Tag: TED talks

Zirtual LearningZ, May 9

ericryangrantLeave a comment

Time for a Thursday TEDTalk? This one’s good & short, I promise!

Angela Lee Duckworth was a schoolteacher. She wanted to do some learning of her own and set out to find out what made certain people successful.

The answer was one word.

Grit

Grit, it turns out, she found was the secret to success across the board.

Angela Lee Duckworth: The key to success? Grit

So what is grit? Well she answers with a few descriptions….

Grit is….

– passion and perserverance for very long-term goals
– having stamina
– sticking with your future day in and day out
– living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint

Check it out!!

How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries

ericryangrant1 Comment

One of the best learning experiences I’ve had in 7.5 minutes — both for its rundown of history and in the idea that we can frame difficult scientific quandaries in basic ways and still come to some understanding. These men just happened to come to magnificent understandings.

Mythbuster’s Adam Savage leads this wonderful Ted-Ed talk….

It reminds me of what Elon Musk answered in his most recent TED talk. When asked how he keeps coming up with these innovative ideas (Tesla Motors, SpaceX, Solar City) he says that he thinks back to the basic laws and assumptions of things (he uses Phyiscs as an example) and just begins to rethink them from the ground up.

The instruments and things of modernity are wonderful, but some great discoveries come just from breaking out of the logic we’re told to use constantly.