Small ways to improve online teaching and learning, and a discussion on how to get learners' attention in your courses with Flower Darby and James Lang. James M. Lang writes about higher education, literature, and travel. He is a Professor of English and Director of the D'Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University. This episode also discusses his books Distracted, Small Teaching, and Small Teaching Online. Flower Darby is the Director of Teaching for Student Success at Norther...
Apr 29, 2021•39 min
Mike welcomes Dan Carroll, the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Clever , which helps K-12 school districts, educators, and students navigate some of the complexities of the digital world. They begin by discussing Dan’s early career teaching for Teach for America , and then his move into educational technology administration. Frustrated by the speed he could launch new initiatives, with some friends he founded Clever to help teachers and students gain access to edtech easily and scalably. ...
Apr 26, 2021•30 min•Season 5Ep. 389
Mike welcomes Dr. Leo Casey, the Executive Director of the Albert Shanker Institute who has written a book called The Teacher Insurgency: A Strategic and Organizing Perspective . They begin with Leo’s upbringing by two New York City teachers, how he abandoned his dissertation to teach in Crown Heights, and how he began working with the union when his school shut down. Leo then began to head the Albert Shanker Institute , a strategic think tank within the American Federation of Teachers which exa...
Apr 22, 2021•31 min•Season 5Ep. 388
Mark Davis has a 20-year track record of roles of increasing responsibility in the Education field. He left Education soon after the 2016 Election to start a Cannabis company named Mozen. After a four-year run, he sold the company and now is returning to a General Management position in Education. In this 4/20 Special Edition of Trending in Education, Mark joins Mike Palmer to tell the story of his journey as a pot entrepreneur and the lessons he learned along the way. There's much to be learned...
Apr 20, 2021•25 min•Season 5Ep. 387
Dr. Jonathan Friedman is the Director of Free Expression and Education at PEN America. He joins Mike Palmer on this episode to talk about emerging trends in K12 and Higher Ed in the US relating to Free Speech and Free Expression. You can learn more about what Jonathan and PEN are doing at pen.org After hearing Jonathan’s “origin story,” we quickly dive into the case of BL vs Mahanoy School District which is soon to go before the Supreme Court. Are a student’s snaps on Snapchat grounds for discip...
Apr 19, 2021•25 min•Season 5Ep. 386
Dr. Steve Joordens returns to join Mike Palmer in a conversation about the connections between growth mindset and feedback. If growth mindset is the "What," getting good at giving and receiving feedback is the "How" of learning and personal growth. Steve draws on his experiences as a Psychology Professor and Director of the Advanced Learning Technologies Lab at the University of Toronto and as a Founder and CoDeveloper of an app called peerScholar that has students engage in collaborative, peer-...
Apr 15, 2021•39 min•Season 5Ep. 385
Dr. Corey Dolgon is a Professor of Sociology at Stonehill College. He's an expert in several areas of sociology and service learning and is the author of five books, including The End of the Hamptons: Scenes from the Class Struggle in American’s Paradise (2005) and Kill it to Save it: An Autopsy of Capitalism’s triumph Over Democracy (2017). He recently edited The Cambridge Handbook of Service Learning and Community Engagement . Corey joins Mike Palmer to talk about the history of service learni...
Apr 12, 2021•40 min•Season 5Ep. 384
Dr. Timothy R. Clark is founder and CEO of LeaderFactor, a training, consulting, coaching, and assessment organization that focuses on leadership development, organizational change, strategic agility, psychological safety, and emotional intelligence. He is the developer of the EQometer assessment and The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety training program. Tim joins Mike Palmer to talk about the role psychological safety plays in developing strong cultures. He walks us through the four stages of p...
Apr 08, 2021•36 min•Season 5Ep. 383
Alexis Block is a PhD Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. She’s also the creator of HuggieBot and now HuggieBot 2.0 which have allowed her to do groundbreaking research in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Alexis joins Mike Palmer on this episode to talk through her recent paper on The Six Commandments of Robot Hugging . We explore what got Alexis to this point in her research and what she’s learned about human behavior through her research. We touch on the impact of the...
Apr 07, 2021•28 min•Season 5Ep. 382
Dr. Stephen Kosslyn returns to the show to dive into the topics covered in his new book Active Learning Online with Mike Palmer. What does deep processing really mean and how can its power be unlocked for learning? How do chunking and associations relate to how we learn? What is the dual coding principle and how should instructional designers tap into it to ensure their lessons stick in the minds of their learners? We explore all of this in a deeply informative conversation you won’t want to mis...
Apr 05, 2021•31 min•Season 5Ep. 381
Steve Grubbs is the Founder of Victory XR , a company that specializes in using Virtual Reality to make compelling learning experiences. Steve joins Mike and begins by telling how he has stayed connected to education and technology in different capacities through his professional life before zeroing in on the work he's been doing of late. Whether it's building a VR simulation of the march across the Pettus Bridge in Selma or exploring anatomy, history or astronomy, Steve walks us through various...
Apr 01, 2021•28 min•Season 5Ep. 380
Dr. Nicholas Tampio is a Professor of Political Science at Fordham University who recently wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post about the importance of play in K12 education as we begin to plan for the summer . Nick returns to join Mike Palmer on this episode to explore the risks of rushing kids back to school when they need time to play outside. We question the benefits of pushing to catch up on standardized tests when many kids need to catch up on their social development by playing ...
Mar 31, 2021•19 min•Season 5Ep. 379
Mike is joined by Cara Lesser. CEO and Founder of the KID Museum in Bethesda, Maryland. Cara starts by describing how she transitioned from working on healthcare policy to growing interested in education as her children entered school. Inspired by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, she sought to create an institution dedicated to what she felt was lacking in her children’s education: creative, hands-on problem-solving. The KID museum features flexible workspaces, many digital items for kids to...
Mar 30, 2021•20 min•Season 5Ep. 378
Mike welcomes Dr. Andrew (“Andy”) Temte, President and Global Head of Corporate Learning for Kaplan North America and author Balancing Act: Teach Coach Mentor Inspire . We start by discussing Andy’s non-linear career path, and how he embraces the bumps along the way. We also talk about the importance of the whole person and engaging with the behavioral skills as well as the deep expertise. Andy explains the importance of continuous improvement and organizational health. And how he learned to let...
Mar 29, 2021•26 min•Season 5Ep. 377
David Adams was recently named the CEO of The Urban Assembly , a non-profit organization working to advance students' economic and social mobility by improving public education. David joins Mike Palmer to talk about the importance of Social Emotional Learning heading into SEL Day on Friday, March 26th. We dive into how awareness of the importance of SEL has been heightened in light of the pandemic and other challenges we've faced in the past year and how that provides an opportunity to focus on ...
Mar 26, 2021•29 min•Season 5Ep. 376
Colonel Chris Mayer is the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives at the US Military Academy at West Point where he also teaches Ethics and Philosophy. Chris returns to join Mike Palmer to revisit the conversation started during Chris' first appearance in November of 2019. We review Bob Johansen's book The New Leadership Literacies as we take a few twists and turns to touch on how the world of robotics is evolving and how we can learn from science fiction as we try to peer further out to possi...
Mar 25, 2021•31 min•Season 5Ep. 375
Kate Eberle Walker is the CEO of Presence Learning and the author of the new book The Good Boss: Nine Ways Every Manager Can Support Women at Work . She returns to the show to talk to Mike Palmer about the rules in the book that draw from Kate's experiences, those of other leaders and managers across industries and other relevant statistics and research. We begin exploring Rule Number 1 - Call Her By Her Name before quickly progressing through rules like Don't Sit in Her Chair and Speak Up So Sh...
Mar 24, 2021•38 min•Season 5Ep. 374
Sarah Johnson is the CEO of Teaching Lab , a leading non-profit professional learning organization for educators. She joins Mike Palmer in this episode to explore why Professional Development or "PD" has a bad reputation among educators and how Sarah and team are trying to turn things around. We talk through the importance of teachers continuing to learn throughout their careers especially in these challenging times. How does Teaching Lab incorporate "Head, Heart and Habits" into its approach to...
Mar 22, 2021•23 min•Season 5Ep. 373
Jeremy Keeshin is the CEO and Co-founder of CodeHS, the leading coding education platform for schools used by millions of students. He joins Mike for this episode to talk about his new book Read Write Code . We begin with Jeremy's origins teaching computer science while at Stanford before founding CodeHS and becoming an expert in computer science education and education technology, visiting hundreds of schools all over the world. Then Jeremy explains how coding is the new literacy - the equivale...
Mar 18, 2021•26 min•Season 3Ep. 372
Dr. Steve Joordens is a Psychology Professor and the Director of the Advanced Learning Technologies Lab at the University of Toronto. He’s also the Chief Science Officer at Cogneeto, the developer of PeerScholar , a peer-to-peer formative assessment app. Steve returns to Trending in Education to talk about some predictions he’s making about how humans will behave as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Steve posits that the powerful forces of humans’ desire for social connection paired with our...
Mar 17, 2021•27 min•Season 5Ep. 371
Dr. Robert Sternberg joins Mike to talk about his life's work studying intelligence, creativity, and wisdom. He is Professor of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. Bob recently wrote Adaptive Intelligence: Striving and Thriving in Times of Uncertainty and we spend time diving into the concepts and frameworks that are central to the book. For starters, Bob tells his personal story beginning in grade school where initially he didn't perform well on intelligence...
Mar 15, 2021•38 min•Season 5Ep. 370
Dr. Jacqueline Bhabha is FXB Director of Research, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Bhabha joins Mike to talk about her new book, A Better Future: The Role of Higher Education for Displaced and Marginalized People that explores the critical importance of access to tertiary education to displaced and m...
Mar 11, 2021•32 min•Season 5Ep. 369
Dr. Terri Givens returns to the show to talk about her newly released book Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides and its implications in higher education and society more broadly. We touch on Terri's personal story and how it taught her to be vulnerable and to get comfortable in her own skin. This involves empathy for yourself, your family, and your neighborhood as you progress to take action to effect change which is the radical part of Radical Empathy. We dive into Terri's...
Mar 10, 2021•22 min•Season 5Ep. 368
Kathleen Almy, CEO of Almy Education, joins Mike to talk about her experiences as an author, as math faculty, and most recently as a consultant helping community colleges develop effective and scalable developmental math programs that drive completion rates and student success. After hearing Kathy’s origin story, we explore the challenges and opportunities endemic to math education in 2021. Then we look ahead through the pandemic response and on into the years ahead. To learn more about what Kat...
Mar 09, 2021•27 min•Season 5Ep. 367
Dr. Sheryl Burgstahler joins Mike to talk about her work in access, Universal Design, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Sheryl shared how she got involved with accessibility in the early days of home computing and how that has evolved into her role at the University of Washington today. We talk about her book, Creating Inclusive Learning Opportunities in Higher Ed , and other great resources for educators who want to build products and courses that can be easily accessed in usable ways by...
Mar 08, 2021•30 min•Season 5Ep. 366
Ron Reed and Greg Rosenbaum from SXSW EDU return to join Mike just before SXSW EDU 2021 begins on March 9th. You can learn more about the conference at https://www.sxswedu.com/ We talk through our history together with this being the third time Ron and Greg have joined us on the show. We take time to reflect on the challenges and transformations of the past year and get their thoughts on the opportunities around moving online and the shifts in thinking required to make the most of the online for...
Mar 04, 2021•28 min•Season 5Ep. 365
Geoff and Sky Marietta join Mike to discuss their book, Rural Education in America . We hear the Mariettas' story from rural roots to meeting at Teach For America in the Navajo Nation, to Harvard Yard, and then finally to Harlan County, Kentucky, where Sky and family have deep roots. We look at how rural America is perceived both from the outside in and also from the inside in as we learn the critical role education plays in knitting together rural communities. It's an eye-opening conversation t...
Mar 01, 2021•33 min•Season 5Ep. 364
Mike welcomes Anurupa Ganguly, Founder and CEO of Prisms of Reality , a Virtual Reality solution for teaching K-12 algebra. As a student, teacher, and administrator, Anurupa was consistently frustrated by students’ lack of deep conceptual understanding of math and science. Find out how she’s leveraging the cutting-edge technology of VR to deepen and accelerate math learning in middle school. Anurupa describes what's involved in creating compelling VR experiences to provide emotional resonance an...
Feb 25, 2021•34 min•Season 5Ep. 363
Dr. Daniel Harrison joins Mike to talk about his latest book, Live at Jackson Station . We hear how Dan became a Sociology Professor at Lander University in South Carolina before we dive into the importance of storytelling as Dan tells the story of Jackson Station, a legendary blues bar in Greenwood, South Carolina in the 1980s and early nineties. We learn about the tolerance and diversity of the music scene at the bar before things take a “True Crime” turn with a bush ax attack in the parking l...
Feb 22, 2021•39 min•Season 5Ep. 362
Dr. John Giordano joins Mike to explain how he founded Semester For Change to help students and families navigate the transition from High School to the right career path for them. John shares the story of his career in Fine Arts Education that bridges from high school into colleges with strong ties to the community throughout. John describes his own experiences over the past year which led to him forming an alternative to a year of traditional higher education in these chaotic times. Semester F...
Feb 18, 2021•34 min•Season 5Ep. 361
