Fascinating debate about polarization, moral certainty, and the politics of our time! open.substack.com/pub/conspicu...

“To add a note to our collective fears, the dystopia I’m thinking about is different. It is not a world without work. It is a world with jobs for humans to do, but where robots are the boss.” #AI #robots #work #TheFutureOfWork open.substack.com/pub/eduardoe...

Really useful step-by-step instructions and rationales for using different types of debate formats as a learning method, in case you’ve been considering bringing structured argumentation into your classroom. #Pedagogy #teaching #HigherEd open.substack.com/pub/stefanba...

A useful New Year’s reminder: history is not a straight line, but it does have a slope. Most of what improved in the last two centuries did so slowly—produced by institutions, public investment, technology, and collective action. h/t German Vergara for the graph

@zabephillips over on TikTok has some sound advice for students (and instructors) about boredom and attention in the classroom. #SoTL #teaching #Pedagogy #HigherEd #Attentionism #AttentionEconomy

“Research shows that achievement has surprisingly little to do with forcing yourself to choose wisely in the heat of the moment. Successful people rarely rely on inner fortitude to resist temptations.

@theatlantic.com recently published a widely shared piece on the explosion of testing accommodations in higher education—and it’s stirred up exactly the kind of debate you’d expect.

“Why, after all, has a consensus so quickly emerged that we have a crisis in teaching? Is this not more rightly described as a crisis in learning? Or, more aptly, as an attack on learning?” h/t Dan Hirschman #Ai #teaching #learning #highered

Here’s how I would summarize this article in a one-liner: AI is the new research assistant… that nobody fully trusts. #Ai #Sociology #Research #academia arxiv.org/abs/2511.16884

Nothing like a historically informed discussion of Marxist thought for your holiday listening. 🎧 #IntellectualHistory #MarxistTheory #PodcastRecommendations

In this article, Waldfogel argues that Christmas gift-giving produces substantial economic inefficiency—what economists call “deadweight loss”—

“Vaccines prevent disease, not infection.” #experts #expertise #ExpertsOverInfluencers open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

I’ve got three random recs for your today. One is #SanDiego specific, the other two you can get nation-wide. Pics below. #recs #SanDiegoLife #SweetTooth #chimichurri

American universities heading into 2026 be like...

I made this mistake early in my parenting years. As a PhD, I assumed the formula was obvious: early specialization + intense training = excellence (a hyper specialized form of concerted cultivation). #parenting #concertedcultivation #youthsports #performanceexcellence #parentingmistakes

If you care about your students, ban digital devices in your classroom. Contrary to what some might think, it's easier now than ever. Students call time on screens "Rotting." #CulturalTailWinds #EvenStudentsWantThis #Attentionism #Ai #screens #digitaldevices #pedagogy #highered

AI has introduced the possibility of a future class divide—but it’s not the one tech advocates usually claim.

“In my experience, it is better to think of purpose as something you form, rather than something you find. This distinction helps my clients get moving from where they are now, instead of stalling because they feel lost about where to begin.

AI hasn’t made professors less important. It’s made bad pedagogy more visible and good pedagogy more essential than ever. #TimeToUpYourPedagogyGame #AI #HigherEd #Teaching #Pedagogy #FacultyLife @insidehighered.com

Love SD, but there are many things I miss from the Bay Area. One of them: Cheeseboard. 🍕

Pedagogical decisions ALWAYS involve trade-offs. A choice that supports one group of students can unintentionally burden another. A policy that feels compassionate can create perverse incentives.

“It can be a difficult ask for students when there are these incredible AI resources that can do a lot of this work much quicker just at your fingertips, even though it might really harm the learning you’ll do,” Walker said.

Students want Ai-proof pedagogy. “In a recent survey of college students by Inside Higher Ed… about 30 percent said colleges should design more AI-proof methods of assessment, including oral exams.” #ai #pedagogy #highered #teaching #oralexams @insidehighered.com h/t @tristanbridges.bsky.social

Chef’s kiss for the way Hartmann’s gym/forklift metaphor nails much of what’s at stake with AI in teaching and learning. 🤌 #ai #pedagogy #highered #teaching

Ahí les va mi traducción del concepto bourdieusiano de habitus, versión dicho popular mexicano: El que nace pa’ maceta, no pasa del corredor. #teoriasocial #dichospopulares

Ahí les va mi traducción del concepto Weberiano de “elective affinity”, versión dicho popular Mexicano: Se junta el hambre con las ganas de comer. #teoriasocial #dichospopulares

Dylan Riley’s essay stages a sharp confrontation between Hannah Arendt and Gramsci over how to understand totalitarianism historically—and what that means for interpreting our current moment. www.theideasletter.org/essay/beyond...

Man, what really separates homo sapiens from other species is our unparalleled gift for making things unnecessarily hard for ourselves. #Stigma

Ya’ll: Trader Joe’s invented packaged almond butter! 🤯 It was central to their strategy of wooing a particular demographic — highly educated, not-yet-wealthy shoppers who loved the cultural capital of “specialty” foods. open.spotify.com/episode/6MZD...

This podcast is great. Each episode tells the history of a company. This one is about Trader Joe’s. It’s not your academic historian’s history. It’s your investors’ history, but still really good. What are you’re favorite podcasts? Post in the comments! #AlwaysLookingForAGoodListen

h/t Shivan Corry

I remember in my teens seeing older folks tending to their gardens and thinking, “man, what a waste of time.” Now I’m that older person tending to my garden, and I see all ya’ll teens and twenty-something’s in my life giving me that look. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking. I know.

Over the past 15 years, one influential strand of inclusive pedagogy—nested inside the broader DEI movement—became a genuinely powerful cultural force in higher education. And like most cultural movements that succeed, it achieved real and lasting accomplishments.

#MustRead piece by @philipncohen.com Philip’s new piece cuts straight through the Left–Right pronatalist showdown.

If faculty at Harvard end up teaching sections, it’s going to be hard for folks at other institutions to be like, “Uh uh, not me.” “Philosophy professor Edward J. Hall — who leads undergraduate studies for the department — said a possibility is that “faculty will need to start teaching sections.”

Weekend reading: check out Josh Pacewicz's (@joshpacewicz.bsky.social) analysis of the relationship between liberal democracy and populist rhetoric based on research across the American Rust Belt during Obama years: journals-sagepub-com.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/share/QJDABU...

Key word here is “curb” because “eliminating” is impossible for a range of reasons no one really wants to acknowledge. 🤫 #HigherEd #GradeInflation #Grades www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

The series on heterodox economists in this podcast is excellent. This episode about Lenin is no exception. open.spotify.com/episode/4mji...

During the social-justice–in-education movement of the past decade and a half, high-stakes assignments—midterms or finals worth 40%+ of the grade—got a bad rap. There are tons of good reasons (equity, pedagogy, stress, etc.) to avoid putting that much weight on one exam.

Apparently fact-checking is now considered a threat to national security. www.npr.org/2025/12/04/n...

Qualitative researchers: you no longer need to spend a bunch of money or time on transcribing. Google Gemini does it for free, in seconds. I know, I know, privacy concerns and all that. Not downplaying this, just sayi’n. It’s a new world. #Ai #Research #qualitativeresearch

New recording 🎥 If you've missed the talk, watch now at: asatheory.com

Zimmerman (2020, p.176) on the array of factors fueling grade inflation in the 1970s: #HigherEd #grades #gradeinflation

Any other working parent for whom taking the kids to the movie theater -no matter the day, time, movie, or even how much you seem to like it initially- inevitably turns into a nap? I’m pretty sure Zootopia 2 is good. Not totally certain, but pretty sure. 😴🎥

@ucsandiego.bsky.social fam: this is on THURSDAY. 👀 Mainstream econ ignored inequality for, like, ever… until Piketty, Saez, and the whole crew dragged them into the chat. Sociology, meanwhile, has been ringing the inequality alarm bell since before it was cool.

Hannah Arendt’s Intro to Politics syllabus from 1963 at the University of Chicago. #goat #history #politics #syllabus

Given @ucsandiego.bsky.social’s recent, um… let’s call it conundrum, I’ve started to dig into the empirical and historical literature on the SAT.

“Five studies examine the interrelationships between opposition to expert consensus on controversial scientific issues, how much people actually know about these issues, and how much they think they know.

Friends and colleagues, here’s my unlicensed, unsolicited management advice about conflict entrepreneurs. You know who I’m talking about; the folks at your workplace who raise the temp instead of lowering it. Invite them to coffee.