Brain-Based

Honeymoons and Moonshine

Landing the gig is the beginning. Often, it’s also the end. Passionate school leaders move up the career ladder eager to make a mark and help...

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John Dewey and Thinking

“We only think when we are confronted with problems.” – John Dewey Yes and no. Yes, our thinking is pushed into strategic cognition when confronted with...

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What is the Planning Fallacy?

The theory was first proposed in the late 1970s to explain our human tendency to overestimate our abilities in completing a task. We tend to estimate...

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Why Do We Struggle With Time Management?

One psychological explanation for why we struggle with time management is the planning fallacy. The planning fallacy causes us to feel out of control with our...

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Laughter and the Most Wasted of All Days

The most wasted of all days is the one without laughter. Laugh today, not merely because of comedy, but because life is meant to be experienced...

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Herd Mentality

Cattle herd. Sheep herd. We herd. Herding is done for safety. Yet, it’s only those in the center of the herd who are safe. A herd...

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Availability Bias

So many biases can trip us up. We’ve previously discussed the human flaw of conformity bias and attribution error. Those two errors can cause many missteps....

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Conformity Bias

There are many pressures that resist change. Chief among them is the conformity bias. In our evolutionary history, this bias served a powerful role – conforming...

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Not A Laughing Matter

It’s not a laughing matter. Well, it really is. Outstanding leadership depends on it. What’s that, you say? Laughter. A study was published at Boston University...

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Hot Coffee, Warm Hearts

People are strange. We really are. A 2008 Yale study found that participants in a study were more fond of the researcher when they had warm...

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Attribution Error, Devilish Little Error with Big Impact

Attribution error was a major concept discussed in the podcast (Season 3, Ep 1) and is a common factor that limits performance on teams. What is attribution...

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This Is Your Brain On Delay

Your brain is powerful. But you already knew that. You might not know about this powerful brain addiction. It’s a subtle, yet paralyzing addiction: the drug...

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Amygdala, Survival Tendency

Survival is about fear, aggression, instinct, and reaction. These survival tendencies work for the short lifespans of animals in savannahs, forests, and jungles. They don’t work...

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The Failure of Fidelity

In today’s podcast, Episode 4 of Season 2, I challenge the RTI concept of fidelity. Should it be in your intervention systems? Has it failed? What is the evidence?...

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Why Reading Growth Stalls

By or about 3rd-grade, the shift in reading instruction moves from learning to read to learning to comprehend. Much of the time that means learning to...

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