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a short essay by Peter Stallybrass that appeared in the PMLA in 2007. Stallybrass’s article has the provocative title “Against Thinking,” and in it, he argues that we think too much and don’t work enough.

Thinking is boring, repetitious, and “indolent” (1583). On the other hand, working is “easy, exciting,” and “a process of discovery” (1583). Working is challenging.

a key insight that students and scholars alike need to be reminded of: tortured and laborious thinking does not automatically translate into anything of importance

collaborative construction, I mean a collective effort to build something new, in which each student’s contribution works in dialogue with every other student’s contribution

They are making it for each other, and, in the best scenarios, for the outside world

Creative analysis is the practice of discovering knowledge through the act of creation—through the making of something new

I ask the students to do something they find severely discomfiting: creating something new for which no models exist.

If I were to say what unites these various forms of building in my classroom, I might use the term “deformance

A combination of “performance” and “deform,” deformance is an interpretative concept premised upon deliberately misreading a text

As my students build—both collaboratively and creatively—they are also reshaping, and that very reshaping is an interpretative process. It is not writing, or at least not only writing. And it is certainly not only thinking. It is work, it has an audience, and it is something my students never expected.

simply try sitting amongst your students; it changes everything

Anytime, anywhere learning isn’t just about students going off and learning in their own time, it’s about finding ways of making the classroom a more dynamic space

The benefits of a flipped classroom are progressively recognized and relatively well-documented (Fulton, 2012; Bergmann & Sams, 2013; Bergmann 2011; Ash, 2012). In its ideal state, a flipped classroom can transform the learning experience of students. But this also means that students will need to commit close to two times the amount of time in official lessons for any given topic: once inside the classroom (lesson) and another at home watching the lesson presentation.

everyone has different levels of background knowledge—or what cognitive scientists refer to as “long-term memory.” What this means is that people bring different experiences or prior knowledge into any learning experience, which impacts how they will learn a concept.

targeting learning just above a student’s level such that it is not too easy or hard is critical to helping students be successful

the logic of personalizing learning and moving away from the current system that mandates the amount of time students spend in class, but does not expect each child to master learning.

today students do not in fact learn or master a common body of knowledge and skills at approximately the same time; they are merely taught them—which is far different from truly learning them.

Learning some things in common—of course not all things, but a strong foundation—is important

evidence seems to suggest that the achievement gap is exacerbated in the factory-model system when a student does not master a concept, develops holes in her learning, and the teacher just moves on to the next concept the next day.

when we move to a competency-based learning system concerned with rigor—in which students move on to new concepts only upon mastery (and there exists the notion of a minimum pace so students who are falling behind get more attention and gaps don’t grow too big)—

There are lots of notions and differing definitions of what personalized learning is, but when I, and many other disruptors use the phrase, we mean learning that is tailored to an individual student’s particular needs—in other words, it is customized or individualized to help each individual succeed.

Benjamin Bloom’s classic “2 Sigma Problem” study

by the end of three weeks, the average student under tutoring was about two standard deviations above the average of the control class.

The problem is that having a human tutor for each student is prohibitively expensive

blended learning is that we can gain the benefits of mass customization—many of the effects of a personal tutor in other words—without the costs.