Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning – James M. Lang
Employ cognitive theory in the classroom every day Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. But that’s easier said than done. Many books about cognitive theory introduce radical but impractical theories, failing to make the connection to the classroom.
In “Small Teaching” James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference, many of which can be put into practice in a single class period. These strategies are designed to bridge the chasm between primary research and the classroom environment in a way that can be implemented by any faculty in any discipline, and even integrated into pre-existing teaching techniques. Learn, for example: How does one become good at retrieving knowledge from memory? How does making predictions now help us learn in the future? How do instructors instill fixed or growth mindsets in their students?
Each chapter introduces a basic concept in cognitive theory, explains when and how it should be employed, and provides firm examples of how the intervention has been or could be used in a variety of disciplines. Small teaching techniques include brief classroom or online learning activities, one-time interventions, and small modifications in course design or communication with students.
Personal development is a lifelong journey, one that enables individuals to grow, improve skills, and achieve their goals. For young adults navigating the complexities of life, creating a structured personal development plan (PDP) can be a powerful tool to bring clarity, focus, and motivation to their aspirations.
What is a Personal Development Plan (PDP)? A Personal Development Plan or PDP is a structured framework that outlines an individual’s goals and the steps needed to achieve those goals. It serves as a roadmap for personal growth and helps individuals focus on self-improvement in various areas of life, such as career, education, relationships, health, and emotional well-being.
Self-assessment is all about understanding yourself: your strengths, weaknesses, values, and aspirations. This is the foundation of a PDP.
Goal setting, which includes identifying clear, actionable goals you want to achieve in the short, medium, or long term.
An action plan, which is the specific steps or strategies needed to achieve your goals, including deadlines and milestones.
Progress tracking is regularly reviewing your progress to ensure you remain on course.
Reflection and adjustments that are making necessary changes to your plan as your priorities evolve.
Why is a personal development plan important? Creating a personal development plan offers numerous benefits.
Clarity and focus: A PDP helps you clarify your goals and align your actions with your values. It provides focus, enabling you to channel your time and energy into meaningful pursuits.
Improved self-awareness: Through self-assessment, you gain a deeper understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, and areas for growth, which is key to personal and professional success.
Motivation and accountability: A structured plan keeps you motivated by breaking down larger goals into manageable steps. Regular reviews hold you accountable for your progress.
Skill development: A PDP encourages continuous learning by helping you identify the skills you need to develop to achieve your goals.
Enhanced problem-solving: By reflecting on challenges and successes within your plan, you develop better critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Better decision-making: A PDP empowers you to make decisions that align with your values, priorities, and long-term aspirations.
Balance and growth: It encourages a balanced approach to life, fostering growth in various aspects—career, relationships, health, and personal fulfillment.
So how does one create a personal development plan?
Conduct a self-assessment: Before setting goals, take time to understand yourself. Self-awareness is the cornerstone of a successful PDP. Reflect on your strengths and weaknesses and identify your strengths: what you’re good at and what energises you. Simultaneously, acknowledge areas where you can improve. Think about what others frequently praise you for, like creativity, organisation, or leadership. Identify challenges or recurring struggles like time management or communication skills.
Define your values, as your values represent what’s important to you in life. Defining these will guide your goals and decisions. Ask yourself what brings you fulfillment and what principles you live by. Assess the different aspects of your life and use a holistic approach by evaluating them. These could include areas such as career, education, health and fitness, relationships, emotional well-being, financial health, and hobbies and passions. A tool like the “Wheel of Life” can help you visualise and assess your satisfaction in each area.
Set clear and actionable goals: Once you’ve completed your self-assessment, it’s time to define your goals. These goals should be aligned with your values and areas for improvement. Use the SMART framework to ensure your goals are effective. The SMART criteria can be defined as: Specific, which clearly defines what you want to achieve. Measurable, where you include metrics to track your progress. Achievable, which includes setting goals that are realistic and within your reach. Relevant, which aligns goals with your values, priorities, and aspirations. Time-bound assignments that assigns deadlines to create urgency.
For example, instead of “I want to improve my fitness,” set a SMART goal like, “I will work out for 30 minutes, five days a week, for the next three months to improve my stamina.”
Organise your goals into categories. Short-term goals, which are immediate in the next one to six months, are immediate actions or quick wins, such as reading a specific book or attending a workshop. Medium-term goals, which are between six months and two years, are meant for milestones that contribute to long-term aspirations, such as completing a certification or saving for a vacation. Long-term goals, which are goals you work for in the long term for over two years, are meant for big achievements that require sustained effort, such as changing careers or buying a home.
Create an action plan: An action plan outlines the specific steps you need to take to achieve your goals. Break down goals into tasks and start by dividing each goal into smaller, actionable steps. This makes goals more manageable and reduces the overwhelm. Set deadlines and milestones and assign a timeline to each task and establish milestones to track progress. Identify resources and determine the resources you need, such as books, courses, or online tools, mentors or coaches; and financial resources.
Track and monitor your progress: Reviewing your progress regularly ensures you stay on track and adapt to changing circumstances. Schedule regular check-ins and set aside time weekly or monthly to evaluate your progress. Ask yourself questions like, What have I accomplished? What challenges am I facing? And what adjustments do I need to make? Celebrate milestones and acknowledge and celebrate small wins to stay motivated and build momentum.
Reflect and Adjust: Life is dynamic, and your PDP should be flexible enough to adapt to new circumstances, priorities, or goals. Reflect on lessons learned. Regularly reflect on what’s working and what isn’t. Ask yourself what you have learned so far and if your goals are still aligned with your values. Revise your plan if needed, and modify your goals, timelines, or action steps to better fit your evolving priorities.
Some tips to stay motivated and committed to your personal development plan:
Start small: Focus on a few key goals rather than trying to achieve everything at once.
Find an accountability partner: Share your goals with a trusted friend, colleague, or mentor who can hold you accountable and provide encouragement.
Visualise your success: Imagine yourself achieving your goals. Visualisation can inspire you to take action and stay committed.
Create a reward system: Reward yourself for completing tasks or achieving milestones, such as treating yourself to your favorite activity or meal.
Manage time effectively: Use time management tools like to-do lists, calendars, or apps to stay organised and prioritise tasks.
Creating a personal development plan is an empowering step toward achieving your full potential. By taking the time to assess your current situation, set clear goals, and create actionable steps, you can navigate life with purpose, focus, and confidence. Remember, the journey of personal growth is unique to everyone—start small, stay consistent, and adjust as needed. With commitment and effort, you’ll be well on your way to building the life you envision for yourself.
Selamat Datang from the beautiful Cameron Highlands! We’re here as a family to celebrate a milestone anniversary. I remember coming to this beautiful Malaysian hill station many years back, before the children were born, and coming back after so long, I could see how much it has changed over the years. We drove in from Singapore, stopping overnight in Kuala Lumpur before driving to Cameron Highlands, and we will return the same way.
Today’s proverb is from China and is not attributed to anyone, but is a clear and timeless reminder that big goals are achieved through small, consistent steps. We often look at challenges as enormous, immovable obstacles. A new habit, a long-term project, a personal transformation, or a career shift, these can feel like mountains. The size alone can overwhelm us before we even start. But this proverb challenges that mindset. It tells us that nothing is too big to tackle if you’re willing to break it down. Mountains don’t disappear in one grand gesture; they fade through steady effort. Small stones represent manageable tasks, the little actions that seem insignificant in the moment but gradually accumulate into real progress.
It’s also a lesson in patience. Modern life pushes us to expect instant results, but meaningful change rarely works that way. This proverb encourages humility and persistence. Even when it feels like you’re barely making a dent, every stone you move matters. Over time, those small actions build momentum. Before you know it, what once felt impossible starts to feel achievable. There’s also a subtle encouragement here: don’t wait for the perfect moment or a surge of motivation. Just begin. The first stone might be the hardest to lift, but once you do, the next one becomes easier. And finally, this proverb reminds us that perseverance transforms us. As we keep showing up, stone after stone, we grow stronger, more disciplined, and more confident. The mountain changes, yes, but so do we.
GG came back from her school trip, and the next day, we travelled to Malaysia. She was so tired and pretty much slept on the way to KL. I’ll share more about the trip and photos in a later post.
Today’s motivation post is about acceptance. It’s normal to struggle with acceptance. Accepting that something has ended doesn’t mean it didn’t matter to you. You’ve lived it and learned from it. It did add value to your life, but now it’s no longer there. Allow yourself to grieve the future you once dreamed of. By facing the reality of what is, you can finally begin to heal. Acceptance is letting go while also creating space for the possibilities that are waiting for you. The unknown may hold something more beautiful than you ever imagined. Pour your energy into growing something new.
That’s all I have for you this week. Stay positive and keep smiling!
Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel – Shahnaz Habib
A playful personal and cultural history of travel from a postcolonial, person-of-color perspective, Airplane Mode asks: what does it mean to be a joyous traveler when we live in the ruins of colonialism, capitalism and climate change?
For Shahnaz Habib, an Indian Muslim woman, travel has always been a complicated pleasure. Yet, journeys at home and abroad have profoundly shaped her life. In this inquiring and surprising debut, Habib traces a history of travel from pilgrimages to empires to safaris, taking on colonialist modes of thinking about travel and asking who gets to travel and who gets to write about it.
Threaded through the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, expressways, the idea of wanderlust. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism—but as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity.
Perched high on the rugged hills of Junnar in Pune district, the Girijatmaj Temple at Lenyadri is a remarkable confluence of natural beauty, ancient history, and deep spiritual resonance. Unique among the eight Ashtavinayak shrines dedicated to Lord Ganesha, Girijatmaj is the only temple set atop a mountain and carved into a single monolithic rock within a complex of ancient Buddhist caves. Here, Ganesha is worshipped as the “son of Girija”, another name for Goddess Parvati, and the temple is a living testament to the power of maternal devotion, the endurance of faith, and the seamless blending of India’s Buddhist and Hindu heritages.
Lenyadri, also known as Ganesh Lena or Ganesh Pahar, is located about 95 km from Pune and 5 km from Junnar. The temple sits at the heart of a cluster of 30 rock-cut Buddhist caves, which date back to the 1st–3rd centuries AD and are scattered along a cliff face. The caves overlook the Kukadi River valley, offering breathtaking views of the surrounding green hills, especially after the monsoon when the landscape is lush and vibrant. To reach the temple, pilgrims and visitors must climb 307–315 stone steps, flanked by playful monkeys and mountain streams. The ascent is both a physical and spiritual journey, with the panoramic vistas and the cool mountain air preparing the mind for the sanctity that awaits at the summit.
The story of Girijatmaj is rooted in the deep yearning of Goddess Parvati for a child. According to the Ganesh Purana, after taking the form of Parvati, having previously been Sati, the goddess desired to have Ganesha as her son. She chose the caves of Lenyadri, then known as Jirnapur or Lekhan Parbat, as her place of penance. For twelve years, Parvati performed intense austerities and prayers inside these caves, seeking the blessing of motherhood.
Pleased by her unwavering devotion, Lord Ganesha granted her wish. On the auspicious day of Bhadrapada Shuddha Chaturthi, or Ganesh Chaturthi, Parvati scraped the dirt from her body, mixed it with oil and ointment, and fashioned an idol of Ganesha. As she worshipped this idol, it miraculously came to life, and Ganesha declared that he had incarnated as her son, as desired. Shiva later named the child Ganesh, meaning “one who keeps the three qualities: Satva, Raja, and Tama, under control.” Ganesha spent his childhood at Lenyadri, and for fifteen years, the caves were his playground and home.
The caves of Lenyadri are also the backdrop for several of Ganesha’s legendary childhood adventures. According to the Ganesh Purana, the demon king Sindhu, forewarned that his death would come at the hands of Ganesha, sent a series of demons—Krur, Balasur, Vyomasur, Kshemma, and Kushal—to kill the young deity. Ganesha, even as a child, vanquished all his adversaries and performed many playful miracles, or balleelas, in and around the caves. These stories are cherished by devotees and add to the temple’s aura of divine protection and joy.
The Lenyadri caves were originally carved as Buddhist viharas and chaityas, monastic dwellings and prayer halls, during the Hinayana phase of Buddhism, between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. Of the approximately 30 caves, most served as monastic quarters, while a few were chapels. Cave 7, which now houses the Girijatmaj Temple, was originally a vihara, a communal hall for monks.
Over centuries, as Buddhism waned and Hinduism reasserted itself in the region, the caves were adapted for Hindu worship. The transformation of Cave 7 into a Ganesha shrine is a striking example of India’s syncretic religious history, where sacred spaces evolve and retain their spiritual significance across faiths.
The entire temple is hewn from a single rock, with no separate structural additions. This gives the temple its cool, serene ambience, regardless of the weather outside. The main hall, the sabha-mandapa, is a spacious, unpillared chamber measuring 53 feet long, 51 feet wide, and 7 feet high. It contains 20 cells of varying sizes, originally used by Buddhist monks. The central entrance is flanked by two windows, and a pillared veranda leads into the hall. The sanctum is not a separate structure but a niche in the back wall of the cave. The image of Ganesha is not a free-standing idol but a relief carved directly into the stone wall. The idol faces east, with its trunk turned to the left, and only one eye is visible. The icon is covered in indoor, or vermilion, in keeping with the tradition of Ashtavinayak temples. During the day, sunlight streams into the sanctum, bathing the idol in a celestial glow and enhancing the temple’s mystical atmosphere. The temple lacks a separate shikhara, or spire; gopuram, or gateway; or ornate carvings typical of Hindu temples, emphasising its monastic origins and simplicity.
The temple opens early in the morning and closes at sunset. Devotees offer flowers, durva grass, and modaks to the deity. The idol, being part of the rock, is not adorned with clothes or ornaments but is anointed with sindoor and sometimes oil. Ritual bathing, abhishek and aarti, and the waving of lamps are performed daily. Devotees can sponsor abhishek or aarti as a special offering. Circumambulation, or pradakshina, of the temple is performed within the main hall, as the structure is carved into the mountain. The most important festival is Ganesh Chaturthi, or Bhadrapada Shuddha Chaturthi, when thousands of pilgrims climb the steps to offer prayers. Special aartis, abhisheks, and communal feasting mark the occasion. Other festivals like Maghi Ganesh Jayanti, which is Ganesha’s birthday, and Sankashti Chaturthi, a monthly festival, are also celebrated with great devotion.
Many devotees undertake the climb of 307–315 steps barefoot as an act of penance or to fulfil vows, believing that the effort itself invokes Ganesha’s blessings. The temple’s monastic origins and serene setting make it a favoured spot for meditation and quiet contemplation. The absence of loud music or elaborate rituals preserves the cave’s tranquil atmosphere.
The name “Girijatmaj” combines “Girija,” another name for Parvati, the daughter of the mountain, and “Atmaj,” or son, emphasising Ganesha’s identity as the beloved child of Parvati. The temple thus celebrates the bond between mother and son, and by extension, the nurturing, protective aspect of the divine.
Girijatmaj is the only Ashtavinayak temple located on a mountain, symbolising the spiritual ascent a devotee must undertake to reach the divine. The physical climb is a metaphor for the inner journey of discipline, faith, and perseverance. The temple’s setting within a Buddhist vihara highlights the fluidity of India’s religious traditions. The peaceful coexistence of Buddhist and Hindu elements is a powerful reminder of the region’s pluralistic heritage.
Girijatmaj is traditionally the sixth temple visited on the Ashtavinayak pilgrimage, though the order can vary. Its unique location and the legend of Ganesha’s birth make it a highlight of the yatra. Pilgrims often combine their visit with a trek through the other caves, exploring the rich tapestry of Buddhist art and architecture that surrounds the temple.
The Girijatmaj Temple at Lenyadri is a living symbol of faith, perseverance, and the enduring bond between mother and child. Its legends speak of penance rewarded, demons vanquished, and the joy of divine play. Its architecture, carved from living rock, stands as a testament to the artistry and spiritual vision of ancient India.
Memories and Such 