We marshal discoveries about human behavior and learning from
social science research and show how they can be used to improve
teaching and learning. The discoveries are easily stated as
three social science generalizations: (1) social connections
motivate, (2) teaching teaches the teacher, and (3) instant
feedback improves learning. We show how to apply these
generalizations via innovations in modern information technology
inside, outside, and across university classrooms. We also give
concrete examples of these ideas from innovations we have
experimented with in our own teaching. See also a video
presentation of this talk before the Harvard Board of Overseers
We offer the first large scale, multiple source analysis of the
outcome of what may be the most extensive effort to selectively
censor human expression ever implemented. To do this, we have
devised a system to locate, download, and analyze the content of
millions of social media posts originating from nearly 1,400
different social media services all ov