on Scrabble, French, and what it means to learn

19 January 2024 - kudos:

In the summer of 2015, New Zealander Nigel Richards won the French-language world Scrabble championships despite not speaking a word of French. I heard this story on a Radio Télévision Suisse news show repackaged as a podcast (probably Le 12h30, but I can’t remember exactly) and wrote myself a note that if I ever got a chance to teach a class on games and learning, I would use this story in it.

LIS 618 course mentioned in University of Kentucky news

4 August 2023 - kudos:

I love hearing from former students about the great and interesting things that they’re up to—and especially when something they learned in one of my classes helped them along the way. In my experience, former students who are up to great and interesting things would often be doing those things whether or not they had taken one of my classes, but I still appreciate feeling like my teaching contributed in some small way.

3 July 2023 - kudos:

After five years of teaching in an LIS program, I’ve finally had the moment I’ve been dreaming of: Running into a former student during a family trip to a local library.