An educator’s guide to creating space for project-based learning in your courses — I am a big fan of projects, as it is a strong way to blend academic knowledge with learning from experience to purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection. Project-based Learning or PBL, as advocated by The Buck Institute for Education, has come to be associated with…

How to change your perspective, intentionally — Somewhere in 2014, my mindset changed from either/or to both/and. At that time, I thought it was a blend of aha! moments when studying astrophysics and exploring Buddhism shortly after that led me to shift my mindset. Like when I truly understood wave-particle duality, it was liberating and had far-reaching…

Presented at WISE Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined Part II — I was recently invited to speak at a WISE conference on how aspects of current education models can be reformed to make systems as a whole more resilient to the evolving landscape of the 21st century. …

Learning about The Four Tendencies can make you a better learner and a better teacher — A colleague recently pointed me to The Four Tendencies framework when I asked for some advice on how to advise learners who display resistance, even though they want to learn something. The Four Tendencies has been devised by Dr. Gretchen Rubin, and the goal of the framework is to explain…

A Quick Guide for Keen Teenagers to Get Started in Authentic Astronomy Research — I graduated in astronomy (way back in 2012) and currently teach high school physics. I was really kicked when I learnt that the International Baccalaureate program offers Astrophysics as an option topic if you take physics. …

A Toolkit to Getting Started with Learning How to Learn — Changing our beliefs around learning is the first step to learning anything and everything. Through my last two years of teaching, I have found solace in the power of self-directed learning to change lives, and the idea that it is for anyone, anytime, anywhere — child, teenager, adult, post-adult. Self-directed…

Everything I believe so far about becoming my ideal body — I have struggled with my vision of my body for about 15 years now. At the age of 20 I started to rapidly gain weight (genetics meets hormones meets lifestyle). By 27 I was 108 kgs. By 30 I was around 90 kgs — achieved through helpful advise from my…

and how you can adopt them — I was recently invited to speak at the Robotic Telescopes, Student Research, and Education conference at the University of Melbourne. The conference brought together a community of astronomy and physics teachers (from primary, middle, secondary, undergrad), astronomy researchers, education researchers, outreach practitioners, and university professors. It also included an amazing…

An Ode to the Demise of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution — Act 1 1. Appeal to a frustrated middle class’s strongest fears and insecurities 2. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy 3. Create a cult of tradition 4. Re-make party in own image 5. Successfully execute short-term infrastructure projects 6. Create fear of difference 7. Normalise actions through press and public statements 8. Set up an internal surveillance system 9. Harass citizens’ groups 10. Establish power through re-election