The Effortful Educator, an 11th and 12th grade psychology teacher, outlines the research-based case…
Monthly Archives: October 2017
October-29-2017
Here’s a handy review of the effects that bright computer and tablet screens have on sleep. (Hint: they’re not helping.)
Author Viatcheslav Wlassoff concludes with a few simple hints on how to reduce the detrimental effects of screens on melatonin.
October-27-2017
Back in May, a brief flurry of articles rose up (here, here, and here) around the “Five Praises a Day Campaign,” which encourages parents of 2- to 4-year-olds to praise their children more often.
(The authors don’t claim that the number five is magic; they picked it to align with the well-known advice about “five fruits and vegetables a day.” They’re more interested in being sure that there’s enough praise; and “enough” will vary from child to child.)
I’m frankly surprised to read this advice, given all the recent concern about the self-esteem movement.
As you know, especially in the 1970s, researchers noticed a correlation between self-esteem and academic success (and lots of other good things). They concluded that we can help students learn by helping them feel good about themselves.
Voila: the Self-Esteem Movement.
Sadly, this advice confused correlation with causation. It turns out that academic success raises self-esteem (obvi), but high self-esteem doesn’t prompt academic success.
(Check out Baumeister and Tierney’s book Willpower — especially Chapter 9, “Raising Strong Children: Self-Esteem versus Self-Control — for the history and the research.)
While Baumeister argues that too much praise saps self-control, Carol Dweck has shown that the wrong kind of praise fosters a fixed mindset and imperils a growth mindset.
For instance, Mueller and Dweck’s 1998 study shows that praising a student’s ability or intelligence leads to all sorts of unfortunate consequences. It even encourages them to lie to demonstrate their success!
Rejoinders, and Re-Rejoinders
While championing the 5 Praises campaign, Carole Sutton does acknowledge these concerns. First:
Dweck (2007) has highlighted the pitfalls of allowing children to expect unwavering approval, especially when this is directed towards their intelligence rather than their effort. She is right: these pitfalls exist. However, we are concerned here with very young children, those below the age of five and primarily with their behaviour, rather than their intelligence or physical attributes.
And second:
Other critics, such as Baumeister, Hutton and Cairns (1990), have demonstrated that giving praise to skilled practitioners has the effect of undermining those skills, not enhancing them. However, we are concerned here with very unskilled practitioners indeed, namely, toddlers learning to walk, to feed themselves, to toilet themselves, to dress themselves and to develop a sense of competence and self worth.
My first concern with these explanations is that they’re actually quite hard to find. Neither the Time article nor the ScienceDaily.com post — which I linked to above — nor even the press release touting a 5 Praises lecture, mentions them.
I found them on the last page of a document that’s downloadable at the very end of a university web page.
My second concern is that they’re not very persuasive.
Sutton, for example, says that the 5 Praises advice focuses on behavior — not intellect or ability — for young children. However, Dweck’s research makes clear that fixed and growth mindsets influence all ages, and a great many human attributes.
For example, I might say to a 3-year-old: “That was very good–you remembered to say “excuse me” before you asked a question!”
Or, I might say: “That was very good–you’re such a polite boy!”
Both of those compliments focus on behavior. The first compliment, however, fosters a growth mindset by emphasizing what the child is doing; the second promotes a fixed mindset by emphasizing what kind of person the child is.
To Sum Up
To be clear: I’m in favor of praise. At the same time, we’ve got lots of research showing that the kind of praise and the reasons for praise matter a lot–more than simply the amount of praise. Praising children more won’t necessarily lead to good results, even if they eat all five of their fruits and vegetables.
October-26-2017
I write a lot about working memory on this blog. If you’d like a quick overview of its characteristics and development, here’s a handy link.
October-25-2017
Because technology is everywhere, anecdotes about technology abound. Almost everyone in your school has opinions — strong opinions! — about the effect that technology has on learning.
If we move past anecdotes, what does the research show?
For all sorts of reasons, researching technology in education is tricky to do. (For one thing: by the time a particular innovation has been researched, it’s most likely out of date.)
The National Bureau of Education Research has done a heroic job of surveying quality research, and they’ve reached four conclusions:
First: especially in K-12 classrooms, simply adding technology doesn’t consistently increase learning. Unsurprisingly, students get better at learning the technology. Whether they get better at learning the academic content, however, is much less clear.
Second: “computer-assisted learning” has shown real promise. When students solve math problems on a computer, and find out right away whether or not they got the right answer — and why — their learning clearly benefits.
Third: “behavioral nudges” by text reminders (for example) do have a measurable effect. And, they’re really inexpensive.
Fourth: “relative to courses with some degree of face-to-face teaching, students taking online-only courses may experience negative learning outcomes” (88-89). That’s research speak for online courses don’t (yet) help students learn as well as physically-present-and-breathing teachers do.
If your school is pursuing technology zealously, it might be worth your while to contribute the $5 at the link above to get the full report.
October-23-2017
MEDIA ADVISORY
October 23, 2017
Contact:
Kristin Dunay
(781)-449-4010 x 104
MERGING MINDS & TECHNOLOGY: TRANSFORM SCHOOLS WITH NEUROSCIENCE, ROBOTS, MAKERSPACES, AND VIRTUAL REALITY
| WHAT: |
Neuroscience and technology are merging to transform schools, eliminating rows of desks, teacher-centered instruction, and bored students. The learning sciences, including cognitive neuroscience, are merging with teaching and technology for evidence-based curriculum and assessments; with virtual reality games to improve student engagement and learning experiences; with robotics to teach coding and create future ready students; and with gaming, makerspaces, and classroom redesign to transform classrooms into engaging, collaborative, learning spaces.
Next month, a distinguished group of cognitive scientists, psychologists and innovative educators will gather before 1,000 educators at the Learning & the Brain® Conference in Boston, MA, to examine how to transform schools, classrooms, and curricula for the future, and increase student engagement by merging neuroscience, augmented and virtual realities, robotics, makerspaces and classroom redesign. |
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| SPONSORS: | The program is co-sponsored by several organizations including the Integrated Learning Initiative at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Neuro-Education Initiative at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, the Mind, Brain, and Education Program at Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Comer School Development Program at the Yale University School of Medicine, Neuroscape, University of California, San Francisco, the Neuroscience Research Institute at University of California, Santa Barbara, The Dana Foundation’s Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, the International Society for Technology in Education, the Learning & the Brain Foundation and both national associations of elementary and secondary school principals. The event is produced by Public Information Resources, Inc. | ||
| FACULTY: |
Pioneer of social robotics and human-robot interaction Cynthia L. Breazeal, ScD, will present “The Rise of Personal Robots in Classrooms: Implications for Education” during a keynote on Friday, November 10. Dr. Breazeal, author of Designing Sociable Robots (2002), will present research that develops and examines the use and impact of social robots in Pre-K and kindergarten classrooms to foster early literacy skills. Dr. Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Founder and Director of the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab. In addition to Dr. Breazeal, the program features some other leading experts on technology and the learning sciences including: Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, Director, Neuroscape; Professor of Neurology, Physiology, and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco; Co-Founder and Chief Science Advisor, Akili Interactive Labs; Creator of VR games, such as Engage, NeuroRacer, and the Glass Brain, a 3D brain visualization that combines neuroimaging technologies of MRI and EEG to display personalized, real-time brain activity while learning; Host, PBS special “The Distracted Mind with Dr. Adam Gazzaley”; Co-Author, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World (2016) Daniel T. Willingham, PhD, Cognitive Scientist; Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia; Blogger, Science and Education Blog; Writer, “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” column for American Educator; Associate Editor, Mind, Brain, and Education Journal; Author, The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads (2017), Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do (2015), When Can You Trust the Experts? (2012), Why Don’t Students Like School? (2010), and “Have Technology and Multitasking Rewired How Students Learn?” (2010, American Educator)
Eric D. Klopfer, PhD, Professor; Director, Scheller Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Co-Faculty Director, J-WEL World Education Lab; Co-Founder and Past President, Learning Games Network; Author, Augmented Learning: Research and Design of Mobile Educational Games (2008); Co-Author, Resonant Games (Forthcoming), The More We Know (2012), and Adventures in Modeling: Exploring Complex, Dynamic Systems with StarLogo (2001)
Heidi Hayes Jacobs, EdD, Creator, Curriculum21; Founder and President, Curriculum Designers, Inc.; Co-Author, Bold Moves for Schools: How We Create Remarkable Learning Environments (2017); Author, Active Literacy Across the Curriculum: Connecting Print Literacy with Digital, Media, and Global Competence, K-12 (2017), and Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World (updated 2014); Author/Editor, Mastering Digital Literacy (2014), Mastering Global Literacy (2013), and Leading the New Literacies (2013)
Jonathan Bergmann, MAEd, Co-Founder, Flipped Learning Network; Flipped Learning Pioneer; Former Lead Technology Facilitator, Joseph Sears School, Chicago, IL; Author, Solving the Homework Problem by Flipping the Learning (2017); Co-Author, Flipped Learning: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty (2017), Flipped Learning for Elementary Instruction (2016), and Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day (2012) |
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| WHEN: | Friday, November 10 – Sunday, November 12. Conference begins 1:00 PM. General registration is $599 through November 3 and $619 after November 3. Contact Kristin Dunay at 781-449-4010 x 104 for media passes. | ||
| WHERE: | Westin Copley Place, Boston, MA | ||
October-23-2017
“Empathy can motivate kindness to individuals that makes the world better.” Paul Bloom, the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology at Yale University, asserts this emphatically. Yet, Bloom makes a compelling case for reducing our reliance on empathy in order to achieve fairness and kindness. Bloom’s Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion will be of interest to those seeking to develop their own moral muscles and to those interested in helping others cultivate the social emotional skills they need to foster a kinder world. Bloom argues that empathy, or feeling or experiencing what another person feels or experiences, on the whole makes us less caring and just, and more parochial, short-sighted, and insensitive to the scope of human suffering. Deliberative decision-making is the best path forward for cultivating a more compassionate world.
Bloom is clear to state that he is not against goodness and kindness. In fact, he is interested in bringing about more of these qualities through less empathy. He argues that like a spotlight directing our visual attention to one area at the near exclusion of others, empathy directs our emotional attention to an issue while reducing our ability to discern who needs help the most and what the consequences of our attempts to help may be. Our empathic capacities are limited; we can only empathize with a few people at a time, and we are more likely to empathize with those similar to us. Too much empathy can paralyze one from acting to change the circumstances of the object of empathy.
Bloom provides several examples of empathy-motivated actions that were illogical or counter-productive, e.g., after the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the city received so many toy donations (often from people less affluent than the residents of Newtown) that storing all the toys became burdensome. On a smaller scale, if parents were to feel all the time what their children felt they would be less motivated to get their children to do things that are good for them in the long-run but unpleasant in the short-term, such as receiving medical shots. He argues that understanding what others think or feel can be valuable, but actually experiencing those feelings is rarely beneficial, or at a minimum not as beneficial as being able to demonstrate compassion, self-control, and reason. On a neural level, feeling empathy has been associated with activity in some of the same brain areas as those involved in experiencing a given emotional state for oneself. For example, the anterior insula activates when a person experiences pain and disgust and when the person experiences empathy for another person’s pain and disgust. Although the magnitude of activation is larger for one’s own experience than an empathic experience, Bloom argues that it would be better not to have the empathic experience in the first place.
Individuals vary in their levels of empathic ability, and different circumstances will lead individuals to exercise empathic skills to varying degrees. Regardless of one’s ability or propensity for empathizing, empathy will only make another person’s experience salient; it will not make an individual more moral. For example, people induced to empathize with a sick child were more likely than those not induced to do so to decide to give that child preferential treatment at the expense of sicker children—an unfair decision. Empathy can even motivate violence and cruelty, when for example, a group goes to war to avenge the wrong inflicted upon someone with whom the group empathizes. Empathy is not what motivates our care for others; rather our concern for others stems from an abstract, reasoned recognition that regardless of how we feel about those others, their lives have value. Bloom argues, “it’s only when we escape from empathy and rely instead on the application of rules and principles or a calculation of costs and benefits that we can, to at least some extent, become fair and impartial.”
While this call for rational compassion might promote justice and morality overall, many might suspect that within the context of intimate relationships empathy is still valuable. Indeed, Bloom acknowledges that before he was completely “against empathy”, he believed it had value in one-on-one relationships. Now, however, he argues that even in intimate relationships empathy is not beneficial. If one has too much of it, one can get overly involved in the lives of his loved ones, which ultimately hurts both parties and damages the relationship. Compassion, not empathy, makes us better partners, parents, and friends.
All in all, Bloom concludes that the negatives of empathy outweigh its positives and that while reason is not sufficient for being a good and moral person, in general, the more reasoned, rational, and self-regulated one is the better.
Bloom, P. (2016). Against empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. New York, NY: Harper-Collins.
October-21-2017
When we walk into a classroom, especially an early learning or elementary school one, manipulatives are almost always within reach. Look to your left, and notice the group of children spinning the hands on a pretend clock, trying to figure out what 6:30 should look like. Glance to you right, and watch the students sort pretend money into the dollar slots of a dinging cash register. And peer over your shoulder, as students use square, circle, and triangle magnets to create geometric worlds on a magnetic easel.
In a previous article, I discussed some of the cognitive research on problem-solving and decision-making. And while that piece focuses primarily on how conscious and unconscious thoughts make sense of questions and choices, this article turns to another important aspect of problem-solving: classroom manipulatives.
How do physical objects help us make sense of questions and concepts?
Manipulatives in Mathematics
Manipulatives are a type of symbol that can take nearly any form. One of the most common types of manipulatives that we may come across are base-10 blocks; small foam squares that can be combined and separated to help students understand basic math concepts (e.g., addition). Other common manipulatives in the classroom include pretend money, model buildings, and modeling clay.
Now, fiddling with manipulatives can be pretty enjoyable; but, as a learning tool, they come with a fair amount of controversy. This is especially so with mathematics manipulatives.
The more traditional school of thought tends to suggest that manipulatives help children learn math by reducing the abstractness of math problems. [1] They do this by substituting mathematical symbols with concrete objects. For example, the symbolic character “3” can be represented with three blocks. And if you toss in another three blocks, you’ve represented both the concept of addition and “6”.
But, more recent arguments have asserted that manipulatives can only really promote mathematics learning when teachers assist children in understanding the symbolic relation between physical objects and the math concepts they represent. The dual-representation hypothesis posits that when children perceive manipulatives as only being objects (e.g., a single base-10 block as just a squishy square), it is challenging to understand their relation to the mathematical expression they represent (e.g., the number one).
Style vs. Substance
One study that demonstrated just how tricky manipulatives can be investigated the ways in which elementary school students used pretend money when solving math word problems. [2]
First, fourth, and sixth grade students were asked to complete ten world problems that involved money. Half of the participating students received manipulatives: realistic bills and coins along with the suggestion that these materials could be used to help solve the problems. The other half of the students did not receive any manipulatives.
At all grades, the students who did not have access to the manipulatives performed better on the word problems than the students who did. Access to the pretend money actually appeared to interfere with students’ accuracy.
But why?
In a second experiment, fifth grade students were asked to complete ten more word problems. This time, the students were assigned to one of three manipulatives conditions:
- realistic, perceptually rich bills and coins
- bland bills and coins
- no physical manipulatives
The students were also asked to show their work on their answer sheets. This allowed the researchers to analyze students’ incorrect answers to determine whether they made conceptual or computational errors.
The researchers found that the students who used the perceptually rich pretend money made more errors than both the children who used the bland money and the children who did not use manipulatives.
The students who used the bland money performed at the same level as the students who had no access to the manipulatives.
Further, when analyzing the pattern of errors made by students in each condition, it appeared that strategy selection was influenced by the students’ access to the perceptually rich money. Compared to the students in the other two conditions, students in the perceptually rich condition were more likely to select a particular strategy (such as multiplication or division) that often resulted in an incorrect answer.
However, even though these students made more errors overall, their written work indicated that their conceptual understanding of the word problems was the strongest of the three groups.
Thus, there appears to be somewhat of a trade-off when using manipulatives. While these materials can help students relate their learning to real-world experiences, as well as promote conceptual understandings, perceptually rich manipulatives may distract children–and that distraction ultimately results in computational errors.
Two Sides to Every Coin
Interestingly, although research suggests that physical manipulatives can be distracting in a not-so-good way, it also seems that symbols can sometimes distract in a not-so-bad way.
This finding has been shown in preschoolers who participate in the Less is More task. In this tricky game, children must point to a small tray holding two candies in order to receive a larger tray with five candies. To succeed, children must inhibit their urge to point to the tray with more candies on it when asked which one they would like.
Given that young children generally have difficulty inhibiting themselves under such conditions, one study asked whether variations of the Less is More task might reduce the affective component of the game through symbolic distancing. [3] That is, would three year olds’ performance on the task improve if the large and small quantities of candy were represented by something else?
Children were randomly assigned to one of four conditions:
- the traditional representation of smaller and larger quantities of candies (real treats)
- rocks representing the candies, with children shown one-to-one correspondence between the rocks and candies (i.e., if children chose the tray with two rocks, they got five candies)
- arrays of dots to represent the candies without one-to-one correspondence (i.e., one set of dots was larger than the other, but the number of dots was not the same as the number of candies)
- one picture of mice and one picture of an elephant to represent small and large rewards, respectively
It turned out that the preschoolers’ performance on the mouse/elephant condition was significantly better than on the real treat condition. In other words, children more often pointed to the mice (small symbol) in order to get the elephant (large reward) than they did the two candies (small quantity) in order to get the five candies (large quantity).
Performance on both the mouse/elephant condition and the dots condition were significantly better than the real-treat and rock conditions. It appears, then, that the use of symbols can also distract in a helpful way. In particular, symbols with greater psychological distance from their referent (i.e., the mouse and elephant seem less related to the candies than the one-to-one corresponding rocks do) can reduce the emotional component of the Less is More task.
With this buffer from the emotional temptation of the larger tray of candies, children seem better able to inhibit their instinct to point to it.
Use ‘Em or Lose ‘Em
Despite the controversy that surrounds manipulatives and symbolic reasoning, most researchers seem to agree that there is a time and a place for each. And, most certainly, each has its own learning curve.
In order for manipulatives to be beneficial, researchers generally suggest that teachers:
a) should strive to explicitly connect the manipulatives to the concepts they represent; and
b) should select objects that easily allow children to understand their relation to concepts.
For example, the best math manipulatives tend to be objects that are only used for math learning (e.g., base-10 blocks); are not particularly interesting or familiar; and possess an internal structure that explicitly represents the relevant math concept.
But, when aiming to distract from emotionally-charged situations, symbols that seem unrelated to the emotionally charged object or event generally set students (especially young children) up for success.
References:
[1] Uttal, D. H., Scudder, K. V., & DeLoache, J. S. (1997). Manipulatives as symbols: A new perspective on the use of concrete objects to teach mathematics. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 18, 37-54.
[2] McNeil, N. M., Uttal, D. H., Jarvin, L., & Sternberg, R. J. (2009). Should you show me the money? Concrete objects both hurt and help performance on math problems. Learning and Instruction, 19, 171-184.
[3] Carlson, S. M., Davis, A. C., Leach, J. G. (2005). Less is more: Executive function and symbolic representation in preschool children. Psychological Science, 16, 609-616.
October-20-2017
If you have a chance, I highly recommend reading The Distracted Mind — especially if you’ll be attending the upcoming conference.
Authors Adam Gazzaley (a neuroscientist) and Larry D. Rosen (a psychologist) explain our current difficulties with attention by looking at — hold on to your hat — foraging theory. If that sounds crazy, let me explain…
Imagine you’re a squirrel foraging for nuts in a particular tree. How long should you spend in this tree, and when should you head out for a neighboring tree?
The answer depends, in brief, on two variables: the richness of the tree you’re in, and the distance to the next tree. If you’re in a particularly nutty tree, you’re likely to stay longer. If another tree is quite nearby, you’re tempted to make the leap sooner than if it were far away.
Gazzaley and Rosen argue that humans are information foragers. We are a curious bunch, and we constantly want to know more: information relevant to our survival, information about people who are close to us, information topics that pique our interest. (Deflate-gate anyone?)
In this framework, technology distracts us so much because it makes information available to us constantly. The cell phone in your pocket is like an oak tree moving closer and closer to a squirrel.
(Gazzaley and Rosen joke that a text message ping is like a tree throwing a nut at a squirrel to say, “Hey! Come forage over here!”)
They support this argument with several chapters detailing the psychological and neurobiological functions behind our attentional systems; they also map the practical effects that these distractions have on learning and on life.
G&R conclude with two chapters of solutions. While their ideas here aren’t revolutionary, the foraging framework they offer helps clarify how and why each of these strategies might improve our concentration and cognition.
By the way: The Distracted Mind is written with admirable clarity. It doesn’t dumb down the science, and it remains lively, clear, and well-organized.
October-18-2017
Here’s a headline to get your attention: Action video games decrease gray matter, study finds.
The article opens with this alarming sentence:
“A new study suggests that playing action video games can be detrimental to the brain, reducing the amount of gray matter in the hippocampus.” [emphasis mine, ACW]
We have a number of reasons to be curious about this claim.
Primarily, researchers have debated one another with vehemence–and occasional vitriol–on the benefits and detriments of action video games–such as Call of Duty. This article seems to be an interesting addition to that debate.
The article itself is behind a paywall, but you can read the abstract here. Let me quote the first and last sentence of the abstract:
“The hippocampus is critical to healthy cognition, yet results in the current study show that action video game players have reduced grey matter within the hippocampus. [… ]
These results show that video games can be beneficial or detrimental to the hippocampal system depending on the navigation strategy that a person employs and the genre of the game.” [emphasis mine, ACW]
So, does this research show that video games can be detrimental to the hippocampus, as the article’s first sentence claims? Yes, it does.
But, as my highlighting makes clear, it also shows that video games can be beneficial to the hippocampal system.
In other words: the article’s scary headline — and several of its subsequent statements — mischaracterize the underlying article.
After all, if I wrote an article claiming that Leonardo diCaprio is the best and the worst actor of his generation, and you summarized my article with the headline “Watson calls DiCaprio This Generation’s Worst Actor,” you’d be technically correct, but substantively misleading.
You can’t just leave out half of the argument.
To be fair: the study itself is quite complex. It distinguishes, first, between action video games — like Call of Duty — and 3D video games — like SuperMario. It further distinguishes between two strategies that players use to navigate those games.
SuperMario-like games are beneficial to hippocampal gray matter whichever navigation strategy players use. For Call-of-Duty-like games, the benefit or detriment depends on the navigational strategy.
The Lesson for Teachers to Learn
I believe that we, as teachers, must increasingly inform our classroom practice with research from neuroscience and psychology. We should know, for instance, whether or not action video games do bad things to the brain.
(When I spoke with parents at a school in New York just two weeks ago, I got that very question.)
If we’re going to rely on scientific research, however, we need to hone our scientific skepticism skills.
For me, here’s rule number one: ALWAYS READ THE ABSTRACT.
If a book or a speaker or an article make a research-based claim, get the primary source and read the abstract–that’s the first paragraph that summarizes the key points of the study.
(It’s usually very easy to find the abstract: use Google Scholar.)
When you read the abstract, you can see right away whether or not the speaker, article, or book summarized the research correctly–or at least plausibly.
In this case, you can easily see that the article mischaracterized half of the the researchers’ conclusions. So, as a newly-minted skeptic, you know what to do: look elsewhere. This source isn’t strong enough to use as a resource for making school decisions.
(BTW: I have reached out to the website that published this summary. As of today–October 4–they’re sticking to their claims. If they make changes, I’ll update this post.)
Next Steps
If you’d like to hone your skepticism skills, you might check out the TILT curriculum at The People’s Science–developed by Stephanie Sasse (former editor of this blog) and Maya Bialik (former writer for this blog; speaker at the upcoming LatB Conference).