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This month's articles include:

• Listening to Learn (podcast)
• Episode 7: Empowering the Life-Long Learner: Moving Beyond "Just Doing"
• News from the Self-Growth Community
• Capability Rising: Self-Growth Community Explores a New Frontier in Human Development
• Self-Growth Tip: Plan for Spontaneity
• Targeting a Learning Skill
• Recognizing Contradictions
• Got Resolutions? Self-Growth is Your Superpower for Achieving Them
• Did You Know? We can customize our handbooks for YOUR use!
• Topics and Trends in Education
• FREE Webinar Series: Trump and Higher Ed: Understanding the Latest

Listen on...

For those of us dedicated to the craft of teaching, we know that the most profound growth occurs when we—and our students—stop "sleepwalking" through routines and start asking "why". In this episode of our podcast, we dive deep into the concept of metacognition, or "thinking about our own thinking". When we step back from the act of "just doing" to examine how and why we perform certain tasks, we fundamentally strengthen our capacity for growth.

Our discussion centers on a transformative framework: The Methodology for Generalizing Knowledge (MGK). We often see students struggle to apply what they have learned in one week to a new challenge the next, leading to the familiar refrain, "We've never seen this before!". This happens because knowledge remains "fragile" when it is tied to a single context. To counter this, the MGK provides a nine-step pathway to move from basic comprehension to working expertise, where knowledge can be transferred across any context at will.

In this episode, you will hear:

• The Parable of the Ham: A cautionary tale about how easily we inherit processes without understanding their purpose.
• The Buddha’s Boat: An exploration of why generalizing knowledge is superior to merely transferring it—learning how to build a boat for any river rather than carrying the same boat with you, just in case you need it again.
• The 9-Step Journey: A walkthrough of how to move learning from familiar contexts to totally unfamiliar ones. We use the practical example of Perla, who applies these steps to clothing repair to illustrate how shifting from simple mending to creative upcycling requires a grasp of underlying principles.
• The Power of Contextual Prompts: Insights into why high-quality problem solving depends on our ability to discern the "prompts" in a new situation that activate our existing knowledge.

As educators, our goal is to help learners move from "thinking they know" to "knowing they know" through rigorous metacognitive checks and self-assessment. Tune in to discover how you can use the MGK to ensure that the knowledge you share is never fragile, but is instead a versatile tool your students can use to navigate any "river" they may encounter.

Based on Chapter 13 of Learn to Learn for Success by Apple, Morgan, Hintze, & Woodbridge. Created with the help of Notebook LM.

What happens when you gather educators, professionals, and self-growers to probe one of the most transformative shifts in learning today? You get the January 6th Self-Growth Community sessions—two powerful conversations that delved into Beyond Knowing: Why Capability Is the New Currency of Human Development, a white paper co-authored by Dan Apple and David Leasure.

The white paper challenges long-standing assumptions about education and personal development, arguing that access to knowledge is no longer enough. In a world of instant AI responses and overwhelming information, capability —the internal infrastructure to reflect, perform, decide, realign, and grow—has evolved to be the most essential asset for thriving in complexity.

Across two sessions, participants wrestled with key questions:

• What exactly is the difference between competence and capability?
• How do we support faculty and learners in building these internal skills?
• What does capability-based development look like in real classrooms, leadership spaces, and coaching relationships?

In small group discussions, educators shared strategies for making growth visible and observable. Others explored how capability development might reshape assessment, instructional design, and even how students are taught to think about learning itself. Attention was given to distinguishing between capacity and capability—one being fixed, the other developmental—and how self-awareness, wisdom, and risk-taking play essential roles in real-world learning.

The takeaway? We’re not preparing learners to “know more.” We’re equipping them to “become more. And in doing so, we may be planting the seeds for a full redesign of our learning systems—from content delivery to capability empowerment.

The Self-Growth Community continues to be a proving ground for these ideas. As the Academy of Process Educators looks ahead to the 2026 conference, capability-building will be an important touchstone to integrate with the focus on learner-centered teaching.

The Catalyst: An Unexpected Guest

One of my New Year's Resolutions last year was to do one new thing every day. I had a list of new things planned and used a calendar to schedule them. And then one day, a woodpecker got inside the house. It flew around panicked as I tried, without success, to guide it toward an open door. Finally, it just landed on the floor and didn't move.

I carefully walked over to it and was able to gently pick it up and cup it in my hands, as I walked slowly to the open door. When I got there, I held it out and it flew away. That experience was something I'll never forget: I had never held a woodpecker in my hands, nor had I ever even rescued one. It was amazing and magical, and it blew away whatever else it was I had planned as the "new thing" for that day.

The Strategy: "Looking Up from the Map"

There is a major life lesson here: a lot of incredible life experiences—and opportunities for growth—cannot be planned. They are often a confluence of factors beyond our control, and we can choose to be there for them, appreciating how special they are.

Ready Yourself for the Unexpected

• Acknowledge the limits of planning: While much of your daily life is planned, recognize that it is possible to figure out how to be open to the unexpected and fleeting moments life hands you.
• Look up from your "map": Decide to let these unplanned moments count as much as the moments you have scripted or scheduled in your calendar or syllabus.
• Set your criteria: Decide ahead of time that you are willing to notice these moments, let them happen, and fully inhabit them when they arise.

To maintain this mindset, combine these two bits of wisdom to stay ready for what you didn't expect:

"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."

— John Lennon

"Life comes at you fast...blink and you may miss it."

— Ferris Bueller



Choosing to be present for these unanticipated moments is a recipe for a better and more magical quality of life.

Targeting a Learning Skill: Recognizing Contradictions

Teaching children to notice when something "isn't quite right" helps them build a strong logical foundation. While it can be challenging, these strategies make it enjoyable:

• Model "The Logic Check": Children learn by example, so when you see something that doesn't make sense (like a non-aquatic cartoon character breathing underwater without special gear), point it out. Say, "Wait a minute! How are they breathing air underwater?!”
  
• Use Gestures: Create a "Contradiction Cue". You might blink your eyes rapidly and open your eyes wide to signal seeing something unbelievable. The cue you choose should be fun to use so your little one can enjoy seeing it AND using it.
  
• The "Something’s Wrong" Game: Similar to "Simon Says," play a game where you state facts and include a "contradiction". For example, "The sun is hot, the grass is green, and ice is too hot to touch." The child has to catch the contradiction to win a point. Be sure to switch roles so the child can try to stump you!
  
• Open-Ended "What Ifs": Ask children what-if questions such as, "What would happen if gravity stopped working?" This pushes them to engage thoughtfully with fundamental principles and identify what would happen if the rules we usually rely on suddenly changed.

In the liberal arts, recognizing contradictions often involves identifying internal inconsistencies in texts, historical accounts, or philosophical arguments.



• The Anachronism Interview: Have one student take on the persona of a historical figure, such as Emily Dickinson or Churchill. Other students must interview them with the specific goal of "catching" the persona in a historical contradiction or anachronism.
  
• The Internal Consistency Debate: Instead of a standard debate, hold a moderated discussion where students analyze a specific character or author. The goal is to extract instances where a character’s actions violate their stated moral "schema" or principles.
  
• Perspective Role Playing: By taking on different personas, students practice the empathy required to see things from a different angle, making it easier to spot when a viewpoint contradicts itself.

In STEM settings, this skill is vital for spotting data errors or "impossible" results that violate the laws of nature.



• "The Glitch" Collaboration: As students work in teams to solve problems, have them switch papers to find "The Glitch"—a result that violates a core principle like the conservation of energy or a chemical property.
  
• Spot Modeling the Process: When an experiment fails, the instructor should intervene on the process rather than the content. Demonstrate how to "listen" to the data to see where it contradicts the hypothesis.
  
• Clients and Specifications: Play a game where the instructor acts as a "client" asking for a project that is physically or mathematically impossible (e.g., a perpetual motion machine). Students must use active listening and their knowledge of schemas to identify the contradiction in the client's request.

Our personal lives offer many low-stakes opportunities to practice identifying when things don't add up.



• The "Plot Hole" Watch Party: Watch a film or TV program with friends. Instead of just watching, play a game to see who can catch the most "plot holes"—instances where a character’s actions violate the established logic of the movie's world.
  
• The Skeptic’s Cinema: Watch a sci-fi or fantasy film and try to match the "movie science" against real-world body language or physical laws. Discuss which perspectives and motivations in the film feel authentic and which feel like a contradiction of human nature. You can have fun with discussions by sharing information found online from scientists’ critiques of how films depict science.
  
• Catch Your Own Bias: When interacting with friends, catch yourself when you find yourself being judgmental or ignoring a contradiction in your own logic. Work to understand the underlying principle instead.

We typically set New Years Resolutions to help us improve ourselves in some way.* When we set them, we typically don’t mean we just want to get better at performing some task, but to fundamentally change ourselves for the better. And that means engaging in some self-growth!

Remember what being a self-grower means:

Self- growers are life-long learners who are committed to success and show it through hard work, persistence, and belief in improving their capabilities. They seek challenges to develop self-growth such as taking risks to get outside their comfort zone, embracing failures, seeking feedback and using self-assessment. They prepare, engage, and collaborate, planning effectively and prioritizing in order to manage their time and resources. They develop and grow without limit to realize their life vision and potential.

If you want to see yourself in that description, then being a self-grower has to be the foundation for any other goals.

No matter what resolutions you’ve set for yourself for this year, think about them in light of being a self-grower. Let's see how that would work:

Let's say you resolved to work out regularly. As a self-grower, you would go at it from the perspectives of hard work, persistence, and belief that you can improve both at working out and at doing so consistently. You should take risks, step outside your comfort zone (but stretch first!), and embrace any failures as an opportunity to change your thinking or adjust your approach. Prepare, engage, and collaborate—work out with a friend!

Not only will this strategy of using "self-grower thinking" put you firmly on the path of making a better YOU, it will give you a variety of tools to help you meet (almost*) any resolution you set.

*I have a friend who has resolved to eat chocolate every day in 2026 because it makes him happy and the world in general is making him sad. I laughed when he shared his resolution but now I think he might be onto something. While the chocolate aspect might be amusing—he assures me it’s not and that chocolate is "a very serious matter"—the point is that he has committed to taking better care of his mental health. I'm proud of him. And slightly envious!

FREE Webinar Series

Trump and Higher Ed: Understanding the Latest

(from the Chronicle of Higher Education)

Sign up for free today and you’ll automatically be registered for all three new dates, taking place once a month January, February, and March.

Sarah Brown, The Chronicle’s news editor, and Rick Seltzer, author of the subscriber-only Daily Briefing newsletter, will tackle the most pressing issues in higher-ed policy, helping you stay informed and prepared for what’s ahead.

• Session 1: January 21 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
• Session 2: February 19 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT
• Session 3 (Audience Q&A): March 26 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT