Sean Michael Morris

Education is not a field for mediocre hopes and mediocre dreams

"Education lifts, inspires, changes lives, builds futures, starts careers, reveals new knowledge. It’s this profoundly odd and profoundly unlikely and profoundly beautiful endeavor that strikes at what humans do most naturally and best: learning."

critical pedagogy

Shame; or, a response to the writers of the anti-Stonewall open letter in the Times

Academic freedom should not bind us to our beliefs, but should free us to explore potential new futures, new cultural realities, and to join in a production of tomorrow.

critical digital pedagogy

To Go Far Enough

The predation of the edtech industry only works if we don’t lift our heads to see it, raise our hands to change it, stand in its way.

critical instructional design

The (Critical) (Instructional) Design of Digital Pedagogy Lab

Critical instructional design moves toward realizing the possibility for learning that blends a new form of rigor with agency through a practice of inquiry, empathy, and emergence.

critical pedagogy

The Production of Tomorrow

There are incontrovertible facts which should not be considered from inside the shelter of ideas, hypotheses. Poverty, racism, hunger, transphobia. There are incontrovertible facts which require action, not discussion.

critical pedagogy

The Habitus of Critical Imagination

It is urgent that we have teachers. It is urgent that we have teachers with great imaginations. It’s urgent that we have teachers who can see in their students the potential for something startling, something unlikely.

imagination

Imagination as a Precision Tool for Change

The project of critical pedagogy is not simply the project of improving education, or of learning, but rather the project of becoming more fully human.

critical pedagogy

Wide-awakeness and Critical Imagination

What happens when a student who loves to learn is told they are not qualified to to so?

critical pedagogy

An Upsurge of Questioning and Critique: toward a Community of Critical Pedagogy

Be kind. Pay attention. Tell stories. Invite stories. Show you care. Don’t be afraid of love. Close doors when they need to be closed. Keep doors open when they need to be kept open, even if keeping them open is hard on your heart.

critical pedagogy

Adventures in Unveiling: Critical Pedagogy and Imagination

Imagination is important to the project of critical pedagogy precisely because of the responsive nature of its practice. We must be able to think on our toes if education (of all kinds) is meant to be liberative.

kindness

Coming Out; or, Why to Be Kind

Agency isn’t about power. It is a resolution of power. Agency without kindness is just bullying.

critical pedagogy

And so I am grateful too

I will always keep an eye open for new voices, voices that education and academia might not take seriously for whatever reason, I will listen carefully to what they have to say and I will offer them whatever platform I may.

critical digital pedagogy

Critical Pedagogy and Learning Online

For critical instructional design to begin, those undertaking the design of learning must themselves become more critically conscious of the work at hand.

critical instructional design

A Call for Critical Instructional Design

Critical instructional design is an early, emerging attempt to get at some concrete methodologies for creating agentive spaces in online and hybrid learning environments.

critical pedagogy

Hospitality and Agency

Critical pedagogy demands a lot of us. It demands we walk away from our assumptions about how teaching and learning happen. It demands that we question the teaching we received. It demands we listen.

critical pedagogy

On Presence, Video Lectures, and Critical Pedagogy

Difference cannot become canon. Because canon means passing muster, and we cannot ask difference to pass muster. Rather than put marginalized folk under a microscope in order to understand their struggle or develop compassion for difference, might we not instead wreck the classroom with story?

critical instructional design

Reading the LMS against the Backdrop of Critical Pedagogy, parts 1 and 2

There is an essential difference between the ‘science’ of education, positivism, evidence-based teaching, and behaviorism (which I see as coterminous within the LMS) and the ideas of education forwarded by critical pedagogy.

critical digital pedagogy

Subjectivity, Rubrics, and Critical Pedagogy

We must remain aware of the way in which traditional classroom management and instructional strategies have a nearly hegemonic hold on our imaginations.

critical instructional design

Discussing Discussions

The first order of business when talking about discussion forums in online classes is to ask, what do we want a discussion to accomplish?

critical instructional design

Reimagining the Syllabus

I like to think of a syllabus as an invitation, a here's the what, when, why, and what-you-can-bring kind of document. I would prefer my syllabus to be legible (read: interesting), so that students will not only read the whole thing, but they'll remember what it said.

critical instructional design

Saying No to Best Practices

The worst best practice is to adhere to, or go searching for, best practices. Digital tools, strategies, and best practices are a red herring in digital learning. Learning always starts with people.

domain of one's own

If bell hooks Made an LMS: a Praxis of Liberation and Domain of One’s Own

What follows is the text of a presentation I gave at the Domains17 conference in Oklahoma City, OK on June 5, 2017. I co-presented with Jesse Stommel, Executive Director of the Division of

critical digital pedagogy

Critical Digital Pedagogy and Design

I was invited to speak to and work with teachers at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado in May 2017. What follows is the transcript of my presentation to the school's

writing about teaching

Tobacco and Patchouli: Writing about Teaching

In one of the last conversations we had before he died, my father sat across from me at his small dining room table—among assorted framed pictures (of Native Americans, of Abraham Lincoln,

education justice

Deeply Aggrieved

Last week, I was told a story about a computer science student who is dyslexic. She has found that taking notes in class using an app on her tablet helps immensely with her