The Conversation

What is personalized learning and why is it so controversial? 5 questions answered

Written by Penny Bishop, Associate Dean and Professor of Middle Level Education, University of Vermont

More schools are plopping students in front of computer screens for 'personalized learning.' What are the drawbacks?wavebreakmedia/www.Shutterstock.com

Editor’s note: The term “personalized learning” is becoming more common. Indeed, 39 states mention personalized learning in their school improvement plans, as required by the Every...

High-value opportunities exist to restore tropical rainforests around the world – here's how we mapped them

Written by Robin Chazdon, Professor Emerita of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut

Forest restoration is underway in Biliran, Leyte, Philippines led by the local community with support from international researchers and government agencies. Robin Chazdon, CC BY-ND

The green belt of tropical rainforests that covers equatorial regions of the Americas, Africa, Indonesia and Southeast Asia is turning brown. Since 1990, Indonesia has...

Amazon is turning 25 – here's a look back at how it changed the world

Written by Venkatesh Shankar, Professor of Marketing; Director of Research, Center for Retailing Studies, Texas A&M University

Amazon has redefined retail over the last 25 years.Hadrian/shutterstock.com

A quarter of a century ago, on July 5, 1994, a company, which shared a name with the world’s largest river, was incorporated. It sold books to customers who got to its website through a dial-up modem.

It wasn’t the first bookstore to sell online. (Books.com...

How America’s Founding Fathers felt about tariffs

Written by Jeffrey Kucik, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Arizona

The founders weren't exactly free traders. John Trumbull

President Donald Trump’s trade wars have sparked fierce debate about the role of protectionism versus liberalism in U.S. trade with other countries.

This debate is hardly new. It dates all the way back to America’s founding.

As a political economist interested in the historical...

Mexicans in US routinely confront legal abuse, racial profiling, ICE targeting and other civil rights violations

Written by David FitzGerald, Theodore E. Gildred Chair in U.S.-Mexican Relations, Professor of Sociology, and Co-Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California San Diego

The civil rights of 11.3 million Mexican nationals who live in the US are routinely violated, according to a comprehensive new report on U.S. immigration enforcement since 2009.AP Photo/Matt York

Officially, the Constitution of the United States gives everyone on U.S. soil equal protection under the law – regardless of nationality or legal...

Why do rebel groups apologize?

Written by Ioana Emy Matesan, Assistant Professor of Government, Wesleyan University

Armed groups often rely on violence and instilling fear to show strength and resilience. And yet, every so often, they are willing to apologize when things go wrong.

The New IRA recently apologized for killing Lyra McKee, an investigative journalist, during a riot in Derry. The group’s targets, which they described as “enemy...

Trusting gut instincts to decide whether a military action is proportional opens a leader to psychological traps

Written by Paul Slovic, Professor of Psychology, University of Oregon

Weighing what's fair takes deliberation.higyou/Shutterstock.com

Why did U.S. President Donald Trump recently call off a retaliatory strike against Iran?

The answer was proportionality: Trump said the American response to Iran’s downing of an American drone should be on a similar scale.

That decision, Trump said, came from his “gut.”

B...

How the Dalai Lama is chosen and why China wants to appoint its own

Written by Brooke Schedneck, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Rhodes College

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama sits on his ceremonial chair at Tsuglakhang temple in Dharmsala, India.AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, the spiritual leader of Tibet, is turning 84 on July 6. With his advancing age, the question of who will succeed him, has become more pressing.

Winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace...

US agriculture needs a 21st-century New Deal

Written by Maywa Montenegro, UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Davis

Jeff Jorgenson looks over a partially flooded field he farms near Shenandoah, Iowa, May 29, 2019. AP Photo/Nati Harnik

These are difficult times in farm country. Historic spring rains – 600% above average in some places – inundated fields and homes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts that this year’s corn and soybean...

Drugs on a coil free patients from the burden of taking pills for treating infectious diseases

Written by Malvika Verma, MIT Research Affiliate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A prototype of the pills-on-a-coil prototype that delivers medicine while it sits in the gut. Malvika Verma and Karan Vishwanath, CC BY-SA

One of the universal truths of health care is drugs don’t work if people don’t take them. But there are new devices in development that may help patients take their medications as required for up to...