EduSummIT is a global community of policy-makers, researchers, and educators working together to move education into the digital age. EDUsummIT has been convening every two years since 2009. In each case the participants focus on some significant theme relevant to...
My journey through design: Keynote at IDC
Design is core to my identity, to who I am. Education is the space within which I function but I try to approach everything I do as a designer. This was not always the case. Back in 1984, I had just graduated with an undergraduate degree in engineering, and if there...
Fibonacci’s Poem
Fibonacci’s PoemDecember 10, 2019 (!)OneWordIt startsSlow but sureExpanding out numerically, adding moreMarching forward, doing the math, not asking why Knowing the ratio of words, in this line and previous, will equal Phi!A number, elegant, emergent, magical; found...
Aesthetics & STEM education: A new framework
I have always been intrigued by the nature and role of the aesthetic experience in learning. A few members of the Deep-Play research group have been exploring this issue for a while (for instance we have written on, why science teachers should care about beauty in...
Defense against the dark arts in the Sydney Morning Herald
I was in Sydney recently to present a keynote at the MITE conference. I spoke there about some issues that have been concerning me for a while—what I like to call the "dark arts" of digital technologies. After the conference I had a wide-ranging interview with Jordan...
Creativity and the urban STEM teacher
I have written previously about the MSUrbanSTEM project and what it has meant to me. Over the past couple of years we have also published about this line of work (most prominently in a special issue of The Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching)....
Douglas Adams & Computational Thinking
Illustration by Punya Mishra.See sketch of Douglas Adams at the end of this post. I have always been a huge fan of Douglas Adams, trying to sneak in his ideas into my academic writing whenever I can. I had written about my previous attempts in a blog post...
Education by Design, new fall course
I am excited about my new fall course, titled Education by Design. This is a heavily reimagined version of a class that I taught a couple of times at MSU and once here (last fall at ASU). The MSU version that I co-taught with Danah Henriksen received First...
Rethinking 7/8 curriculum at Miami/Globe
One of the most exciting parts of my job are the cool people I get to meet. Glen Lineberry is one of them. Glen is Principal at Miami Junior-Senior High School. He describes his school as a “small rural school on the move.” The first thing that strikes you when you...
Design, Intuition & Creativity
Chain-Rotational ambigram design for the word "design."One can read the word both clockwise from the top or anti-clockwise, from the bottom. Our latest article in the series we write for the journal TechTrends (under the broad rubric of Rethinking Technology...
Multiple metaphors & science learning: New article, new illustrations
180-degree rotational ambigram for "metaphor." I have been (co)writing a series of articles for iWonder: Rediscovering School Science, a journal for middle school science teachers, published by the Azim Premji University. (Previous articles in...
NEW BOOK! Creativity, Technology & Education
I am thrilled to announce the publication of a new book, a Mishra-Henriksen production titled Creativity, Technology & Education: Exploring their Convergence. This book is a collection of essays that first appeared the...
Creativity in Surgery, Music & Cooking
Here is the next article in our series Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century for the journal TechTrends. In this article we feature an interview with Dr. Charles Limb, professor of Otolaryngology and a...
STEM teaching & leadership for urban educators
The MSUrbanSTEM project was one of the best projects I have ever been part of. We worked with 124 Chicago Public School STEM educators over three years, in an effort to develop their teaching and leadership in the STEM areas. We have written about this...
2017 Torrance Lecture on Creativity
This past April, I delivered the annual E. Paul Torrance Lecture at the University of Georgia. Being invited to give this talk was a huge honor, for two main reasons. First, because of Paul Torrance, the person for whom this lecture is named. Dr. Torrance, known...
TPACK newsletter #33, June 2017
TPACK triplet design by Punya Mishra The latest version of the TPACK newsletter (#33) can be found here (pdf). All previous issues are archived here. A shout-out to Judi Harris for all the work that goes into this.
Robert Pirsig, 1928 – 2017
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of those books that have influenced me deeply. I read it when I was in high school and read it again and again, almost obsessively for a while. It was my companion through college, graduate school and beyond. I...
Computational Thinking paper wins Outstanding Paper
A paper co-authored with Jon Good and Aman Yadav, building on Jon's practicum study has received the Outstanding Paper Award at the SITE 2017. Complete reference, link to article and abstract given below. Good. J., Yadav. A., & Mishra, P....
Coding + Aesthetics: New Journal Article
Does beauty have a role to play in learning to code? Can code aspire to beauty and elegance? In this article, we argue that it does and it should. Read on... Good, J., Keenan, S. & Mishra, P. (2016). Education:=Coding+Aesthetics; Aesthetic Understanding,...
Wordclouds, mathematics and building a better teacher
Wordcloud created from all the words in the wikipedia page for "mathematics education" What does a teacher need to know to intelligently integrate technology in their teaching? Or better still, what is it that teachers need to know to become effective...
KJZZ interview on STEAM education
I was interviewed recently by Mark Brodie of KJZZ.org for a story titled: STEM Vs. STEAM: Educators Urge Adding The Arts To Classrooms. You can listen to the interview on their page by clicking on the link above, or the MP3 below. My piece comes in at around the 3:14...
A new understanding of our confusion
Reflection ambigram of "Chicago" Over the past two-and-a-half years we have worked with STEM educators in Chicago Public Schools as part of the MSUrbanSTEM project. We have presented about this project at a few conferences over the past few years, and...
The song remains the same
As I dig through my Research Gate requests I realize that I have missed out on putting some of my articles onto my website. Here is another one (and on a side note, it never hurts to make a Led Zeppelin reference in your paper - actually the paper starts with a quote...
The process of design: A quote
I have been a huge fan of Bill Atkinson, creator of MacPaint, one of the key players in developing the GUI for the original Macintosh including coming up with things as the double-click, the menu bar, marquee selection and lots of interface ideas we...
eBook on Creativity, Technology & Teacher Education
Danah Henriksen and I recently edited a special issue of the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education (Volume 23, Number 3, July 2015) devoted to Creativity, Technology and Teacher Education (see blog post here). This special issue has now been issued as an eBook...
Episteme6 @ Mumbai: 2 presentations
This past December I was at the epiSTEME 6 conference in Mumbai. It was jointly organized by the Homi Bhaba Center for Science Education, TIFR and the Interdisciplinary Program in Educational Technology, IIT Bombay. I presented two papers there, oneabout...
Design at Apple (a his-story)
Fast Company has compiled an oral-history of design at Apple. It did so through interviews with many of the key players in Apple's history. It is a his-story because, though there are some women who show up... the main narrative is about guys, Steve Jobs, Jonathan...
Creativity, Technology & Teacher Education
Danah Henriksen and I recently edited a special issue of the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education (Volume 23, Number 3, July 2015) devoted to Creativity, Technology and Teacher Education. This special issue is organized thematically around eight articles...
Of clouds, lentils and deep geometries
Back in March of 2012 I was on a plane flying back from the SITE2012 conference in Austin, Texas and noticed an interesting cloud-formation through my airplane window. This intrigued me enough that I took a picture. Here it is (click on the image for a larger...
Designing shared spaces, one example
Design is about engineering. It is about art. And most importantly it is about the psychology of individuals and groups and their interactions with artifacts. I am always on the lookout for examples of good (or bad) design. Sadly I too often come across the latter...