The Grounded Learners Guild

Hey, guild members! We hope you are finding some time to relax. Cozy up as we bring back our minisode formatting and the acclaimed game we call “6 Degrees of Education:” Winter Wonderland Edition where you get the benefits of checking out a little bit while still having the opportunity to check in on fun, relevant topics. Today, we unpack the connections between what we know about education and le...

According to Egyptian novelist and pulitzer prize winner Naguib Mahfouz (nuh·geeb·maa·fooz) we can tell whether those around us are clever by their answers. However, we can tell if people are wise by the questions they ask. For anyone out there striving to embody that wisdom by having a mind full of good questions and solid questioning strategies, this is the episode for you!

Everyone knows the legend behind how Isaac Newton came up with the gravitational theory. He sat under an apple tree and the idea hit him - literally in the form of an apple. However, there is more to the story. The truth is at that moment, Newton asked a question based on his observation, and that question helped him and us explain so much of the Natural world. Scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs...

Surely if you’ve been a consumer of TV shows, you’ve noticed an ad here or there for a “crossover episode”: Buffy and Angel, Law & Orders, Chicago Fire/PD. There’s some excitement to creators bringing together two existing formats and adding a new element or two and seeing what happens! So welcome to the GLG’s first ever “crossover” combining one of our favorite topics with our favorite games - an...

Would Martin Luther King Jr. have made the same incredible mark on our society that he did if Rosa Parks had never boarded the bus? How would FDR’s effect on the landscape of the US have looked without the involvement of his indomitable partner Eleanor? Zooming in from nation-wide influence to focus in on who gets what done and how - in our teams, our schools, and our workforce...it’s time to exam...

You hear it every episode - one of the GLG’s missions is to give you real talk about “the transcendent power of being a part of a highly functioning team”. But part of being real and authentic about highly functioning teams is taking a long, hard look at the “dark mirror image”, the opposite side of a supportive, uplifting guild. It can be a tough subject to tackle, but tackle it we will. And to l...

For those of us who are educators, we are seeing growth in opportunities to engage in discourse, research and training on how to support our neurologically diverse students - and rightly so! But less common to encounter are conversations about how we can utilize what works for kids to widen the circle and help the adult learners in our systems too. Well, we’re going to have that conversation, righ...

“Which Hogwarts House do you belong in?” “What color palette best represents your personality?” “Choose a day’s worth of meals to find out which 80’s metal band you are!” What do all of these have in common? They all seek to help us answer the question: “Who am I?” or “Who are you?” Silliness and triviality of some of these options aside, people’s personalities are some of the most relevant puzzle...

Since the GLG typically records our episodes on Saturday Night, we felt we’d be remiss if we didn’t spend some time with America’s favorite Saturday Night entertainment  - SNL.  This show has brought decades’ worth of laughs, awkward celebrity moments, and has introduced us to countless comedy legends who got their start “Live from New York…” While crass humor and political commentary are often SN...

Love it or hate it, one of the staples of pop culture entertainment is reality TV. While prestige TV and quirky comedies are often our guild’s go-to’s, who among us hasn’t gotten “hooked” by a reality TV show at one point or another? No judgement here, but plenty of reality TV content to make connections. And unlike most competition reality shows, at least as far as I know, nobody’s getting voted...

“There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn’t that kind of the point?” - These are the final poignant words spoken by Pam Beesley-Halpert from one of the most well-known comedies on television- The Office. Almost all of us have bosses and coworkers, and thus relate to many of the situations depicted in the show to some degree. Finding humor and significance in the ordinary has made the show o...

Educators around the world do “whatever it takes” to empower the growth and learning of students. They do not have access to radioactive spiders like Spiderman, super soldier serum like Captain America, or billions in personal wealth like Iron Man- no, their super powers are found in their instructional expertise and ability to connect and build relationships with students. It’s true, not all supe...

It’s a rare movie that manages to strike a chord with most adults, but Mike Judge’s 1999 cult hit, Office Space managed to pull it off. The story of tech company office drone Peter Gibbons and his new found ability to “simply not care” about work somehow managed to reach across age and industry. The film seemed to empathize with working people on a much broader scale. Simply put, this IS the movie...

They are England’s biggest selling rock and roll export since the Beatles. They wrote 14 albums, 372 songs 53 top-40 singles, 6 of which hit #1. They are none other than Queen; reigninging as rock royalty from the mid ‘70s thru the 80s and into today. While legend and lead singer Freddy Mercury died in 1991, members of the band continue to tour with none other than Adam Lambert of American Idol fa...

While the pop culture connection that first bonded the guild together was Game of Thrones, we didn’t truly reach full nerd-out level status until we all discovered Dan and Eugene Levy’s masterpiece Schitt’s Creek. While each of us visited the Creek in our own time, we found ourselves folding in the cheese, resisting the urge to run away to Amish country, and longing to attend a barn party. You, to...

Hey all you cool cats & kittens! JK - Hey guild members! Thanks so much for popping by the summer pop culture playground for another round of six degrees of education. Around the time lock down and pandemic life was starting to become the “new normal”, the world was suddenly obsessed with big cats, mullets, and the eccentric backwater zoo owner Joe Exotic and his near-deadly feud with rival Carole...

In this week’s minisode at the Grounded Learners Guild Pop Culture Playground, we will be unpacking the connections between HBO’s epic political fantasy Game of Thrones, where kingdoms vie for power over one another for the coveted seat on the Iron Throne. And there are awesome dire wolves and dragons…

In a previous episode we’ve discussed how educators are designers, and that process is time consuming. Eventually, all designers will need to refuel. Some designers may choose the professional drive-thru - visiting Twitter, YouTube or TikTok for a quick tip or pick-me-up. But here’s a new thought to digest: will visiting the drive thru regularly lead to the intentional and continued growth we real...

There is a fifth dimension . . . It is vast and timeless and is the middle ground between productivity and fruitlessness...This is the dimension of isolation and it is an area which is called "The apathy Zone".  Apathy rears its ugliness when we feel constricted by a lack of feeling seen and safe at home, at work, and/or at school. When apathy strikes, we have reason to believe our efforts don’t m...

You set a grueling pace, stocked up on oxen, hunted deer and, yes, maybe even lost members of your wagon party to dysentery. We’ve come a long way from the days of “good old Oregon Trail”. Gamification as an instructional technique has stood the test of time and continues to evolve. Yet, there are always detractors who don’t always believe that games can lead to real, meaningful learning experienc...

Once upon a time, the circus was a word that implied only positives: excitement, amazement, and good old-fashioned family fun. Nowadays, though, when someone describes something as a “circus”, it’s not necessarily a compliment. It implies frenzy, sensationalism, or even stilted, theatrical “razzle dazzle”. Sadly, the concept of self care, at this precarious moment in time, has taken a similar turn...

Just over a year ago, we all got news that tremendously altered the way we all function from how we go about our daily routines to how we work as educators. The Covid19 pandemic has forced an incredible amount of change, which has led to a lot of discussion about it all: What’s helping? What’s harmful? What should we have been doing all along? And yet, amidst all this discussion... we’re pretty su...

For thousands of years stories have been used to capture and communicate our experiences as people. Stories increase our emotional investment in a topic, and the more emotional investment we have, the more likely we are to suspend disbelief, logic, objectivity, and observation. Now usually, when we discuss data, we need those we are working with to be logical, objective, and observant. However, be...

You disagree about your destination and the stops along the way. Everyone has different needs and ideas on the best way to get there, and not everyone wants to be along for the ride. Everyone has their own baggage. It took alot of organization to even get “out on the open road”, but you never feel like you are actually getting anywhere as someone always needs to stop.  When did you last experience...

We live in a society that says “nobody’s perfect”, but often portrays the exact opposite. Our world surrounds us with ads, images, and social media influencers that constantly remind us of what things “should” look like - a shining picture of perpetual self-improvement and success. This can make the moments where we experience failure feel incredibly isolating. But worry not, the GLG is here to do...