A personal archive of work and ideas
Ferdinand
Avila-Medina
Educator, student-success strategist, writer, father, and perpetual apprentice.
For more than three decades, my work has centered on helping people and institutions create better pathways for learning, growth, and meaningful engagement.
Selected pathways
Work, writing, and current projects
Professional story
A concise account of my background, values, leadership experience, and continuing work in higher education.
Résumé
Experience, education, selected initiatives, presentations, professional development, and credentials.
Four Girders
My learning framework and open educational resource for becoming a successful learner in the AI era.
Recent writing
Notes from a perpetual apprentice
Right about the fire
Jeffrey Selingo has spent decades watching the business of higher education from closer than most of us ever get, and when he says the underlying model is breaking, that’s someone who’s been inside the machinery telling you what he sees. I don’t have that vantage point — just a few honest questions from someone who’s…
Four Girders: The Book
After more than thirty years in higher education, most of them helping students — across a desk, in a classroom, and at my own kitchen table — I’ve written a book, and I’ve made it free. It’s called The Four Girders Framework: Becoming a Successful Learner in the AI Era. It isn’t a study-skills textbook.…
Mi libro
La inteligencia artificial se sienta hoy junto a los estudiantes, y aunque los fundamentos del aprendizaje no han cambiado, el terreno sí. De un blog que arrancaba y se detenía nació un libro completo: The Four Girders Framework: Becoming a Successful Learner in the AI Era. Los fundamentos de siempre, ahora frente a los nuevos…