I create effective, scalable educational programs. I want them to help people make better decisions, become more empathic, and more effective in their work (esp. their research). Iām an awarded educator, receiving national awards, international senior fellowships, and the highest honour from my university. I also have a strong academic research background: Iām Chief Investigator on $3.7m of competitive, industry-partnered research grants; have published in the Scimago #1 journals for psychology, applied psychology, ageing, paediatrics, education (three times, see #1, #2, #3), and sport science (twice, see #1 & #2); and my work is cited almost 4x the world average (according to InCites; all data as of June 2021).
Michael Noetel šø
Karma: 671
Help to Shape AusĀtraliaās Plan to Prevent Pandemics
InĀtroĀducĀing the EffecĀtive AltruĀism AusĀtralia EnĀviĀronĀment Fund (EAAE)
Just wanted to +1 the appreciation for all your work over the years JJ
What we learned from trainĀing EA comĀmuĀnity memĀbers in faĀcilĀiĀtaĀtion skills
Thanks to all who attended this event. Such a great turnout. For more information about EAAE, or to donate, go to http://āāeaa.org.au/āāenvironment
my pledge pin is my most expensive possession I own...
Omg Iād never done those maths š¬
Have your say on the AusĀtralian GovernĀmentās AI Policy [BrisĀbane]
EffecĀtive AltruĀism UQ WinĀter Fellowship
EffecĀtive AltruĀism AusĀtralia EnĀviĀronĀment x EA UQ: SupĀportĀing EffecĀtive CliĀmate CharĀiĀties from Australia
Good video Peter. Agree itās a good introduction for a wide audience. Thanks for signal boosting.
SeekĀing feedĀback on a MOOC draft plan: Skills for DoĀing Good Better
Thank you!
I popped this script in via email a few weeks ago but didnāt get confirmation of receipt. I know itās been a crazy few weeks so no need to review. Still, do you mind confirming whether itās āinā or whether the contest is closed?
Thank you for sharing this project. It looks great. A few minor comments and ideas. Wordpress is very flexible but requires lots of plugins to interface with each other for many functions to work. Consider chatting to Aqeel or JJ Hepburn from Sangro/āAI Safety Support who recently used wordpress for a learning management system to see how they found it. Consider also using an existing platform with more pre-built features (e.g., Thinkific) where cross-compatibility might be less painful (see our uni EA fellowship site). At least at the start, these help projects like this get off the ground more easily. Most projects add their bells and whistles later.
My PhD student is doing a thesis very close to this project. Sheās trying to accelerate knowledge translation in developing countries. Our hypothesis, like yours, is that online learning will rapidly and cost-effectively close the research-practice gap.
The first study in her thesis is a systematic review of randomised trials using online learning in healthcare. We want to know how well online learning teaches professionals, and how well the training helps people translate it into practice. Sheās aiming to find what features help the interventions work better. If youāre interested in the review, sheās looking for team members. Being a team member means you learn the results much more quickly and become an author on the paper, which can be good for credibility. If you want to find out more, email me at noetel [at] gmail.com or send me a message on the forum.
Her second study is a cost-effectiveness analysis of an online nursing intervention. Her third study is a series of interviews in LMICs to see how professionals from those countries feel about online learning. It sounds pretty well aligned with the kind of scoping your team is doing. If youād be interested in the findings of a study like that, and possibly have some contacts from healthcare in LMICs, then again weād be interested in collaborating (email me). She could run the interviews but you might find the results valuable.
I really like this framing Gideon. It seems aligned with CEAās Core EA principles. Iād love EA to be better at helping people learn skills. One of our working drafts for an EA MOOC focuses more on the those core principles and skills. Is something like this work-in-progress closer to what you had in mind?
Could Nonlinear Library or Perrin Walker do audio versions of these articles? š
Ahhh! Yes, thanks. Fixed.
So in education āagencyā is often defined as āagentic engagementāābasically taking ownership over your own learning. I couldnāt find any good systematic reviews on interventions that increase agentic engagement. This is pretty weak evidence and might have a healthy dose of motivated reasoning (my end, and theirs), but people who have thought about agency for longer than I have seem to think...
In conclusion, the answer as to how teachers can support studentsā agentic engagement is to adopt a significantly more autonomy-supportive classroom motivating style.
ā¦ so I donāt have any better ideas than those described above.
Thanks for taking the time to add these really useful observation, Seb.
One downside to this approach is that it might lead to Goodharting and leading the teacher to go in āexploitationā mode. E.g., I worry that I might become too attached to a specific outcome on behalf of the students and tacitly start to persuade (similar to some concerns expressed by Theo Hawkins) and/āor neglect other important opportunities that might emerge during the program. How do you think of that risk?
Itās been a while since I read Theoās post so I might be missing the mark here. I agree both explore and exploit are important, especially for young people. I havenāt thought deeply about this but my intuition says āif itās also important to x, be explicit that you have multiple goals.ā For example, to use ācreate personal theory of changeā via Future Academy is the goal, you might also want people to ācreate tentative career plans for 5 distinct careersā, or ādevelop connections so you have 3 people you could call to ask for career adviceā. Sure the latter isnāt a ālearning objectiveā and it might be better un-said. Still, I think a generally good way of goodharting might be using multiple goals or criteria for success.
2. Can you say anything about what forms summative assessments are particularly useful? For Future Academy, weāre contemplating pitching project ideas or presentation and discussion of career plans
The word that comes to mind is to make it āauthentic.ā Basically, make it as close as possible to the real world skill you want people to do. This is rare. Universities expect critical thinking, creativity, and communication, but use recall-based multiple-choice questions. Iāve seen essays and reflections to assess interpersonal skills, instead of videos or presentations. Pitching project ideas and presenting career plans sounds well above average. If I had to nit-pick, Iāve never āpresented my career plansā, so to make it slightly closer to something people might do anyway would be āwrite a grant application.ā
I think thereās a typo under 3a. (āFormative assessmentsā ā> formative activities)?
Both are things. I should have clarified it. Formative assessments are formative activities that count toward a grade or completion status. As mentioned by another commenter, low-stakes quizzes are helpful for providing feedback and accountability to learners, but better fit university courses than fellowships etc.
I worry about this being true for on average for average university students and might not generalize to the subpopulation that some portion of community-building efforts is targetted towards (e.g., people who are in the 90th percentile on various domains, including openness to experience, conscientiousness, need-for-cognition, etc.). How worried are you about this?
This is an important question. I donāt think I know yet how big a problem this is (as I said, people should reach out if they want to work on it). One of the benefits of having worked in sport and performance psychology is that it mostly focuses on people in the top 1ā5% of their field. As far as I can tell, the core principles underlying most of the above (psychological needs; deliberate practice; cognitive load limits) still apply to those people. You do need to calibrate the challenge to the person. People in the top 5% are going to be bored if you spend 10 hours explaining a t-test. So, Iām sure some things donāt generalise perfectly, but I think thatās more likely to be the specific techniques (e.g., āuse quizzesā) than the mechanisms (e.g., āprovide feedbackā).
ā¦ being generally good people (or virtuous) in addition to the unique virtues you mentioned appears important as we have some research showing that this might be off-putting. Finally, same-race role-models appear to be particularly important.
Yeah I didnāt go into this much so itās a good pickup. Both are useful to remember.
Thanks for the support Ben. I love what giving multiplier are doing and we entertained the idea down here but we have more restrictive charity regranting laws down here. My understand is that giving multiplier can basically just forward re-grants to the donorās target, but our read of the Aussie legislation is that weād need to formally partner with every charity that a donor would want to choose.
Our strategy for marketing to non-EAs is to partner with Giving Green to support a Manager of Climate Giving for Giving Green Australia. Basically, we work closely with Jack whoās job is to both evaluate Australian options but also to market and fundraise around effective climate giving in Australia. Weāre also planning to hire a fundraiser and marketer for EAA.