April 21, 2025 • 40 mins
Dr. Nermeen Dashoush is the chief learning officer of MarcoPolo Learning, the award-winning global developer of educational products and instructional resources, and she's also a clinical associate professor of early childhood education at Boston University.
In this episode, she shares her insights about how early childhood education programs can use videos in their classroom to supplement lesson plans. She explains the appropriate length for videos in classrooms, as well as the importance of showing videos that are developmentally appropriate.
She also gives examples of how videos give context to learning to help children understand topics, and how videos aid in lesson retention through visual storytelling.
An integration between Procare Solutions and MarcoPolo Learning offers educators a way to improve teaching practices and support quality teacher-child interactions in the classroom.
Check out our blog on how to integrate math into daily routines and how MarcoPolo Learning builds foundational math skills.
Learn more about how the MarcoPolo Learning integration with Procare works and get started today!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello everyone, and welcome to our latest episode
of the Childcare BusinessPodcast. My name is Leah
Woodbury. I'm the head ofcontent here at ProCare
Solutions, and we are thrilledto have you with us today.
We're gonna be talking about atopic that is really important
in ECE and education and in allsorts of ways, and that is
(00:33):
using videos effectively in ECEclassrooms. And we have someone
with us who is really smart andknows a lot about that. Um, her
name is Dr. Ine de . She is theChief Learning Officer of Marco
Polo Learning. Um, if youhaven't heard of Marco Polo,
it's a really great company.
It's an award-winning globaldeveloper of educational
(00:55):
products and instructionalresources. Um, and she also
teaches at Boston College Todayshe's gonna share her insights
about early childhood educationprograms and how you can use
those videos in your classroomsto supplement your lesson
plans. So welcome nme . We'rereally glad to have you with
us.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Alright , so can we start this with getting a
little background on you? Um,tell us how you became involved
in ECE and chose this as your,as your career path.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I, I, I think I've always wanted to be a teacher,
so I don't know how I can't gothat that far back. And I was a
classroom teacher for, for manyyears, for over 15 years in New
York City, which I think isreally important because I'm of
the belief that if you've neverbeen in a classroom , uh, and
if you've never actually beenon the ground with children and
working with children andfamilies, then please stay out
(01:51):
of our business. Like, it'slike you don't know or
we, we , if you haven't walkedin our shoes , uh, don't make
shoes for us either. And so Ifeel kind of confident that I
have , um, really had thatexperience in a genuine way and
really connected to childrenand what teachers want. And a
lot of what we create andsolutions now stem from what we
(02:13):
are seeing on the ground.
'cause I think there's a, amassive disconnect between what
is happening in schools andsometimes what policies or
decisions being made of what ,what is happening. Um, then I
kind of went into teachereducation and teacher
preparation. Um, I was aninstructor at, at , at , at
Columbia University or where Igraduated from, and really
(02:36):
wanted to figure out multipleways to reach children. So
whether it be through workingwith their teachers , um, or
reaching them through creatingresources. So that's where 13
years ago, I , um, I was theeducational co-founder of Marco
Polo Learning, which createshigh quality resources for
young children. Currently, I'malso a professor of early
(02:59):
childhood education at BostonUniversity. So I know you met ,
you said Boston College, butthey are , oh , I'm sorry .
They're . No , no . Iwas like, wait, the rivalry?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Oh, no, lemme even ,
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Uh , it's interesting. I think it'll
actually, you know, it maybeincrease comments in in
, in the , in the , they'relike, no, we were different.
Um, they're really close toeach other too. They're also
geographically close to eachother. So I'm at Boston
University, the , uh, wheel OffSchool of Education, human
Development. Okay. Um , and myrole there is as a , uh,
clinical Associate professor ofEarly childhood education. And
(03:31):
I think it's really uniquebecause now I have the being on
the ground. I'm also still onthe ground , uh, on multiple
ones in my multiple roles thatI have in Boston University,
engaging in research andpractice, and then actually
using Marco Polo to implementthat research and practice
because it's kind of like threedifferent buckets of like what
(03:51):
is happening in the classrooms,what is happening in the
universities, and the research,and then what is being made and
resources being made forteachers. And there are three
almost different silos. Andsince I work in all of them, I
have the , um, the , thepleasure of being able to
combine all three.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Wow , that's amazing. So when was it you
decided to pursue your PhD?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I was a, I was teaching , um, in New York City
and Uhhuh , um,in a lovely school. And then I
was realizing it was somethingduring my master's program, I
took a science course, ascience education course. And I
remember in this course theykept talking about how , um,
science is not taught in ourschools, that it's not
(04:37):
something that is part of thecurriculum. Usually it's an
afterthought after reading andmath, or sometimes there's cute
activities like, oh, like we'regonna get a pumpkin and we're
gonna count the seeds. I'm notnot hating on any seed pumpkin
counters here. Like it's, I Istill do the activity, but it's
always kind of like, oh, itwould be nice to have science.
But when we were, we thinkabout, well , like science is
(04:59):
for young children, askingquestions, making comparisons,
experimenting, problem solving.
It's like, how are we notincluding science? And there's
some staggering statistics outthere around only 19% of
children in the United States,especially in early childhood,
have access to regular scienceeducation that science receives
, uh, receives I believe like athird of the instructional time
(05:22):
if they do receive it at all ,uh, compared to other subjects.
And so , um, I saw the impactsthat that has. And if somebody
re really cares about math andreading , uh, you would still
need the sciences. Like youcould, you, the science is kind
of the context in which youapply it, right? What are you
reading about? Uh , what areyou applying science , what are
(05:43):
you counting, what are you,what are you measuring? Right?
Science is that context. And so, um, that was, that was
something that was mentioned tome in my master's . And I was
like, oh, okay. Right. And thenwhen I went into practice, I
was like, oh, no, no , they'renot kidding. There's no
science. Like, there's verylittle science. Um, and so, and
even when I saw in like gradeschools committed to , to
(06:05):
children , um, it really wasnot part of, of that day.
There's a lot of factorsaround. Teachers don't feel
like they're prepared to, toteach science. The resources
don't support it. They don'tfeel, they don't have time in
the day, so they don't feellike it's integrated into
things that they're alreadydoing. Um, and so I went back
to , uh, Columbia Universityand pursued my doctorate , um,
(06:27):
at that point in STEMeducation. And so I, my first,
my first round there was incurriculum and teaching and
then STEM education. Um, andreally was committed to making
sure that children have accessto learning and high quality
learning. And then with aspecific focus on STEM
education, because it is, ifyou wanna, if you wanna create
(06:49):
problem solvers, if you wanna ,even children love it. Like
also I was like, why wouldn'twe teach us what they really
love is what they can't stoptalking about. Uh, and then
we're not giving it to 'em.
We're not meeting their needsif we're not doing that .
Speaker 2 (07:03):
That's, that is a well-rounded background, if
ever. I've heard one .
So let's shift to today. Whatis your job at Marco Polo
Learning entail? And can youtell us a little bit about the
company?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
So Marco Polo uh, learning was , um, started
about 13 years ago, and it wasreally, really small 13 years
ago. Uh, and it was started onthe wild idea. It's very wild
that children deserve better when it comes to, to
media. I think , uh, justice ,who our , our, our CEO and
(07:35):
founder, he was like, he had a, a daughter and he was like,
Ooh , what's this? Like, whatis, what are these choices?
What is this like flash? Andthere's, there's, there's high
quality children's media outthere, but like very limited.
Uh, and it's, and and overlyanimated too. Like if I wanted
to watch something about thenatural world, it's like, is is
it even, does it even exist?
(07:56):
Like, show me what it reallylooks like. Um, and so , uh,
it's , we, we wanted to show,give children access to high
quality , uh, content , uh, andcreate high quality content for
them. They are, they aredeserving. Um, and they, they
know the, the difference too.
Um, so it's not just like, oh,this is high quality because
(08:17):
adults want it to be highquality . The children also
know the difference betweensomething that is serving their
needs and not. And so westarted creating like
standalone apps, sandboxexperiences for young children
where they can manipulate theenvironment. Um, we had one
where they could , uh, go playin the ocean and, and
manipulate fish in the oceanand put fish and see what the
(08:39):
impacts of that are. And thenwe had one where they go
explore the arctic and weather.
And then we started thinkingabout like, video based content
of what we want our children tobe able to watch. We believe
that children are like curious.
They are researchers. Uh, thefirst line, and this is I this
is not to be replaced ofgetting information, is through
(09:00):
their senses and observation.
Uh, they also ask somewherebetween 75 and a hundred
questions per hour. That's whatresearch is telling , because
they, they , we are limited to, uh, what information you can
get from your, from interactingwith your environment. And
there comes to be a point wherethey're like, well, what's the
fastest train? Like, how doesthis magnet work? Or what is a,
you know, what is a black hole?
(09:21):
Why does the sun look likethat? Right? Um , mm-hmm
. And thatstemmed from our observations.
And so we wanted to give themways to be able to explore that
knowledge. Um, and then westarted creating high quality
video content in 2019. We werenominated for an Emmy award ,
uh, because we were like, we,that , that's that which really
(09:41):
reflects our commitment to highquality content. And we were ,
um, making this contentavailable, like in through our
apps downloadable. And then wekept hearing from schools
saying like, what is, what ,what is this? You know, where,
how can I get this? And so wewanted to make sure that
content was available inschools as well. I think what's
(10:03):
really interesting is a coupleof things about us. We were
always early childhood. Weweren't something that was
started for older children andthen adapted for early
childhood. Um, and we werealways, we always had a teacher
involved, myself and othereducators. We weren't something
that is created by somebody andthen a , like a , a stamp of
approvals given at the endsaying like, yeah, that would
(10:24):
be great in the classroom. Ithink this is educational. It
was always from its conceptionfor children , uh, by teachers,
by educators. Um, and so wereally sat on that mission and
I think we've, we've really metit throughout the years.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah. Your videos are, they're so, like every
single one I've watched, itseems like, you know, that a
lot of thought has been putinto like, what's
developmentally appropriate andall the things that you have
that a ECE teacher would knowis appropriate that maybe
somebody else wouldn't. So Yeah, that's really great. I
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Love showing , I love showing it to teachers and
like educators. 'cause like wehave like videos that see are
seemingly silly. Like, oh, avideo about like a woodpecker
or , uh, a video about an , youknow, an animal who, who buries
its food and like wolverineand, and people are like, oh,
that's, that's nice, right? Butthen a teacher , uh, like a
(11:24):
person who, who knows children,they're like, oh, this is
really teaching 'em likequestion asking. This is really
teaching them even like , um,how to compare things. This is
really teaching 'em how toquantify things, observations,
and so these interesting topicsare really engaging to them .
But it's just these , thestarting point.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And we'll , um, I'll post this in our , um, show
notes as well. But we justpublished a blog , um, with
that we interviewedfor , and it has a sample
video, and maybe you could talkabout it a little bit. The ,
um, it's ducklings, littleducklings , um, and teaching
math. Is this ringing a bell?
Yeah, I know you have a milliona million videos . So
Speaker 3 (12:05):
We have a , we have videos that are , um, this is,
so this is one, one thingthat's really great when we
are, we create video contentand then we set it out to
schools and then teachers loveit. And then they say, Hey, can
we also get this like,,can we get that we need this?
And this is one of those,those, those math series was
(12:25):
one of those. We wanted to makesure that we're always
responding to the needs ofteachers. And we are also se
seeing what they are lookingfor. We know that teachers
spend about four to seven hoursper week looking for
supplemental resources,creating supplemental
resources. They end up in theworld of YouTube. I know I've
ended up in like, YouTube as ateacher. I'm like, why ? What
am I doing here looking forstuff for 4-year-old? This is
(12:48):
not where we belong , uh, . And so we, we were
hearing over and over againthat they wanted something to
help with the supports of mathteaching. Now for anybody out
there, it's like, what is mathshould not be taught by
screens. I would, I would alsohave to, to agree to, to the
most part, we should , childrenshould be manipulating things,
counting things, holdingthings, moving things, right?
(13:11):
Um, but there is a benefit aswell. And so when, if we said,
we're gonna do this, we'regonna do this, right? And we
were going to really see wherethe , uh, where technology can
contribute and not replace anyof the learning. And so what we
saw that children were reallyintrigued with is like
storytelling aspects and art ,um, that we can use, utilize
(13:32):
digital media to , to, toreally bring certain things to
life. And so in our mathseries, again, all our videos
are under three or , uh, twominutes long. We are, they're
immersed in like a farm worldwhere they're counting
ducklings and there's aproblem. There's too many
ducklings. Where did theseducks come from? Right? And so
this is a way of saying thatnumbers have meaning and they
(13:56):
have context. And let meimmerse you in a story where
they are, where it's not justthe number three, it's three
ducks. And so teachingone-to-one correspondence,
cardinality number sequence ina world that is full of meaning
, uh, and excitement for youngchildren on like a farm. Um, so
contextualized learning hasalways been very , uh,
(14:17):
important to us so that we'reteaching something within a
context, not just, let's countto 10. What are we counting to
10? Um, and that's, that's what, what are some of our math
series , uh, really , uh, setout to do.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's great. So maybe before we super dive in,
we should address what I know alot of our listeners are
wondering, and that you justtouched on too. Um, a fear up
too much screen time in theclassroom. And this is
something I know you and yourteam know a lot about. Could
you tell us how the videos thatwe're gonna be talking about
supplement lessons, they're notreplacing any, replacing any
(14:56):
learning and how you go aboutmaking that happen?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I think if there's a fear about too much screen time
in the classroom, that that's avery legitimate fear. I have
that same fear and I'vewitnessed the same thing. Um,
it is, it is , uh, somethingthat everybody should be, you
know , aware of that this ,there should not be, screens
are not gonna replace thelearning experience. Um, and
(15:23):
they, they should be a part ofthe learning and not the , the
whole the whole learning. So,but I think one thing to
understand is that like screenis not all created equal. And
it's not like a random, it'snot, I think people need a , a
framework to understand when wesay like, high quality digital
media, what does that mean? I,I'm thinking of like, I know
(15:45):
when I go like supermarketshopping and I'm given the most
difficult task in my life,which is to pick out a
watermelon and I'm don't knowhow to do it. ,
. I dunno if anybody'slistening there and I see
people and they're like pickingup the watermelon, they're
knocking, they're looking atthe underbelly of it . But to
me, it's a mysterious world ofwhat makes a good watermelon.
(16:08):
Like I don't, I could knock, Idon't know what I'm listening
for. I could look at the , Idon't know what it is, and I
could see that other people do.
And I feel like the same wayabout screen , like screen time
and, and , uh, and media. I'mlike, it's not, it's, it's not
as ambiguous or or spontaneousas we think , uh, it is to
(16:31):
identify high quality media.
There are certain things tolook for. So whether you're
looking at Marco Polo orwhether you're looking at other
media, there are certainframeworks that I certainly
didn't establish there wereestablished by other
researchers that guide our ,um, that guide our thinking. So
first thing you're gonna lookfor is does it engage children?
(16:52):
Um, that one is the one that isoverly emphasized and
misunderstood. Like engagingmeans, like it captures their
attention. Like, oh, that'sexciting. Right? And a lot of
times people stop at that,like, oh, you got my, you got
the kids' attention. Well, Ican get the kids' attention by
putting on a clown that likehops on his head, right? And
that doesn't mean that theylearn anything. So it has to
(17:14):
focus, the attention has tohelp them focus as part of the
learning goal. So if I'm, ifthere's something on the screen
that's just popping andballooning and all of this
stuff, it got their attention.
But if the purpose of it was toteach them, like counting what
does the balloon, what doesthat have to do with anything,
right? But if , for example, ifit's like a clown holding the
(17:34):
balloon every time the balloonpops , it's a number in there
and the clown's like, oh, no.
Right? And so the engaging partis the popping balloon, but the
learning part is alsoconnected. The counting of the
popping balloon is theconnection between that, that
it also has to enhance learningin some way. It has to make
things possible that if youremove the technology is not
(17:57):
possible. So if you're turningon a smart board and doing all
of this, and then you're takingthe technology so that you
could draw a triangle, youcould have done that without,
without the technology. So, butwhat we are creating or videos
or insights are not possiblewithout the technology. It's
not possible for children on a, you know, if you're learning
about , um, a cheetah and thespeed of the cheetah , um, if
(18:21):
you're learning about placesaround the world and
celebrations around the world ,it's not possible to go there
and, and take children to seeit. It's not possible to see
what's inside the human body inthe classroom, right? Children
have questions about like, whatare lungs? What's the heart?
And so that is where technologycomes in that doesn't replace
(18:41):
anything, but makes certainthings possible. And then the
third thing when you're, youknow, knocking on that
watermelon of technology isdoes it extend learning? And
this is one that is reallyimportant. Technology's always
fe feels like it takes you awayfrom human interactions. Like
it focus , the kids are likelooking at the screen and not
(19:02):
interacting with people aroundthem . Mm-hmm .
Good technology actually , um,allows you to cultivate human
interaction. So is it maybegiving you talk prompts? So you
turn and talk to the child nextto you? Is it maybe , um, part
of an investigation and tellingyou like, okay, now you build
something, or now you makesomething. Is it a piece of the
(19:24):
puzzle? Does it help , uh,cultivate and bridge two , two
humans together, two peopletogether? Um, and that is the
third kind of feature. Does itextend the learning outside of
the screen? And so with thesethree in mind, is how we
created, does it engage? Doesit enhance, does it extend ,
um, how we created the contentof it? And so it's, it's on the
(19:48):
screen, but it impacts so muchthat is off the screen. And
then the simple one is you areworried about screen time,
don't show a 30, 40 minutevideo. Um, it's the simple
solution. All of our videos ,um, you know, there's, there I
think the longest one becausethere's like drawing involved
in it and, you know, they haveto do something while they're
(20:09):
watching. The video is fiveminutes, but the average video
is about two minutes long. Uh,and so we real really do mean
keep it short, and our videoskeep it short.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And another time we spoke, you were, you gave this
really great example of , um,music, like with the
instruments. There was a videolike describing, and, and it
goes into what you just said,like the piano, like going
inside the piano, like reallyillustrating those things that
I don't think most childcarecenters or ECE programs have a
(20:42):
piano sitting in there. Yeah .
So yeah, like getting, gettingthat viewpoint that you can't
get in a classroom.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And then, I'm glad you
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Touched
Speaker 3 (20:51):
On it . If you watch a video like that, like inside
the piano, I've , and I've, andI've showed it to children, it
starts off with them playingwith instruments and they're
manipulating it. Then they'recertain like, well, how does
the piano work? How does thiswork on the inside? Let's watch
this video. And then itscratches some of that itch,
but actually they're left withmore questions. Like, what else
(21:12):
is, what's inside the guitar ?
What's inside, you know, andwhat now they're wondering
what's inside other things. Andso the videos are not meant to
be like, well, let me tell you,it's not a documentary. Like a
, you know, and now you, nowyou know, everything. They're
meant to scratch a itch andcreate a itch like scra , you
know, like, give , let me, letme give you some information.
(21:33):
Right. That's so interestingwhat's happening inside the
piano, but also leave youwondering for more.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
All right , so here's a big question. Um,
let's talk about the benefitsof the type of technology that
Marco Polo provides tochildren. And I know it's a
long list, so whatever youwanna talk about would be
great.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah , the first thing that came to mind for me
is , um, benefits fordifferentiated learning. And so
there, we have diverse learnersin our classroom. I, myself was
an English language learner.
Um, and I remember likesitting, I remember this one
moment, I was like sitting inthe class in kindergarten, and
the teacher kept like, bringingout this container of eggs. And
(22:21):
I'm like, and the kids keptlooking at the eggs, and I
thought they were like, justbreakfast eggs. And I'm like,
what is happening? Like, , you know, why are
these kids, why are these kidsin the United States so
interested in eggs? Like wejust eat it ? And I didn't know
, like, I was like , what isgoing on ? A couple of weeks
later, those eggs hatched, you know, and, and it
was an incubator, and I know Iwas like, what is ha ? And so
(22:45):
differentiating learning ispossible mm-hmm .
Not just the benefits ofshowing you parts of the world
, uh, within showing you partsof the world. Some of the
benefit is exposure tovocabulary. But what we are
hearing from teachers is I havelike diverse language needs in
the classroom, and we can'texpect teachers to be like
multilingual in every lesson.
So this is where, again, thistechnology enhanced , this is
(23:07):
where technology makessomething possible that's not
possible. I can then pull up avideo on make , could be eggs
and chickens, right? And clickon that same video, and it's
available in English, and it'savailable in Spanish, and it's
available. We have it in, in ,um, chi Mandarin Chinese, and
we have it in Haitian Creole,and we have it in modified
(23:27):
versions with subtitles, whichare slowed down and simplified.
And we're always adding , uh,more, more languages. So that's
just one of the benefits. Um,the other benefits for what we
really do , we create really tosupport the teacher. And then
in supporting the teacher, we,that benefits the child. What
we were seeing is that languageis really important in the
(23:51):
classroom. The, theinteractions between children
and, and adults. If we couldimpact the types of questions
that teachers are asking, wecould have an impact on like,
multiple domains of thechildren of , uh, of children's
development or cognitivedevelopment or literacy
development, or languagedevelopment, or social
development. And so we've allbeen in classrooms where like a
(24:11):
teacher is like reading a bookor something, and it's like,
I'm like, oh , ask thisquestion. Ask them, like, have
, have they ever been to thebeach? Right? Um, or ask them
like, what does this remind youof? And it's hard to come up
sometimes with those questionson the spot. And so what we do
is provide those questions boththrough educator guides and
embedded in videos so that theycan, we can elevate adult child
(24:34):
interactions, which is a, forthose who are engaging in like,
assessment of high qualitylearning in the classrooms,
there's multiple assessmentsbeing used nationwide. No
matter what assessment you'reusing to assess high quality ,
uh, instruction, there's goingto be something about concept
development, question asking,responding to children posing
(24:54):
questions. And so , uh, we, weprovide those questions to
teachers that make it possible.
Um, there also the benefits of,you know, cultivating and
recognizing your interest andcuriosity. We have children who
are like, wanna know about acertain topic, and now it makes
it, it facilitates teachers in, uh, ability to address those,
(25:16):
those needs. Sometimes it usshould just teachers watch the
video so they can learn moreabout the topic, the themselves
, uh, because it's presented ina very kind of clear way. And
so they feel more confident innow talking to a child who's
interested about sharks , uh,and, and, and engaging them in
that conversation. Um, and thenwe also provide offline
(25:40):
activities. So it's not justthe benefit of, you know, the
conversation and the videoitself. We also give children
like, hands-on offlineactivities for, for them, for
teachers to set up in centers,and then they could do that as
well. There's, I think,multiple benefits , um, from
the child's perspective.
They're just watching a shortbut very interesting video
(26:01):
about something that theyreally wanna know about.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I'm glad you said too, that it's a , a resource
for teachers when they'rewanting to learn something more
about it. Um, the other day, myson, who's a kindergartner
asked me how condensationworked. And I was like, you in
the grocery store with thewatermelon? I was like , um, I
think maybe once upon atime I remember to learn this.
(26:25):
Yeah , yeah . But yeah, I, Ihad to look it up and try to
find a way to explain it reallysimply. So,
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And , and we say it's like now with like a tool
like this, we could be like,well , how do you think it
works? How do we find out?
Right? Let's find out together.
And something like condensationis very difficult to explain
without visuals. Like how doyou even explain ? And so it
takes things that are abstractand makes them more concrete
and, and , and obtainable , uh,for young children.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah. So you were talking about how your videos,
most of them are around twominutes. The absolute longest
is five minutes. Um, why isthat length? Have you found
that that length is the most,the most suitable for what
you're doing?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I wouldn't keep a child sitting on a rug for like
20, 30 minutes , uh, to doanything , not just
video. Um, yeah. And so thereis no magic number in research
that says, I , I know there'sthis , this rumor out there.
There is a rumor out there.
It's like, if you're five,that's five minutes on the rug.
If you're six, that's sixminutes. It should be the, the
(27:31):
number co corresponding totheir age. There's no , there's
nothing really that's just arumor. Uh , there is no magic
number. But why would we makeit longer when we can? We
could, if the , if the purposeis to spark , uh, and to limit
screen time, then we, we get tothe point, right? Mm-hmm . We
can do that in two minutes.
Mm-hmm . Uh, and it's, it's onething to tell teachers, if we
(27:54):
tell teachers keep screen timeshort, and then we give them a
30 minute video, we'recontradicting ourselves. We're
not facil , we are not the, the, the material is not lending
itself to our message.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Mm-hmm
. So age appropriateness,
that's another, another majorfactor as well. What factors
should center leaders, ECEprogram leaders , um, teachers
take into account when decidingif a video is appropriate for a
certain age group? In, in thatece
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah .
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Range .
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Well, I know that I've ended up on YouTube.
YouTube was not created foryoung children, or to
instruction of young children.
So though , when teach , whenteachers are not given
resources, that's where theyend up and they end up there
for good reasons. Like, they'relike, you know, if you're a
director and you're listeningand be like, well, then I , I
(28:50):
don't want my teacher's usingany video. They're, they're
there for good reasons. They'rethere for a visual. They're
there to explain to somebodyhow condensation works, or show
them a visual or get like amovement activity or something
like that. So they , they'rethere for a good reason. They
just don't find what's made foryoung children. So in terms of
(29:10):
dec decide , deciding or createor selecting things that are
developmentally appropriate, ithas to have specifically been
made for young children and notadapted for young children. And
that's why I said as thisconception, we were a team of
teachers saying, this is, wehave young children in mind
from the creation of all ofthe, the scripts that materials
(29:31):
the content. Does it speak toyoung children? Is engaging,
does, is it connected tomultiple , uh, domains of their
development? Um, is it breakdown concepts? We also limit
animation and show them reallife footage , uh, a lot. So
why we reason we have real life, uh, animation is because we
(29:51):
know that children are, itcould help us break down
concepts that we would not beable to sometimes, like, you
know, if we're doing thatexample of the water, water
vapor and evaporating,sometimes you could see , you
know, we need to show it goingup and little rays . And so
animation's only used as ascaffolding method. Uh, and
then the rest of it is reallife footage. So the children
(30:13):
need to be able to see examplesof real, of real life, what we
haven't talked about. I thinkwe , I know we focus a lot on
the sciences, the maths. We, wealso have literacy videos. We
also have social emotionalvideos and a , so , and a
strong social emotional libraryabout recognizing facial
expressions , um, dealing withfrustration, anger , um,
(30:36):
self-management techniques. Andso when teachers see this,
they're like, these, everysingle one of these videos is
what I need in my classroom.
Talk about like, you know,developmentally appropriate. We
are very aware that these arethe things that children need
in that age group. They'rehaving, they have a difficult
(30:56):
time, and this is not, they'renot doing anything wrong. This
is just what their age groupneeds. They have a difficult
time identifying and giving,putting words to their
feelings. And so they end upscreaming or tantruming or
kicking because they don't havethe vocabulary. And then they
have a hard time self-managing.
Telling somebody to calm downmeans nothing to them telling
(31:18):
somebody to even take a breath.
How do I do that? And so ourvideos understand where they
are in terms of theirdevelopmental range on multiple
domains, including their socialand emotional development, and
provide teachers the resourcesthat they , they they can do
to, to help with thatdevelopment. And so something
like , um, you know, there's a,there's a good one. We always
say like, make good choices.
(31:39):
Like, you know, how do you makegood choices? Well, that's,
that involves thinking ofchoice A and choice B, and what
will, what happens if I do thisand happens if I do that? That
involves teaching them a syssystem of like, weight your
choices and thinking about whatwill happen. And that's a lot
of cognitive processeshappening right there. And so
in our videos, there's like a ,there's a child who's about to
(31:59):
take a muffin, and it's like,well, should I take it? And I
was like, well, let's use videoto talk about, like, you know,
stop and think. And sosomething that is really takes
a lot of, like, you know, it'shard to explain what happens in
our mind as we're making thesechoices. The video kind of
brings it to life. And so thatfacilitates a conversation
(32:20):
between a teacher and a child,and a parent and a child.
'cause we also , uh, haveparent facing resources as well
, uh, around what they trulymean when they're telling a
child, okay, let's make , let'sthink about our choices.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah. So let's jump back to how these videos
support a lesson plan orcurriculum. Um, but this time
I'd like to take a look at itthrough, through the lens of
supporting teachers. Yeah . Um,one thing that we hear a lot ,
uh, hear a lot at ProCareSolutions is that many teachers
now are younger, maybe don'thave the education or the
(32:56):
experience that experience thatother teachers have. How do
Marco Polo learning videos helpthem do their job and really
take some of the stress out oftheir, their daily routines as
they're already spending allthis time on lesson planning?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
If you're , so you start with your curriculum, so
it's like, mm-hmm . I know,first thing I said when you
said , you told me to introducemyself, I said, I've been a
classroom teacher mm-hmm . And so one
thing I know is I don't needone more thing. Like, I don't
need, I don't need one morething. Stop giving me this and
that, and this. I need to focuson my children. And if I have a
curriculum, I need to implementthat curriculum, right? And I
(33:34):
don't need one more thing. Andso if we give them something
that's like seemingly unrelatedto their curriculum, they're
like, please leave me alone.
And so by design, what we havein terms of our partnership and
, and the tool is we don't saydisconnects to your CU
curriculum. We literally haveit aligned. They can search
their curriculum, they couldlesson plan, and they could
(33:55):
find already aligned videosthat go with that lesson and
they plug it into their lesson.
So I even a teacher who's beenteaching for, for two months or
20 years, unless they see itsrelevance into what they're
already doing and is relevancein their curriculum, and they
could plug it into theirplanner, it , um, it is , it's
(34:16):
not useful to them. I don't, Idon't blame them. Like they
have too much, too much to do.
And so this is what our toolsallow us to do. I am teaching a
study on, on ocean animals.
Tell me the , the, the spec on, on this unit we're talking
about , um, like predators inthe ocean. Give me specific
videos I can use for thislesson. Here you go. Right? And
(34:40):
so the guesswork is taken outof it. You don't have to spend
hours going on, on the internetlooking for that and ending up
in places where they don'tbelong. And so we, again,
designed by teachers , um, forteachers in this situation
because we, we, we hear you.
It's a, it's a real , it's, I'mgonna go out there and say it's
(35:01):
the toughest job out there,right? There's a lot involved,
and we don't want to give onemore thing for them to do. So
we know it has to integrateinto their curriculum and their
daily practices.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
So as we start to wrap up, could you give us a
rundown of some of the biggestmistakes you see when educators
try to incorporate videos thatthey are just finding anywhere,
you know, the , the YouTubes,the Google searches , um, when
they try to incorporate thoseinto lessons. And we've talked,
you talked about a lot of themtoo, but are there any, any
other ones you think we should,we should mention
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Not , not made for young children, they weren't
originally made and you'retrying to, to adapt it using
too much animation and notreally . You wanna show
something that is in the realworld , um, not make , using
technology where technology hasno business, it doesn't add
value to the experience, right?
Why are you here? You could ,why are you here to , to show
(35:56):
them a video about , uh,something that they could
experience hand first, firsthands on , right? Uh, only when
it's, you need to take them tothat next level. Only when you
wanna make sure that you'recreating something or giving
them access to something , uh,common mistakes we discussed,
it's too long. You don't keepthem. It is part of the
(36:18):
learning experience and not awhole thing. Um, videos that
don't have any context to it,let's count to a hundred. What
are you counting? Like, youknow, it's videos that are
engaging but not engaging onthe learning. It's, there's
popping , there's bubbles,there's balloons. The kids are
excited, but there's nobodythat's learning anything,
right? . So again,that's a lot for them to
(36:41):
consider. Like, I'm justlisting , oh, don't do this,
don't do this, don't do this.
Um, and I think this is why ,uh, our, our, our solution has
been well received. Instead oftelling teachers, don't do
that. Don't go here, don't dothis, don't do this, don't do
this. They're out there,they're struggling. Support
them. What are they? What ,what am I supposed to do? Where
am I supposed to go to forlanguage instruction, for
(37:04):
resources, for co , formultiple mo ? What am I
supposed to do? And I thinkthat's where we come in.
Instead of telling teachersdon't do that, we actually give
them and say, you know what? Dothis, this will help you. Uh,
children love it too. .
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah . So those are some of the problems. And we
have the solution, which is anintegration between ProCare and
Marco Polo Learning , uh, MarcoPolo's, comprehensive library
of developmentally appropriateshort videos. Educator guides
and activities can now beaccessed in ProCare, making it
easier for educators toincorporate the resources into
(37:37):
their lesson plans. Uh, couldyou please describe how this
integration works?
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yeah . So we meet teachers where they are. They
don't have to go to another, toanother platform, another
system. You don't have todownload anything. While
teachers are planning theirlesson, they select , uh, they
select what they're alreadydoing, and then they can add a
Marco Polo video. Again, it'salready, it's already aligned
for them from, for theircurriculum. They can search by
curriculum, they can search by,by subject, they can search by
(38:06):
theme. And so the really,because we know that's, you
know, ways that teachers wantto find content, and we wanna ,
however you're searching by it,we want you to be able to, to
find, and then it adds itdirectly to your planner, so
you don't have to find it laterand search for it later with,
it also is those educatorguides that I discussed. So,
and we're not just saying,here's, here's some video
(38:27):
content. We're giving themspecific questions to ask
before the video, during thevideo, after the video, so that
we can cultivate that highquality , um, like teacher
child talk. And then also, wetalked a lot about YouTube.
Well , after YouTube, there'sthe migration into, into
Pinterest, give me an activityI can do, you know, that , you
(38:50):
know, and then you end up inPinterest. Um, and so again,
Pinterest is great, but notnecessarily created for early
learning. Um, and so we wantedto give them, and again, time
consuming too, like to , youjust search through all of
these things. And so teachersalso are given , um, examples
of like centers and otheractivities that they can do
(39:11):
that goes beyond the video. SoI think in short, if you're
watching this and you're like,well, I don't wanna give my
teachers one more thing to do,I think they, the , the, the
beauty of this solution is thatit already meets them where
they are. And it actually givesthem less to do, less, less,
you know, work looking all over, uh, so that they can , um,
(39:33):
add visuals, modify learning,differentiate instruction. Um,
we have heard so much fromteachers that how much time it
has saved them and how much thechildren love it.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Well, thank you so much for coming, for making
time outta your day. We reallyappreciate it. Um, could you
share where folks listening canfind out more about Marco Polo
learning anything, any otherlinks or , and we can add those
in the show notes too. That'sthe best way .
Speaker 3 (40:00):
We are , I , I believe we're featured on, on
your website your source aswell, through our partnership.
Um , yeah . And then also Marcolearning , uh, marketable
learning.com. Um, but yeah, Ithink we , we can, we can also
send out some, some resourcesas well.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Well, thanks again.
It was great hearing from you.
Great spending time with youtoday. And to all the ECE
providers who are listening, wewanna give a heartfelt thank
you for all that you're doingevery day . I do agree that you
guys have the toughest job. Andas a working mom, I so
appreciate everything thatyou're doing. Um, until next
(40:39):
time, have a great dayeveryone. Bye.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello everyone, and welcome to our latest episode
of the Childcare BusinessPodcast. My name is Leah
Woodbury. I'm the head ofcontent here at ProCare
Solutions, and we are thrilledto have you with us today.
We're gonna be talking about atopic that is really important
in ECE and education and in allsorts of ways, and that is
(00:33):
using videos effectively in ECEclassrooms. And we have someone
with us who is really smart andknows a lot about that. Um, her
name is Dr. Ine de . She is theChief Learning Officer of Marco
Polo Learning. Um, if youhaven't heard of Marco Polo,
it's a really great company.
It's an award-winning globaldeveloper of educational
(00:55):
products and instructionalresources. Um, and she also
teaches at Boston College Todayshe's gonna share her insights
about early childhood educationprograms and how you can use
those videos in your classroomsto supplement your lesson
plans. So welcome nme . We'rereally glad to have you with
us.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Alright , so can we start this with getting a
little background on you? Um,tell us how you became involved
in ECE and chose this as your,as your career path.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I, I, I think I've always wanted to be a teacher,
so I don't know how I can't gothat that far back. And I was a
classroom teacher for, for manyyears, for over 15 years in New
York City, which I think isreally important because I'm of
the belief that if you've neverbeen in a classroom , uh, and
if you've never actually beenon the ground with children and
working with children andfamilies, then please stay out
(01:51):
of our business. Like, it'slike you don't know
we, we , if you haven't walkedin our shoes , uh, don't make
shoes for us either. And so Ifeel kind of confident that I
have , um, really had thatexperience in a genuine way and
really connected to childrenand what teachers want. And a
lot of what we create andsolutions now stem from what we
(02:13):
are seeing on the ground.
'cause I think there's a, amassive disconnect between what
is happening in schools andsometimes what policies or
decisions being made of what ,what is happening. Um, then I
kind of went into teachereducation and teacher
preparation. Um, I was aninstructor at, at , at , at
Columbia University or where Igraduated from, and really
(02:36):
wanted to figure out multipleways to reach children. So
whether it be through workingwith their teachers , um, or
reaching them through creatingresources. So that's where 13
years ago, I , um, I was theeducational co-founder of Marco
Polo Learning, which createshigh quality resources for
young children. Currently, I'malso a professor of early
(02:59):
childhood education at BostonUniversity. So I know you met ,
you said Boston College, butthey are , oh , I'm sorry .
They're
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Oh, no, lemme even ,
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Uh , it's interesting. I think it'll
actually, you know, it maybeincrease comments in
, in the , in the , they'relike, no, we were different.
Um, they're really close toeach other too. They're also
geographically close to eachother. So I'm at Boston
University, the , uh, wheel OffSchool of Education, human
Development. Okay. Um , and myrole there is as a , uh,
clinical Associate professor ofEarly childhood education. And
(03:31):
I think it's really uniquebecause now I have the being on
the ground. I'm also still onthe ground , uh, on multiple
ones in my multiple roles thatI have in Boston University,
engaging in research andpractice, and then actually
using Marco Polo to implementthat research and practice
because it's kind of like threedifferent buckets of like what
(03:51):
is happening in the classrooms,what is happening in the
universities, and the research,and then what is being made and
resources being made forteachers. And there are three
almost different silos. Andsince I work in all of them, I
have the , um, the , thepleasure of being able to
combine all three.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Wow , that's amazing. So when was it you
decided to pursue your PhD?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I was a, I was teaching , um, in New York City
and Uhhuh
was realizing it was somethingduring my master's program, I
took a science course, ascience education course. And I
remember in this course theykept talking about how , um,
science is not taught in ourschools, that it's not
(04:37):
something that is part of thecurriculum. Usually it's an
afterthought after reading andmath, or sometimes there's cute
activities like, oh, like we'regonna get a pumpkin and we're
gonna count the seeds. I'm notnot hating on any seed pumpkin
counters here. Like it's, I Istill do the activity, but it's
always kind of like, oh, itwould be nice to have science.
But when we were, we thinkabout, well , like science is
(04:59):
for young children, askingquestions, making comparisons,
experimenting, problem solving.
It's like, how are we notincluding science? And there's
some staggering statistics outthere around only 19% of
children in the United States,especially in early childhood,
have access to regular scienceeducation that science receives
, uh, receives I believe like athird of the instructional time
(05:22):
if they do receive it at all ,uh, compared to other subjects.
And so , um, I saw the impactsthat that has. And if somebody
re really cares about math andreading , uh, you would still
need the sciences. Like youcould, you, the science is kind
of the context in which youapply it, right? What are you
reading about? Uh , what areyou applying science , what are
(05:43):
you counting, what are you,what are you measuring? Right?
Science is that context. And so, um, that was, that was
something that was mentioned tome in my master's . And I was
like, oh, okay. Right. And thenwhen I went into practice, I
was like, oh, no, no , they'renot kidding. There's no
science. Like, there's verylittle science. Um, and so, and
even when I saw in like gradeschools committed to , to
(06:05):
children , um, it really wasnot part of, of that day.
There's a lot of factorsaround. Teachers don't feel
like they're prepared to, toteach science. The resources
don't support it. They don'tfeel, they don't have time in
the day, so they don't feellike it's integrated into
things that they're alreadydoing. Um, and so I went back
to , uh, Columbia Universityand pursued my doctorate , um,
(06:27):
at that point in STEMeducation. And so I, my first,
my first round there was incurriculum and teaching and
then STEM education. Um, andreally was committed to making
sure that children have accessto learning and high quality
learning. And then with aspecific focus on STEM
education, because it is, ifyou wanna, if you wanna create
(06:49):
problem solvers, if you wanna ,even children love it. Like
also I was like, why wouldn'twe teach us what they really
love is what they can't stoptalking about. Uh, and then
we're not giving it to 'em.
We're not meeting their needsif we're not doing that .
Speaker 2 (07:03):
That's, that is a well-rounded background, if
ever. I've heard one
So let's shift to today. Whatis your job at Marco Polo
Learning entail? And can youtell us a little bit about the
company?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
So Marco Polo uh, learning was , um, started
about 13 years ago, and it wasreally, really small 13 years
ago. Uh, and it was started onthe wild idea. It's very wild
that children deserve better
media. I think , uh, justice ,who our , our, our CEO and
(07:35):
founder, he was like, he had a, a daughter and he was like,
Ooh , what's this? Like, whatis, what are these choices?
What is this like flash? Andthere's, there's, there's high
quality children's media outthere, but like very limited.
Uh, and it's, and and overlyanimated too. Like if I wanted
to watch something about thenatural world, it's like, is is
it even, does it even exist?
(07:56):
Like, show me what it reallylooks like. Um, and so , uh,
it's , we, we wanted to show,give children access to high
quality , uh, content , uh, andcreate high quality content for
them. They are, they aredeserving. Um, and they, they
know the, the difference too.
Um, so it's not just like, oh,this is high quality because
(08:17):
adults want it to be highquality . The children also
know the difference betweensomething that is serving their
needs and not. And so westarted creating like
standalone apps, sandboxexperiences for young children
where they can manipulate theenvironment. Um, we had one
where they could , uh, go playin the ocean and, and
manipulate fish in the oceanand put fish and see what the
(08:39):
impacts of that are. And thenwe had one where they go
explore the arctic and weather.
And then we started thinkingabout like, video based content
of what we want our children tobe able to watch. We believe
that children are like curious.
They are researchers. Uh, thefirst line, and this is I this
is not to be replaced ofgetting information, is through
(09:00):
their senses and observation.
Uh, they also ask somewherebetween 75 and a hundred
questions per hour. That's whatresearch is telling , because
they, they , we are limited to, uh, what information you can
get from your, from interactingwith your environment. And
there comes to be a point wherethey're like, well, what's the
fastest train? Like, how doesthis magnet work? Or what is a,
you know, what is a black hole?
(09:21):
Why does the sun look likethat? Right? Um , mm-hmm
And so we wanted to give themways to be able to explore that
knowledge. Um, and then westarted creating high quality
video content in 2019. We werenominated for an Emmy award ,
uh, because we were like, we,that , that's that which really
(09:41):
reflects our commitment to highquality content. And we were ,
um, making this contentavailable, like in through our
apps downloadable. And then wekept hearing from schools
saying like, what is, what ,what is this? You know, where,
how can I get this? And so wewanted to make sure that
content was available inschools as well. I think what's
(10:03):
really interesting is a coupleof things about us. We were
always early childhood. Weweren't something that was
started for older children andthen adapted for early
childhood. Um, and we werealways, we always had a teacher
involved, myself and othereducators. We weren't something
that is created by somebody andthen a , like a , a stamp of
approvals given at the endsaying like, yeah, that would
(10:24):
be great in the classroom. Ithink this is educational. It
was always from its conceptionfor children , uh, by teachers,
by educators. Um, and so wereally sat on that mission and
I think we've, we've really metit throughout the years.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah. Your videos are, they're so, like every
single one I've watched, itseems like, you know, that a
lot of thought has been putinto like, what's
developmentally appropriate andall the things that you have
that a ECE teacher would knowis appropriate that maybe
somebody else wouldn't. So Yeah, that's really great. I
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Love showing , I love showing it to teachers and
like educators. 'cause like wehave like videos that see are
seemingly silly. Like, oh, avideo about like a woodpecker
or , uh, a video about an , youknow, an animal who, who buries
its food and like wolverineand, and people are like, oh,
that's, that's nice, right? Butthen a teacher , uh, like a
(11:24):
person who, who knows children,they're like, oh, this is
really teaching 'em likequestion asking. This is really
teaching them even like , um,how to compare things. This is
really teaching 'em how toquantify things, observations,
and so these interesting topicsare really engaging to them .
But it's just these , thestarting point.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And we'll , um, I'll post this in our , um, show
notes as well. But we justpublished a blog , um, with
that we interviewed
video, and maybe you could talkabout it a little bit. The ,
um, it's ducklings, littleducklings , um, and teaching
math. Is this ringing a bell?
Yeah, I know you have a milliona million videos . So
Speaker 3 (12:05):
We have a , we have videos that are , um, this is,
so this is one, one thingthat's really great when we
are, we create video contentand then we set it out to
schools and then teachers loveit. And then they say, Hey, can
we also get this like,
And this is one of those,those, those math series was
(12:25):
one of those. We wanted to makesure that we're always
responding to the needs ofteachers. And we are also se
seeing what they are lookingfor. We know that teachers
spend about four to seven hoursper week looking for
supplemental resources,creating supplemental
resources. They end up in theworld of YouTube. I know I've
ended up in like, YouTube as ateacher. I'm like, why ? What
am I doing here looking forstuff for 4-year-old? This is
(12:48):
not where we belong , uh,
hearing over and over againthat they wanted something to
help with the supports of mathteaching. Now for anybody out
there, it's like, what is mathshould not be taught by
screens. I would, I would alsohave to, to agree to, to the
most part, we should , childrenshould be manipulating things,
counting things, holdingthings, moving things, right?
(13:11):
Um, but there is a benefit aswell. And so when, if we said,
we're gonna do this, we'regonna do this, right? And we
were going to really see wherethe , uh, where technology can
contribute and not replace anyof the learning. And so what we
saw that children were reallyintrigued with is like
storytelling aspects and art ,um, that we can use, utilize
(13:32):
digital media to , to, toreally bring certain things to
life. And so in our mathseries, again, all our videos
are under three or , uh, twominutes long. We are, they're
immersed in like a farm worldwhere they're counting
ducklings and there's aproblem. There's too many
ducklings. Where did theseducks come from? Right? And so
this is a way of saying thatnumbers have meaning and they
(13:56):
have context. And let meimmerse you in a story where
they are, where it's not justthe number three, it's three
ducks. And so teachingone-to-one correspondence,
cardinality number sequence ina world that is full of meaning
, uh, and excitement for youngchildren on like a farm. Um, so
contextualized learning hasalways been very , uh,
(14:17):
important to us so that we'reteaching something within a
context, not just, let's countto 10. What are we counting to
10? Um, and that's, that's what, what are some of our math
series , uh, really , uh, setout to do.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's great. So maybe before we super dive in,
we should address what I know alot of our listeners are
wondering, and that you justtouched on too. Um, a fear up
too much screen time in theclassroom. And this is
something I know you and yourteam know a lot about. Could
you tell us how the videos thatwe're gonna be talking about
supplement lessons, they're notreplacing any, replacing any
(14:56):
learning and how you go aboutmaking that happen?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I think if there's a fear about too much screen time
in the classroom, that that's avery legitimate fear. I have
that same fear and I'vewitnessed the same thing. Um,
it is, it is , uh, somethingthat everybody should be, you
know , aware of that this ,there should not be, screens
are not gonna replace thelearning experience. Um, and
(15:23):
they, they should be a part ofthe learning and not the , the
whole the whole learning. So,but I think one thing to
understand is that like screenis not all created equal. And
it's not like a random, it'snot, I think people need a , a
framework to understand when wesay like, high quality digital
media, what does that mean? I,I'm thinking of like, I know
(15:45):
when I go like supermarketshopping and I'm given the most
difficult task in my life,which is to pick out a
watermelon and I'm don't knowhow to do it.
. I dunno if anybody'slistening there and I see
people and they're like pickingup the watermelon, they're
knocking, they're looking atthe underbelly of it . But to
me, it's a mysterious world ofwhat makes a good watermelon.
(16:08):
Like I don't, I could knock, Idon't know what I'm listening
for. I could look at the , Idon't know what it is, and I
could see that other people do.
And I feel like the same wayabout screen , like screen time
and, and , uh, and media. I'mlike, it's not, it's, it's not
as ambiguous or or spontaneousas we think , uh, it is to
(16:31):
identify high quality media.
There are certain things tolook for. So whether you're
looking at Marco Polo orwhether you're looking at other
media, there are certainframeworks that I certainly
didn't establish there wereestablished by other
researchers that guide our ,um, that guide our thinking. So
first thing you're gonna lookfor is does it engage children?
(16:52):
Um, that one is the one that isoverly emphasized and
misunderstood. Like engagingmeans, like it captures their
attention. Like, oh, that'sexciting. Right? And a lot of
times people stop at that,like, oh, you got my, you got
the kids' attention. Well, Ican get the kids' attention by
putting on a clown that likehops on his head, right? And
that doesn't mean that theylearn anything. So it has to
(17:14):
focus, the attention has tohelp them focus as part of the
learning goal. So if I'm, ifthere's something on the screen
that's just popping andballooning and all of this
stuff, it got their attention.
But if the purpose of it was toteach them, like counting what
does the balloon, what doesthat have to do with anything,
right? But if , for example, ifit's like a clown holding the
(17:34):
balloon every time the balloonpops , it's a number in there
and the clown's like, oh, no.
Right? And so the engaging partis the popping balloon, but the
learning part is alsoconnected. The counting of the
popping balloon is theconnection between that, that
it also has to enhance learningin some way. It has to make
things possible that if youremove the technology is not
(17:57):
possible. So if you're turningon a smart board and doing all
of this, and then you're takingthe technology so that you
could draw a triangle, youcould have done that without,
without the technology. So, butwhat we are creating or videos
or insights are not possiblewithout the technology. It's
not possible for children on a, you know, if you're learning
about , um, a cheetah and thespeed of the cheetah , um, if
(18:21):
you're learning about placesaround the world and
celebrations around the world ,it's not possible to go there
and, and take children to seeit. It's not possible to see
what's inside the human body inthe classroom, right? Children
have questions about like, whatare lungs? What's the heart?
And so that is where technologycomes in that doesn't replace
(18:41):
anything, but makes certainthings possible. And then the
third thing when you're, youknow, knocking on that
watermelon of technology isdoes it extend learning? And
this is one that is reallyimportant. Technology's always
fe feels like it takes you awayfrom human interactions. Like
it focus , the kids are likelooking at the screen and not
(19:02):
interacting with people aroundthem . Mm-hmm
Good technology actually , um,allows you to cultivate human
interaction. So is it maybegiving you talk prompts? So you
turn and talk to the child nextto you? Is it maybe , um, part
of an investigation and tellingyou like, okay, now you build
something, or now you makesomething. Is it a piece of the
(19:24):
puzzle? Does it help , uh,cultivate and bridge two , two
humans together, two peopletogether? Um, and that is the
third kind of feature. Does itextend the learning outside of
the screen? And so with thesethree in mind, is how we
created, does it engage? Doesit enhance, does it extend ,
um, how we created the contentof it? And so it's, it's on the
(19:48):
screen, but it impacts so muchthat is off the screen. And
then the simple one is you areworried about screen time,
don't show a 30, 40 minutevideo. Um, it's the simple
solution. All of our videos ,um, you know, there's, there I
think the longest one becausethere's like drawing involved
in it and, you know, they haveto do something while they're
(20:09):
watching. The video is fiveminutes, but the average video
is about two minutes long. Uh,and so we real really do mean
keep it short, and our videoskeep it short.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And another time we spoke, you were, you gave this
really great example of , um,music, like with the
instruments. There was a videolike describing, and, and it
goes into what you just said,like the piano, like going
inside the piano, like reallyillustrating those things that
I don't think most childcarecenters or ECE programs have a
(20:42):
piano sitting in there. Yeah .
So yeah, like getting, gettingthat viewpoint that you can't
get in a classroom.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And then, I'm glad you
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Touched
Speaker 3 (20:51):
On it . If you watch a video like that, like inside
the piano, I've , and I've, andI've showed it to children, it
starts off with them playingwith instruments and they're
manipulating it. Then they'recertain like, well, how does
the piano work? How does thiswork on the inside? Let's watch
this video. And then itscratches some of that itch,
but actually they're left withmore questions. Like, what else
(21:12):
is, what's inside the guitar ?
What's inside, you know, andwhat now they're wondering
what's inside other things. Andso the videos are not meant to
be like, well, let me tell you,it's not a documentary. Like a
, you know, and now you, nowyou know, everything. They're
meant to scratch a itch andcreate a itch like scra , you
know, like, give , let me, letme give you some information.
(21:33):
Right. That's so interestingwhat's happening inside the
piano, but also leave youwondering for more.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
All right , so here's a big question. Um,
let's talk about the benefitsof the type of technology that
Marco Polo provides tochildren. And I know it's a
long list, so whatever youwanna talk about would be
great.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah , the first thing that came to mind for me
is , um, benefits fordifferentiated learning. And so
there, we have diverse learnersin our classroom. I, myself was
an English language learner.
Um, and I remember likesitting, I remember this one
moment, I was like sitting inthe class in kindergarten, and
the teacher kept like, bringingout this container of eggs. And
(22:21):
I'm like, and the kids keptlooking at the eggs, and I
thought they were like, justbreakfast eggs. And I'm like,
what is happening? Like,
these kids, why are these kidsin the United States so
interested in eggs? Like wejust eat it ? And I didn't know
, like, I was like , what isgoing on ? A couple of weeks
later, those eggs hatched
was an incubator, and I know Iwas like, what is ha ? And so
(22:45):
differentiating learning ispossible mm-hmm
Not just the benefits ofshowing you parts of the world
, uh, within showing you partsof the world. Some of the
benefit is exposure tovocabulary. But what we are
hearing from teachers is I havelike diverse language needs in
the classroom, and we can'texpect teachers to be like
multilingual in every lesson.
So this is where, again, thistechnology enhanced , this is
(23:07):
where technology makessomething possible that's not
possible. I can then pull up avideo on make , could be eggs
and chickens, right? And clickon that same video, and it's
available in English, and it'savailable in Spanish, and it's
available. We have it in, in ,um, chi Mandarin Chinese, and
we have it in Haitian Creole,and we have it in modified
(23:27):
versions with subtitles, whichare slowed down and simplified.
And we're always adding , uh,more, more languages. So that's
just one of the benefits. Um,the other benefits for what we
really do , we create really tosupport the teacher. And then
in supporting the teacher, we,that benefits the child. What
we were seeing is that languageis really important in the
(23:51):
classroom. The, theinteractions between children
and, and adults. If we couldimpact the types of questions
that teachers are asking, wecould have an impact on like,
multiple domains of thechildren of , uh, of children's
development or cognitivedevelopment or literacy
development, or languagedevelopment, or social
development. And so we've allbeen in classrooms where like a
(24:11):
teacher is like reading a bookor something, and it's like,
I'm like, oh , ask thisquestion. Ask them, like, have
, have they ever been to thebeach? Right? Um, or ask them
like, what does this remind youof? And it's hard to come up
sometimes with those questionson the spot. And so what we do
is provide those questions boththrough educator guides and
embedded in videos so that theycan, we can elevate adult child
(24:34):
interactions, which is a, forthose who are engaging in like,
assessment of high qualitylearning in the classrooms,
there's multiple assessmentsbeing used nationwide. No
matter what assessment you'reusing to assess high quality ,
uh, instruction, there's goingto be something about concept
development, question asking,responding to children posing
(24:54):
questions. And so , uh, we, weprovide those questions to
teachers that make it possible.
Um, there also the benefits of,you know, cultivating and
recognizing your interest andcuriosity. We have children who
are like, wanna know about acertain topic, and now it makes
it, it facilitates teachers in, uh, ability to address those,
(25:16):
those needs. Sometimes it usshould just teachers watch the
video so they can learn moreabout the topic, the themselves
, uh, because it's presented ina very kind of clear way. And
so they feel more confident innow talking to a child who's
interested about sharks , uh,and, and, and engaging them in
that conversation. Um, and thenwe also provide offline
(25:40):
activities. So it's not justthe benefit of, you know, the
conversation and the videoitself. We also give children
like, hands-on offlineactivities for, for them, for
teachers to set up in centers,and then they could do that as
well. There's, I think,multiple benefits , um, from
the child's perspective.
They're just watching a shortbut very interesting video
(26:01):
about something that theyreally wanna know about.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I'm glad you said too, that it's a , a resource
for teachers when they'rewanting to learn something more
about it. Um, the other day, myson, who's a kindergartner
asked me how condensationworked. And I was like, you in
the grocery store with thewatermelon? I was like , um, I
think
(26:25):
Yeah , yeah . But yeah, I, Ihad to look it up and try to
find a way to explain it reallysimply. So,
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And , and we say it's like now with like a tool
like this, we could be like,well , how do you think it
works? How do we find out?
Right? Let's find out together.
And something like condensationis very difficult to explain
without visuals. Like how doyou even explain ? And so it
takes things that are abstractand makes them more concrete
and, and , and obtainable , uh,for young children.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah. So you were talking about how your videos,
most of them are around twominutes. The absolute longest
is five minutes. Um, why isthat length? Have you found
that that length is the most,the most suitable for what
you're doing?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I wouldn't keep a child sitting on a rug for like
20, 30 minutes , uh, to doanything
video. Um, yeah. And so thereis no magic number in research
that says, I , I know there'sthis , this rumor out there.
There is a rumor out there.
It's like, if you're five,that's five minutes on the rug.
If you're six, that's sixminutes. It should be the, the
(27:31):
number co corresponding totheir age. There's no , there's
nothing really that's just arumor. Uh , there is no magic
number. But why would we makeit longer when we can? We
could, if the , if the purposeis to spark , uh, and to limit
screen time, then we, we get tothe point, right? Mm-hmm . We
can do that in two minutes.
Mm-hmm . Uh, and it's, it's onething to tell teachers, if we
(27:54):
tell teachers keep screen timeshort, and then we give them a
30 minute video, we'recontradicting ourselves. We're
not facil , we are not the, the, the material is not lending
itself to our message.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Mm-hmm
that's another, another majorfactor as well. What factors
should center leaders, ECEprogram leaders , um, teachers
take into account when decidingif a video is appropriate for a
certain age group? In, in thatece
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah .
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Range .
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Well, I know that I've ended up on YouTube.
YouTube was not created foryoung children,
instruction of young children.
So though , when teach , whenteachers are not given
resources, that's where theyend up and they end up there
for good reasons. Like, they'relike, you know, if you're a
director and you're listeningand be like, well, then I , I
(28:50):
don't want my teacher's usingany video. They're, they're
there for good reasons. They'rethere for a visual. They're
there to explain to somebodyhow condensation works, or show
them a visual or get like amovement activity or something
like that. So they , they'rethere for a good reason. They
just don't find what's made foryoung children. So in terms of
(29:10):
dec decide , deciding or createor selecting things that are
developmentally appropriate, ithas to have specifically been
made for young children and notadapted for young children. And
that's why I said as thisconception, we were a team of
teachers saying, this is, wehave young children in mind
from the creation of all ofthe, the scripts that materials
(29:31):
the content. Does it speak toyoung children? Is engaging,
does, is it connected tomultiple , uh, domains of their
development? Um, is it breakdown concepts? We also limit
animation and show them reallife footage , uh, a lot. So
why we reason we have real life, uh, animation is because we
(29:51):
know that children are, itcould help us break down
concepts that we would not beable to sometimes, like, you
know, if we're doing thatexample of the water, water
vapor and evaporating,sometimes you could see , you
know, we need to show it goingup and little rays . And so
animation's only used as ascaffolding method. Uh, and
then the rest of it is reallife footage. So the children
(30:13):
need to be able to see examplesof real, of real life, what we
haven't talked about. I thinkwe , I know we focus a lot on
the sciences, the maths. We, wealso have literacy videos. We
also have social emotionalvideos and a , so , and a
strong social emotional libraryabout recognizing facial
expressions , um, dealing withfrustration, anger , um,
(30:36):
self-management techniques. Andso when teachers see this,
they're like, these, everysingle one of these videos is
what I need in my classroom.
Talk about like, you know,developmentally appropriate. We
are very aware that these arethe things that children need
in that age group. They'rehaving, they have a difficult
(30:56):
time, and this is not, they'renot doing anything wrong. This
is just what their age groupneeds. They have a difficult
time identifying and giving,putting words to their
feelings. And so they end upscreaming or tantruming or
kicking because they don't havethe vocabulary. And then they
have a hard time self-managing.
Telling somebody to calm downmeans nothing to them telling
(31:18):
somebody to even take a breath.
How do I do that? And so ourvideos understand where they
are in terms of theirdevelopmental range on multiple
domains, including their socialand emotional development, and
provide teachers the resourcesthat they , they they can do
to, to help with thatdevelopment. And so something
like , um, you know, there's a,there's a good one. We always
say like, make good choices.
(31:39):
Like, you know, how do you makegood choices? Well, that's,
that involves thinking ofchoice A and choice B, and what
will, what happens if I do thisand happens if I do that? That
involves teaching them a syssystem of like, weight your
choices and thinking about whatwill happen. And that's a lot
of cognitive processeshappening right there. And so
in our videos, there's like a ,there's a child who's about to
(31:59):
take a muffin, and it's like,well, should I take it? And I
was like, well, let's use videoto talk about, like, you know,
stop and think. And sosomething that is really takes
a lot of, like, you know, it'shard to explain what happens in
our mind as we're making thesechoices. The video kind of
brings it to life. And so thatfacilitates a conversation
(32:20):
between a teacher and a child,and a parent and a child.
'cause we also , uh, haveparent facing resources as well
, uh, around what they trulymean when they're telling a
child, okay, let's make , let'sthink about our choices.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah. So let's jump back to how these videos
support a lesson plan orcurriculum. Um, but this time
I'd like to take a look at itthrough, through the lens of
supporting teachers. Yeah . Um,one thing that we hear a lot ,
uh, hear a lot at ProCareSolutions is that many teachers
now are younger, maybe don'thave the education or the
(32:56):
experience that experience thatother teachers have. How do
Marco Polo learning videos helpthem do their job and really
take some of the stress out oftheir, their daily routines as
they're already spending allthis time on lesson planning?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
If you're , so you start with your curriculum, so
it's like, mm-hmm . I know,first thing I said when you
said , you told me to introducemyself, I said, I've been a
classroom teacher mm-hmm
thing I know is I don't needone more thing. Like, I don't
need, I don't need one morething. Stop giving me this and
that, and this. I need to focuson my children. And if I have a
curriculum, I need to implementthat curriculum, right? And I
(33:34):
don't need one more thing. Andso if we give them something
that's like seemingly unrelatedto their curriculum, they're
like, please leave me alone.
And so by design, what we havein terms of our partnership and
, and the tool is we don't saydisconnects to your CU
curriculum. We literally haveit aligned. They can search
their curriculum, they couldlesson plan, and they could
(33:55):
find already aligned videosthat go with that lesson and
they plug it into their lesson.
So I even a teacher who's beenteaching for, for two months or
20 years, unless they see itsrelevance into what they're
already doing and is relevancein their curriculum, and they
could plug it into theirplanner, it , um, it is , it's
(34:16):
not useful to them. I don't, Idon't blame them. Like they
have too much, too much to do.
And so this is what our toolsallow us to do. I am teaching a
study on, on ocean animals.
Tell me the , the, the spec on, on this unit we're talking
about , um, like predators inthe ocean. Give me specific
videos I can use for thislesson. Here you go. Right? And
(34:40):
so the guesswork is taken outof it. You don't have to spend
hours going on, on the internetlooking for that and ending up
in places where they don'tbelong. And so we, again,
designed by teachers , um, forteachers in this situation
because we, we, we hear you.
It's a, it's a real , it's, I'mgonna go out there and say it's
(35:01):
the toughest job out there,right? There's a lot involved,
and we don't want to give onemore thing for them to do. So
we know it has to integrateinto their curriculum and their
daily practices.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
So as we start to wrap up, could you give us a
rundown of some of the biggestmistakes you see when educators
try to incorporate videos thatthey are just finding anywhere,
you know, the , the YouTubes,the Google searches , um, when
they try to incorporate thoseinto lessons. And we've talked,
you talked about a lot of themtoo, but are there any, any
other ones you think we should,we should mention
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Not , not made for young children, they weren't
originally made and you'retrying to, to adapt it using
too much animation and notreally . You wanna show
something that is in the realworld , um, not make , using
technology where technology hasno business, it doesn't add
value to the experience, right?
Why are you here? You could ,why are you here to , to show
(35:56):
them a video about , uh,something that they could
experience hand first, firsthands on , right? Uh, only when
it's, you need to take them tothat next level. Only when you
wanna make sure that you'recreating something or giving
them access to something , uh,common mistakes we discussed,
it's too long. You don't keepthem. It is part of the
(36:18):
learning experience and not awhole thing. Um, videos that
don't have any context to it,let's count to a hundred. What
are you counting? Like, youknow, it's videos that are
engaging but not engaging onthe learning. It's, there's
popping , there's bubbles,there's balloons. The kids are
excited, but there's nobodythat's learning anything,
right?
(36:41):
consider. Like, I'm justlisting , oh, don't do this,
don't do this, don't do this.
Um, and I think this is why ,uh, our, our, our solution has
been well received. Instead oftelling teachers, don't do
that. Don't go here, don't dothis, don't do this, don't do
this. They're out there,they're struggling. Support
them. What are they? What ,what am I supposed to do? Where
am I supposed to go to forlanguage instruction, for
(37:04):
resources, for co , formultiple mo ? What am I
supposed to do? And I thinkthat's where we come in.
Instead of telling teachersdon't do that, we actually give
them and say, you know what? Dothis, this will help you. Uh,
children love it too.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah . So those are some of the problems. And we
have the solution, which is anintegration between ProCare and
Marco Polo Learning , uh, MarcoPolo's, comprehensive library
of developmentally appropriateshort videos. Educator guides
and activities can now beaccessed in ProCare, making it
easier for educators toincorporate the resources into
(37:37):
their lesson plans. Uh, couldyou please describe how this
integration works?
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yeah . So we meet teachers where they are. They
don't have to go to another, toanother platform, another
system. You don't have todownload anything. While
teachers are planning theirlesson, they select , uh, they
select what they're alreadydoing, and then they can add a
Marco Polo video. Again, it'salready, it's already aligned
for them from, for theircurriculum. They can search by
curriculum, they can search by,by subject, they can search by
(38:06):
theme. And so the really,because we know that's, you
know, ways that teachers wantto find content, and we wanna ,
however you're searching by it,we want you to be able to, to
find, and then it adds itdirectly to your planner, so
you don't have to find it laterand search for it later with,
it also is those educatorguides that I discussed. So,
and we're not just saying,here's, here's some video
(38:27):
content. We're giving themspecific questions to ask
before the video, during thevideo, after the video, so that
we can cultivate that highquality , um, like teacher
child talk. And then also, wetalked a lot about YouTube.
Well , after YouTube, there'sthe migration into, into
Pinterest, give me an activityI can do, you know, that , you
(38:50):
know, and then you end up inPinterest. Um, and so again,
Pinterest is great, but notnecessarily created for early
learning. Um, and so we wantedto give them, and again, time
consuming too, like to , youjust search through all of
these things. And so teachersalso are given , um, examples
of like centers and otheractivities that they can do
(39:11):
that goes beyond the video. SoI think in short, if you're
watching this and you're like,well, I don't wanna give my
teachers one more thing to do,I think they, the , the, the
beauty of this solution is thatit already meets them where
they are. And it actually givesthem less to do, less, less,
you know, work looking all over, uh, so that they can , um,
(39:33):
add visuals, modify learning,differentiate instruction. Um,
we have heard so much fromteachers that how much time it
has saved them and how much thechildren love it.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Well, thank you so much for coming, for making
time outta your day. We reallyappreciate it. Um, could you
share where folks listening canfind out more about Marco Polo
learning anything, any otherlinks or , and we can add those
in the show notes too. That'sthe best way .
Speaker 3 (40:00):
We are , I , I believe we're featured on, on
your website your source aswell, through our partnership.
Um , yeah . And then also Marcolearning , uh, marketable
learning.com. Um, but yeah, Ithink we , we can, we can also
send out some, some resourcesas well.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Well, thanks again.
It was great hearing from you.
Great spending time with youtoday. And to all the ECE
providers who are listening, wewanna give a heartfelt thank
you for all that you're doingevery day . I do agree that you
guys have the toughest job. Andas a working mom, I so
appreciate everything thatyou're doing. Um, until next
(40:39):
time, have a great dayeveryone. Bye.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.