Things I've Studied
"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself".
John Dewey
OK - Now that I've pilfered a quote by a cool dude to explain why an old guy like me went back to school, I will say this:
The LDT program was perhaps the most intellectually stimulating thing I've done in my adult life. It shepharded me through a world of fascinating books, amazing lectures, mind-expanding conferences and seminars, brilliant personalities and a sometimes murderous workload of homework.
Learning
Whether it was the classes introducing me to teaching, qualitative research, or theories of how cognition and learning really work, I learnt a lot about how people learn. I read the works of such education thinkers as Dewey, Skinner, Vygotsky, and was taught by leading academics like Dan Schwartz, Paulo Blikstein and Denise Pope.
Design
There were two sets of skills that I learnt early on - Design thinking and Sketching for Product Design. How to design stuff was an incredibly useful thing for an entrepreneur like me to learn. I tried out this design thinking methodology in several subsequent projects and it invariably delivered.
As far as the product sketching was concerned, I expect it to come in useful with the "comic books in education" project I hope to work on at some point.
Technology
In order to be able to leverage technology to improve education, I needed to be broken in on the technology itself. Technology for Learners showcased best practices in education technology while making me aware of the cutting edge. I was able to use a lot of this knowledge in a short survey project with Stanford GSB students to recommend technology best practices for First Line Schools.
I also had the opportunity to learn basic Java programming. Last but not the least, I learnt about the Maker movement and it's contribution to education in my Bits and Atoms class.