Create Moments of Joy: Listen to Music

By Angelica Ribeiro, PhD

“Should you listen to music more often?” The answer is yes, and here’s why: to create moments of joy. Kelly McGonigal, author of The Joy of Movement, says, “Listening to music that you love is one of the simplest ways to produce joy.” What’s impressive is that the benefits of joy go beyond making you feel good. According to McGonigal, “Joy also affects things like your motivation.

Macmillan Learning’s Susan Winslow to Give Inaugural Michael Sullivan Lecture on Textbook and Academic Authoring

Susan Winslow, from Macmillan Learning, has been selected to give the inaugural Michael Sullivan Lecture on Textbook & Academic Authoring as Opening Keynote at the 2024 TAA Conference on Textbook & Academic Authoring in Nashville, TN June 21-22. Her presentation, “The Very Human Experience of Learning,” will dig deep into the moments that make learning special: the emotions, the bonds we form, the aha! moments, and those big motivations that stick with us for life.

As AI becomes a bigger part of education, we can’t forget that at its core, learning is a human thing. It’s all about finding the right mix of tech and touch. The session will help us to understand the different ways to blend modern tech with the timeless human side of learning to help engage and inspire students.

Write to Your Passion

When I completed my doctoral journey in 2007, I had the opportunity to write for publication. And soon, I realized that there was a unique interest from readers in my sharing ‘from the heart’ about my field of discipline, educational leadership. I began what has become a long series of books on the fascinating world of school leadership—and through the eyes of principals and other educators down in the trenches. Many of these projects have been co-authored or co-edited, as I have found others who have lived the work have such interesting stories and insights to share.

2/21 TAA Webinar on Navigating Your Writing Process

Do you ever find yourself writing in circles, struggling with decision fatigue or a lack of purpose in your scholarly writing? Do you wish you had a structure for your writing process that felt expansive and flexible enough to account for the complexities of scholarship creation?

Join us Wednesday, February 21 from 1-2 p.m. ET for a one-hour webinar, Navigating Your Writing Process as a Purposeful QuEST. Margy Thomas, PhD, of ScholarShape will walk you through the simple yet powerful QuEST framework as a way of structuring your writing projects in any genre.

Navigating Writing with ChatGPT

Utilising ChatGPT as a supporting technological tool for writing can increase productivity. Here, I will share my personal experience with the model; how it assisted my writing practice, and the issues writers must be aware of.

ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI. It generates human-like responses to questions and performs other language-related tasks based on training data, mainly from the Internet. Its ability to use language, process data and arrive at conclusions has made it one of the top technological developments in 2023 globally. Here are four ways to utilize ChatGPT in your writing process:

Choosing a Knowledge Level for Your Target Reader

Your research is done. You have been thinking about getting down to writing for a while. You have decided on your format (e.g., poster presentation, peer review journal article, monograph, textbook). Maybe you have a target publisher or website in mind.

Before you start to write, think about your target reader (or conference attendee or book customer) and what their level of knowledge is. This may seem like a given but take a moment.