starring Alan Alda, Blatt made documentaries for the NOVA science series. He also created the Break Through television series to profile contemporary African American, Latino, and Native American scientists and engineers. In partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Blatt developed an innovative web-based mentoring program to amplify the impact of this PBS series.
Blatt produced close to 100 programs for the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, including the popular statistics series Against All Odds, the discrete mathematics series For All Practical Purposes, and a primetime documentary, Surprises in Mind, about children’s capacity for mathematical thinking. For six years he was a producer of public affairs and new technology programs at WGBH. Before that, Blatt created Feeling Free, a nationally broadcast television series to facilitate mainstreaming of disabled students into public schools.
Mingzhi Education Forum
"Mingzhi Education Forum" is hosted by the Institute of Education Innovation and Practice, the Vice President of Teaching and Learning Office, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), VPTLO-IEIP, HKUST(GZ). It is an integral part of a series of teacher training activities. Based on the needs of HKUST (GZ) for educational innovation, we will invite scholars and practitioners in related fields to be guest speakers at this Forum to share thoughts, insights, challenges, problems, and discuss solutions together. Relevant fields include but are not limited to innovation in teaching and learning, higher education assessment and evaluation, learning science, curriculum and pedagogy, cognitive psychology, brain science, neuroscience, education big data, higher education internationalization, and higher education policy.