Curriculum Encounters

In this episode, Sarah and Jackie take a walk through Brooklyn, where they sit on the stoop of Jackie’s former building and discuss how stoops become sites of belonging, memory, and recognition that shape our sense of who we are and where we fit. Come along to consider what your “stoop” is and how questions of belonging play out in curriculum decisions in your neighborhood and classroom spaces.  

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In this episode, Jackie and Sarah meet up at a ferry terminal, where standing on the dock prompts new perspectives. Listen in to hear the helicopters, the seagulls, and absorb the movement of commuters… Through slowing down, attending to the sensations, and sketching the scene, they talk about the potential for curriculum in overlooked details and what can be discovered by shifting our relationship to the familiar.

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In this episode, Sarah and Jackie wander through a grocery store to explore how everyday choices about food connect to family histories, memories, and identities. Join them as they discover how the array of options in grocery aisles mirrors the curriculum design process – making choices about what to include, what to leave out, and why. Tune in to learn how grocery shopping for your eight-year old self or trying something ...

In season 2 of Curriculum Encounters, hosts Jackie Simmons and Sarah Gerth take the practices of experiential learning out into the world. These encounters explore family history and culture at the grocery store, new perspectives at a ferry terminal, and feelings of belonging at a sidewalk stoop. Jackie and Sarah pose thought-provoking questions that will inspire educators, students, and just about anyone hoping to challen...

In case you missed it, tune in for this special episode recorded back in February when Sarah and Jackie were guests on Pop and Play, the spectacular podcast about play and popular culture hosted by Haeny Yoon and Nathan Holbert from the Digital Futures Institute. They share a broader definition of “curriculum” as their conversation touches on the playful aspects of curriculum design and how curriculum encounters offer simp...

A key takeaway from this episode—and the season as a whole—is the idea that curriculum is not just a set of prescribed knowledge, but a social, spatial, and sensory process. Learning happens everywhere, not just in formal educational settings. Jackie and Sarah encourage educators to recognize the importance of these informal, sensory, and embodied forms of knowing and to consider how they might be integrated into curriculu...

In this episode, Sarah and Jackie visit the library, cafe, and cafeteria at Teachers College to consider what kind of curriculum they encounter in the social spaces on campus. By attending to design choices and observing how people actually use these spaces, they consider possibilities for learners to co-create curriculum encounters.

Curriculum Encounters is produced by the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, Col...

In this episode, Jackie and Sarah take listeners to “hidden” spaces on campus, including an old gym track that was converted to academic offices and a closed-off pool in the basement of Teachers College. Through the emotions and memories that arise in these encounters, they consider the impact of curricular “ghosts” and possibilities for personal histories and feelings in curriculum.  

To learn more about the history of the...

In this episode, Sarah and Jackie explore newly renovated classrooms and traditional academic hallways around Columbia University’s Teachers College campus. Join them as they encounter curriculum in the aesthetics of these spaces and how design choices affect what we know about being a student and learner. Stay tuned to imagine ways of intervening in the design elements in your curricular spaces.

Curriculum Encounters is p...

In this introduction to Curriculum Encounters, hosts Jackie Simmons and Sarah Gerth van den Berg invite you to embark on a provocative journey through the world of experiential learning. As curriculum design experts at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Jackie and Sarah have reimagined the Black Paint Curriculum Lab, bringing it back in an exciting new format that promises to challenge conventional thinking about curr...