In this episode of EdUp L&D, host Holly Owens interviews Dr. Jennifer Berry, CEO of SmartLab, who shares her inspiring journey from professional dance to leading a STEM education organization. Dr. Berry discusses the importance of STEM identity in learners, SmartLab's mission to create engaging learning environments, and how they prepare students for a future influenced by AI. She also offers valuable advice for aspiring leaders and CEOs, emphasizing curiosity, learning without expectations, and staying rooted in one's values.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Edup L&D.
I'm your host, Holly Owens, and today's conversation is one I've
been looking forward to for a while.
After conquering some technical issues behind the scenes, I
finally get the chance to sit down with Doctor Jennifer Berry,
the CEO of Smartlab. Doctor Berry's journey is
(00:20):
nothing short of inspiring. She went from the world of
professional dance and retail management to becoming a
powerful leader in education andSTEM innovation.
In this episode, she shares how storytelling, curiosity, and
drive to remove obstacles shapedher path to the CEO seat.
(00:40):
We dive deep into Smartlab's mission of building STEM
identity in learners, helping students believe they belong,
master rigorous challenges, and understand that their ideas have
real impact. And trust me, whether you're a
teacher or thinking about your next move, an LNB professional
looking for a fresh perspective,or an inspiring leader with CEO
(01:03):
dreams, you're going to walk away with practical wisdom and
inspiration. So let's jump in.
Here's my conversation with Doctor Jennifer Berry.
Hi, we're Ice Spring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
(01:26):
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(01:49):
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We'd be happy to get to know youand pick a solution that fits
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to learn more about us, downloadour resources, and connect.
(02:14):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another fabulous episode of Add
Up L&D. My name is Holly Owens and I'm
your host. And I'm really excited today
because I finally, finally, finally we got all the technical
bad things out of the way. Get to talk to Doctor Jennifer
(02:35):
Berry. She's the CEO with Smart Labs.
So, Doctor Jennifer, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me Holly. I really appreciate your, your
time and your listeners time. And I know we had a little bit
of technical challenges, but we wouldn't be a STEM organization
if we didn't figure out those technical challenges.
So. Exactly.
We are steadfast. We, we don't let challenges, you
know, block us. We, we, we figure it out and we
(02:57):
move forward. So I'm excited to have you and
to learn more about you. So our audience is obviously
made-up of like L&D, professional CEO's, founders,
transitioning teachers, people who are still teachers in the
classroom. So I would love for you to share
your journey with the listeners.How did you become a CEO of
Smartlab? I love this question.
(03:19):
So I started early in my career.Well, first of all, I was a
professional dancer so early in my career I did storytelling
through a physical movement. So I am a physical movement
individual. I really believe in telling a
story through your body. I also been in the performing
arts theater world for some years.
(03:40):
Everything from directing and choreographing and all of that.
You know, after your body ages and you can't professional
audience anymore, you have to gointo choreography.
Yeah. And I'm really passionate about
especially young, young storytellers that want to tell
stories through their bodies. I'm really passionate about
that. So that was my early career.
And then through my college experience, I needed to get in
(04:03):
state tuition at University of Arizona.
And I decided to walk down the mall with a baseball hat and a
sweatshirt, ask for applicationsin the mall and happened to meet
a meet a bunch of men that were standing in front of the Gap
store. And and they said to me, hey,
not only we're going to give youan application, do you know that
(04:24):
we're starting a management intern program for individuals?
Yeah, that are in their junior year of college.
And this will be the first time that we do this intern program.
And at the end of the program, we'll automatically give you a
job and you can move to anywherethat you want, preferably San
Francisco, where Gap was headquartered.
Headquartered. And I was like, wait, me in this
baseball hat and a sweatshirt? I'm just walking through the
(04:46):
mall, but that sounds great. So here I joined Gap Inc and
joined their management intern program.
It was the first intern program across for the company.
And this was this was back in the 90s and so early.
Of the 90s. Yeah, the 90s are the best,
right? And this is when Gap was at
their peak and really at the forefront of advertising and
(05:09):
customer service and really branding themselves as something
that was differentiated in the marketplace from the way in
which they presented their product as well as how they
joined the customer service atmosphere.
Although they mostly sold jeans and sweatshirts, they also
differentiated themselves from their wow factor when you walked
into a store and through their advertising.
And so I got to learn a ton about every aspect of retail,
(05:32):
spent 15 years of my career in retail.
So from there I moved to San Francisco.
I was store manager. I was, I worked at the corporate
office for some years. I then worked in the field doing
regional management and then district management.
So I really got to learn all facets of the retail business.
And I got recruited one day by somebody that said, hey, we have
(05:52):
this education company who is looking for retail heads, as we
were called back in the day, back in the 90s, looking for
retail heads. Because most of the individuals
that have joined and started this amazing organization, this
amazing education organization are educators.
And so they need people to really understand customer
service. They need people to really
(06:13):
understand leadership and leadership skills.
And so they brought me in and I had just received my master's
degree in public administration.So I was looking for something
that really made me feel like I was computing and doing
something bigger than myself. And so I, I gladly jumped into
the, into the, the boat of the education field and have been
(06:34):
there ever since. And I, and I really have been
thoughtful and intentional aboutthe roles I take.
I like to not only be able to give and be able to produce
something from my talents to theorganizations that I give, but I
also really like to learn. I'm a real consummate learner
and I really make sure that whenI am in an environment,
(06:54):
especially in an environment that is an education space, that
I feel like I'm contributing, but I'm also learning.
So I've done everything from thetutoring space that I started
in, so the supplemental tutoringK through 8 tutoring space.
Then I did test prep. Then I moved over to a company
that helped teachers become moreeffective in their craft.
(07:14):
So focused on the students firstand then moved to teachers and
administrators to make them moreeffective in their craft.
Then I moved into the special education.
Well, first I went to the nonprofit space.
I wanted to dip my toe into thatspace.
I spent five years in the after school space to really
understand the the work that amazing educators to do do in
(07:35):
that space to help students growand develop and things outside
of just the basic learning academic environment.
And then I moved into the special education space, which
was really a passion point from for me to really understand that
niche market and what it takes for learners that need
differentiated learning for their own, for their own unique
brains. So that was really amazing.
(07:56):
And then recently, for the past year, I've been in this
beautiful STEM space where I getto sort of bridge all of my
learnings along the way. Into this Yeah, my.
Passions of hands on, you know, project based learning all into
one and that's been really, really exciting for me and I'm
really happy to be here. What a journey, yeah.
(08:19):
It's been really fun. Wow, Yeah, it sounds really fun.
Yeah. And I'll tell you that we do
have sort of a commonality. I worked at Old Navy, which is
learned by Gap, Yeah, when I wasin college and I, you know, they
were huge with the with the dog and all the different things.
And like, I learned so much in that role, like just about like
marketing, merchandising, like that wasn't what I was going to
(08:41):
go into, but it was, it was a great learning experience for me
to be in retail and like say customer service.
That's definitely something thathelps when you're in the, in
this space. So I love that we have that
connection. And I'm a former high school
teacher. So accessibility is very close
to me in terms of like, you know, knowing all the different,
like the 508, the the compliance.
(09:01):
And of course, as an instructional designer, that's
big to us too, and the people listening on the show.
So I love that you dipped in allthese different spaces.
You kept quite the journey. Yeah.
Thank you. You know, it's interesting.
When I decided to get my doctorate, I really looked for a
doctorate program that was focused on leadership and
change. And so you would see they had an
(09:22):
amazing leadership and change degree and I dove head first
because I and, and this is what we really focus on with our
students at Smartlab too. I love to master rigorous
challenges, right? And I love to look change in the
face and look at hard things in the face and like figure out how
(09:43):
to remove boulders, right? My most of my career was in
operations essentially before I became ACEO, as ACEO of many
different organizations. And that was my passion point of
figuring out what is the obstacle that gets in people's
way to being effective, to be efficient, to be effective in
their job and to be the best, best versions of themselves.
And that, that sort of like removing of obstacles and
(10:04):
mastering rigorous challenges issomething that's been really a
passion point for me. And I love that I get to be a
part of an organization that focuses on students and focuses
on how they can own a STEM identity.
And, and we define that smart lab STEM identity as a learner,
self belief that they belong, they can master rigorous
challenges and and their ideas make an impact.
(10:26):
And when you think about that, when I think about my journey
and I sort of explore and, and do that reflective exercises
that we do as we grow older, I really believe that all the
things that got put in my way helped me gain my own STEM
identity. Although I'm, I'm not in
directly an S TEM field, I have STEM identity because I do
(10:46):
believe I belong. I do believe I can master
rigorous challenges and I believe I add value.
So that is what my wish is for all students across the country,
whether they're in a smart lab or in a STEM environment, in
their, in their, in their classroom, that they're really
getting that self belief that they belong here.
They can do this. They're future ready and they
add value. I love that.
(11:07):
Well, tell, tell the listeners who haven't heard of Smartlab
like what it's all about. I love your, you know, your logo
is really cool. And I love the I love the little
subtitle Learning is different here.
That really resonates a lot, especially as a former educator.
So tell us all about Smartlab, what you all do.
I love already some of your philosophies, your goals, your
(11:27):
connections, the things that youmake with students and
educators. So tell us all about it.
Yeah, thank you. So Smartlab is an integrated
ecosystem that sparks aha moments and build STEM identity
for learners. So many times when I first got
here, everybody said, what does Smartlab do?
And it's like, oh, we're a learning environment, we're a
STEM learning environment. And I worked really hard with
(11:48):
the entire staff because I believe that you get the best
ideas from the people that are doing the work.
To say, hire people smarter thanyou.
For sure hire them and make surethey're around you at all times,
right? Exactly.
But I I, what I tried to do is really listen to the people that
worked here. You know, I did what I call
listening tour. I listened to every single
employee. I made an appointment with every
(12:10):
single employee. I went out to every single
school. Well, not every single, we have
over 600, but I've got to a lot of schools.
Yeah, I went to a lot of facilitators.
I talked to a lot of students. I got on the floor with the
students and played with the manipulatives that they were
working with or the robots they were designing to understand
what really is it that we do? Sure, we put an environment in.
(12:31):
Sure. We have.
Amazing curriculum. Sure, we train the facilitators,
but what really do we do? And what we really do is create.
We manufacture a, an environmentthat gives that child the
ability to, to have productive struggle.
And so when I talk about an integrated ecosystem, the
(12:51):
ecosystem is really important because as we all know, as an
ecosystems, integrity is out of whack as one of the components
of the ecosystem is not optimized.
And so we talked about 5 components of the ecosystem, the
customized learning environment.So whether the learning
environment is a room, which Smartlab can absolutely design a
full turnkey room, or you put itin the corner of a, of a multi
(13:16):
purpose room, or teachers just build STEM into their their
classrooms and, and, and use STEM applications and industry
pathways to like merge whatever is being learned.
However you do it, we believe ina customized learning
environment that fits the schooldistrict.
So we will do consultative conversation as well as help
design what that customized learning environment is to the
(13:39):
school district. So that's one thing we do.
We also make sure that we curatecurriculum and the tools and
equipment that is hands on on tools and equipment, career
connected project based curriculum and really make sure
that that's intentional within the customized learning
environment. And then we also not only train
(13:59):
the facilitators that are going to be in these learning
environments, but we create an environment that is sustainable,
meaning we put them in professional learning learning
communities. We ensure that there's extend
trainings for them. It isn't just like we train you,
we leave you, we're out right? We're we're more of the
organization that says you matter almost the most out of
all the components facilitator. And so our job is to make sure
(14:23):
you're set up for success. You're having your own aha
moments. You yourself are are practicing
and learning and really pushing your ability to put the best
environments in front of are thebest tools and equipments and
goals in front of the students. And then of course, lastly,
which I'm really proud of, is our support and partnership.
(14:43):
So as an organization, we do what most do, which is we have a
customer success team, We have atechnical success team, of
course. But the partnership piece is
really key. Because what I've heard from
principals and superintendents and really even business leaders
when they're thinking about helping fund these labs into
schools is how do we ensure thatthis thing is sustainable?
(15:04):
How do we make sure that people don't just purchase, yeah,
purchase a bunch of stuff and then make it a a dusty storage
unit after? After overtime, a lot of the
times like teachers are like allthis Ed tech, you get Ed tech
fatigue, like all this stuff being thrown at you and you just
want, you want something that, like you said, that's
sustainable and that can last and something that's really
impactful throughout. Yeah, I agree.
(15:26):
And I'm sure you've had many environments where you've had
something that's sustainable andthen something that the school
district purchased they forgot about.
Yeah, absolutely. Or they purchased it without
consulting with the educators. You know, I teach graduate level
courses in instructional design and most of my students are K to
12 New York City public school teachers when they they have
(15:47):
constant like feedback about when technologies are purchased
and they're not consulted and then like how that just a bad
experience for the. Kids a bad experience.
Yeah, I'm glad to hear that you're there the whole way
through and and what you're doing to support.
Yeah. And and we hope that they
continue to stay with those professional learning
communities. And we have a community that
they can talk to other facilitators across the whole
(16:09):
country. So they're also gaining skills.
So they're not because again, asyou know, when you're a STEM
teacher, you're sometimes the only STEM teacher in that school
or sometimes in the whole district.
And so there's a special education department and then
there's the teachers and then there's the staff right to, and
then there's you all by yourself.
So we really try to make sure there's a community that people
(16:29):
can reach out to and coordinate with and communicate with and
talk and share and learn with each other.
And that's part of the support for the facilitator that we
give. But we also believe part of the
sustainability is bringing the community into the environment,
right? When when parents and, and
business leaders come in or, or employees of particular
(16:53):
businesses come into the environments and tell their STEM
identity journey, talk to the students about what careers are
out there. Because every industry uses STEM
applications, right? A lot of people think of STEM as
just science, just technology, just engineering, just that.
Pouring liquids out of graduatedcylinders and making things, you
(17:14):
know, blow up. Explode or building robots,
right? That's not only what STEM is,
right? There is STEM applications in
every single industry, right? You think of data collection and
analysis, that's a STEM application.
Data collection, analysis, pretty much every industry,
agriculture, entertainment, sports, advanced manufacturing,
(17:35):
I mean you could go on and thinkabout all the industries, data
collection and analysis is in all of those, right?
So you know, mechanics and structures are in pretty much
every industry, right? Robotics and control technology,
especially with this AI powered world that we live in, is in
every industry. And so really giving those
students that ability to take those STEM applications and
(17:57):
align them to industry pathways I think is really key.
And bringing the community in totalk about that with students, I
think is the magic because it isn't just about mastering A
rigorous challenge like you, youbuild or you're trying to code
this robot to go from point A topoint B.
And you're like, yeah, I did that.
But what career is that it? How how is that thing that you
just learned something that you can apply to a real industry?
(18:21):
That's really exciting. And we really make sure that we
have avenues for bringing the community into the lab.
In fact, on November 7th, we have what we're calling STEM
Identity Day. We're going to have it not only
in. Yeah, not, not only in every
smart Lab, we'll have the STEM Identity Day, but also we'll
have it in any school that wantsto participate with us.
(18:41):
So whether you're a Smartlab school or not, you're welcome to
join us on November 7th for STEMIdentity Day.
And so you can find free resources and contact us on our
website in. Order.
You will have all of that in theshow.
Notes yeah, all about in the show.
Notes yeah, So you can learn more about STEM Identity Day and
invite the community into your school to talk about.
It's like an oversized career day, but connected to STEM
(19:04):
identity and really challenge the community to come in and
talk about their own semi identity and to talk about how
it applies to their careers and their jobs.
Yeah. To make it free, all this is
just connected to everything that we do.
Yeah. You're connecting it to careers,
you're connecting it to professional development, You're
connecting it to building communities and building that
space. And you mentioned AI, so I did
(19:25):
have a question for you. And in terms of like students,
you know, these students that are coming up are going to be
living in a world that didn't, they don't know pre what it was
like. We know what it was like in the
90s without cell phones and AI and all that stuff we do.
How are we going to prepare themfor jobs and roles that
currently don't exist? Because what's going to happen
(19:45):
with AI? What is happening with AI?
What's your take on that? Yeah, I've thought a lot about
this and my team and I spend a lot of days and a lot of hours
really grappling with what is our goal in helping students be
prepared for the future, for thecareers that to your point don't
exist yet. And we've, we've honed in on
(20:06):
STEM identity because if you have STEM identity, whatever
career you're in, whatever application or whatever AI is
going to do. Today or tomorrow, that is not
being done today, which will be many things because it's already
at the speed of light training itself to do many things.
(20:26):
If a student comes out on the other side of their learning
journey with STEM identity as we've defined it so as we've
defined it of a learner self belief that I belong.
I can master rigorous challengesand my ideas add value.
Whatever's in front of them, they can be the ones that create
those prompts, right? They can critically think about
(20:47):
whatever AI is delivering and going, yeah, but is that
actually solving the problem that we need?
Or do we need to tweak this prompt?
Or do we need to tweak what AI produced for us in order to
solve the problem at large? They will think almost above
what AI creates because what we're not going to get rid of as
humans, right? As much as people are very
worried and scared that there's going to be robots out there.
(21:08):
I know there's even like controversy about students
dating robots, right? All this.
Is. Happening.
I know it's pretty scary out there.
However, it is scary. However, we have a
responsibility as educators and as adults to ensure that the
students are fearful that AI just does things for them, but
instead knows that it can do stuff for them, but knows
(21:30):
they're smarter than the machines, Knows that they can
master master the rigorous challenges better than the AI
can do it for them. Because we all use AI.
I'm sure you do. I know I use it.
Every day. Every day and I'm ensuring that
I'm using it for good and challenging when it spits
something out like I'm not sure I gave it the right question.
(21:51):
Or or. Wow, that didn't actually say
the thing that I was trying to say, right?
So, but because I have STEM identity, right, I believe I can
master rigorous challenges because I've proven that in my
life over and over, right? I've failed hard many different
times over and so giving students in that controlled
environment the ability to fail and to be OK with that, whatever
(22:14):
answer they come up with is the answer right?
To not be like, there's only oneanswer to this problem.
That ability to do that Yum fromkindergarten all the way
through, right is really important because the more they
learn how to fail, the more theylearn how to sit in discomfort
of not knowing answers and or celebrate when they come up with
(22:34):
something, something that was new and novel that no teacher or
adulthood ever thought of. The more they do that, the more
when they come out the other side of their education journey,
they'll be able to be smarter than the AI world.
That's power. And I don't mean smarter from an
intellect standpoint, but smarter from their capacity to
think above it, right? To be able to say great AI can
(22:55):
do that. But I am the one that can
critically think. I am the one that can master
rigorous challenges. I am the one that is OK with
productive struggle and I sit incomfort actually in productive
struggle struggle. So we believe that STEM identity
is actually even more important than learning how to code right?
Like we actually teach kindergarteners.
(23:16):
How to codes for you now? AI codes for you.
That's what I was going to say. We teach kindergarteners how to
do basic coding, right? And what we said to ourselves is
like, oh, but AI is going to do that.
Why do kindergarteners need to learn it?
But instead, what we've spun on it is instead of we still want
the kindergarteners to learn howto put the green down for go and
put the red down for stop and yellow for paws, right?
So they understand the process. But instead we're teaching them
(23:39):
to think about, OK, let's talk about a career application.
This is for five year olds, right?
Let's think about a career application.
Your job is to get a, a car, right?
That you are going to have self driving from the farm to the, to
the, the, the market from the farm to the, to the house, right
(24:00):
to deliver to the house. And so your job is to create
this self driving car that can get from point A to point B.
So whether you create it or AI creates it, we want you to
create it because you're going to learn how like when you put
the red down, it stopped and it didn't make the right turn that
you wanted it to do, right? So you understand that.
So you understand the coding, basic coding for
(24:20):
kindergarteners, but more importantly that there's a way
to design A car to get farm to table, right?
And that there's a career in that, right?
So that's really what we push inon, which is the STEM
application that connects to careers.
Not necessarily that we're teaching you to code because
again, AI is going to teach you to code.
(24:42):
But what AAI can't teach a student is how to fail.
And what AI can't teach a student is how to critically
think through a problem and and figure out a way to solve the
problem, right? Because in the future, kids are
going to be like, OK, I see the problem, this is the way I want
to solve it. OK, I'll just have AI do that
(25:02):
for me. But that's good.
But if they haven't thought of the problem and they hadn't
thought of the solve, AI is justgoing to sit there and wait for
you to give it to prompt. Exactly.
It's it needs you to, it needs you to solve the problem and put
in the information. Absolutely.
And I think all of what you're doing really makes me think
about application. Like application is something
where you have to try something and you fail about.
It's like trial and error when you get to that point of the
(25:25):
blooms, if we're talking about Bloom's taxonomy in that point,
like the higher order thinking skills, you definitely have to
fail and feel fail safe. I think that's something like,
you know, probably when we were growing up, that wasn't
something that existed necessarily like this
environment where you could fail.
Like if you didn't get 100% on the quiz, it was like the
recall. It's like, what's wrong with
(25:47):
you? You know, like what's wrong with
you? Why can't you remember that?
You know, whatever Napoleon did and it's just crazy stuff.
It's. Crazy stuff.
Yeah. You know, it makes me think of
this story. So I was, when I first joined
Smartlab, I was out talking to friends of mine and thinking
about like, what is how did you get into a STEM field or how did
you get into not a STEM field, but use STEM applications in
(26:09):
your field? And I was just asking a lot of
my friends, my peers, their stories, because I believe
stories helped me root into who we are as an organization beyond
the stuff we sell, right? Because that's a very important
to me that our mission is reallybeing accomplished and we're
optimizing on what our goal is for students.
And one particular woman told menow she is in the STEM field,
she's a doctor. I asked her, tell me about the
(26:31):
first time you remember that feeling of I want to be a
doctor. And she told me this really
fascinating story. It's a little gory.
So here you go. Not gory, but it was great.
She was, she said she was about.A gory Warner Brother was in
the. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She was 8 years old. Her brother was in the backyard.
She was watching television, andher brother fell out of a tree.
(26:52):
And she heard him fall out of a tree, and she heard him
screaming. Right.
So she's 8, and they're home alone because, you know, back in
the 80s, people were home alone.And when they were kids.
Yeah, exactly. I had my key around my neck,
Right. And she ran outside and her
brother was laying on the groundand his phone was sticking out
the side of his leg. And she was like in a panic at
8, right? This is the story she's telling
(27:13):
me. She was like, I was in a panic.
I looked down and the tree had fallen out of there was a branch
that fell down with him. So I grabbed the branch, I stuck
it on his leg and I found a hosethat was right there.
And I wrapped the hose and the branch and pushed his bone back
into his leg and wrapped it right.
Then I ran in, called, called myparent, they called the, you
(27:33):
know, 911911 came and it basically saved his leg.
And she goes, from that moment on, she had my identity because
she was like, oh, I reacted, I knew what to do.
I kind of looked at the problem and I solved the problem.
And from then on, she had STEM identity and then had passion to
be a, a doctor, right? That's her journey.
(27:54):
I thought about that story and Ithought, you know, what could we
at Smartlab do so that people don't have to wait till their
brother falls out of a tree? To figure it out.
Yeah, like something tragic, youknow, it could have been worse.
Yeah, because many kids are sitting and playing video games
all day, right. So they don't actually have that
ability to go out there and explore and get hurt and figure
out how to solve it. Or, you know, they're not,
(28:15):
they're not as outdoors as we used to be when we were were
children and, and alone like we were when we were children,
right? I find a lot.
I have a 10 year old and I'm constantly letting her just go
be outside. And many of my peers are like,
do you know where she is? Does she have a smart watch?
And I'm like, no, I we're in a STEM organization and she
doesn't have a smart watch. She doesn't have a phone.
(28:36):
And I just know that I've given her boundaries and I want her to
go explore the world and to likecome be bored and to maybe.
Come on. Skin a knee skin a knee right
and know that like she can be OKwithout me jumping to putting
new stuff on it a Band-Aid rightso she can figure it out.
But the story that my friend told me about her journey as a,
(28:58):
as become her STEM identity, become a doctor really made me
think about that's our job at Smart Lab is to manufacture
environments for folks for, for students that, that they can
have those aha moments, right? That sudden realization that
occurs right when they connect things in new and meaningful
ways that like sudden realization that they go, oh, if
(29:21):
I put this here and I wrap this here, right, without it actually
being broken. If we manufacture those
environments, then we're giving those students that STEM
identity in a manufactured way. And that those moments of STEM
identity will then serve them intheir future, whether they
become a doctor, or they become ACEO, or they become a podcast
(29:42):
host and a teacher, whatever they choose, that STEM identity
can really serve them in this AIpowered world.
Love that, love that and and that wasn't too gory of a story,
I mean. I know, I know, but some people
don't like to hear. About yeah, I know they're like
they, yeah. I don't, I don't really get the
egg. But yeah, that's a really great
story. And as we're coming up on the
(30:02):
end of the episode here, I thinkone of the things I would love
for you to do is we have a lot, we have a variety of different
people in our audience. Like I told you, mostly L&D
professionals, people looking totransition possibly out of the
classroom, do their own thing, have their own business, be a
CEO. So if you could give them like 3
pieces of advice on like how they could potentially do that,
like some takeaways for them, I'm sure they would love to hear
(30:25):
that coming from you and your vast experience and the, and the
journey that you told us about the beginning of the episode.
So what would be 3 pieces of advice?
Let's say if they wanted to be ACEO at A at a edtech company,
Yeah. Thank you for that question.
I appreciate it. The first thing I'd say is be
curious. I have found that I've always
been curious. And what I mean by that is don't
(30:49):
be afraid to ask people questions.
Find another CEO, call me, find me on LinkedIn, Doctor Jennifer
Berry, find me on LinkedIn, reach out and say, can you meet
with me for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour and just share
with me your journey. What were some of the hard
parts? What were some of the the pain
points that you experienced? And I think that curiosity of
(31:11):
asking other people how they gotsomewhere is key.
I also would say the second thing is take jobs or
assignments that you're not expecting anything from, right?
Meaning you're not expecting a title change, you're not
expecting more money, you're expecting to learn, you're
(31:32):
expecting to gain skills, you'reexpecting to fail and maybe not
be the smartest person in the room.
I have found through my whole journey when I just sort of took
on a role without any expectation, I then magically
was given that role. And I don't know if it was
magic, just maybe prove myself. And then people said, right.
And I talk a lot about this withwomen, young women leaders that
(31:54):
are yearning to be CE OS becauseeven to this day, there's not a
ton of women CE OS out there, right?
And I believe that I had to force myself to push down that
imposter syndrome, force myself to push down that I don't really
know how to be that role, whatever that role was, that was
my next part of my journey. Or I may be not good enough that
(32:14):
I just forced myself to just tryit.
Be uncomfortable, be uncomfortable.
Yeah. And so that would be my second
piece. The first one being be curious.
The second one is just put yourself in environments, put
take on roles, take on assignments without expectation
other than learning, other than gaining skills.
That would be my second piece ofadvice.
(32:36):
And then my last piece of adviceis to root yourself in the
mission of whatever your, whatever your value set is,
right? I spend a lot of time in my
early career watching my parentsfollow their passion, right?
My dad's an actor. He runs a theater in Los
Angeles. My mother's a flight attendant.
She's passionate about travelingand would come home and tell me
(32:56):
about all these amazing travel stories and these amazing
different cultures that she got to experience and really got me
out of my own 4 walls. And that sort of lens and
perspective of learning about the world through my mom's
travels, learning about the world through my dad's
storytelling of other people's stories as a theater, theater
guy really helped me see the world bigger than myself.
(33:19):
And so in that they kept reminding me, what is your
value? What are you passionate about?
What are you here to do in this world that's bigger than
yourself? And so I've always tried to
really root everything I've chosen, even the retail days,
right? I tell my story.
If they look good, they feel good.
If they and if they feel good, they're contributing to this
(33:40):
world in a positive way, right? And so like I've always rooted
whatever I've done in my own value set.
So that would be my third piece of advice that whatever passion
point you have, if you're looking to get out of something
and into something else, or you're looking at being an
innovator and starting a new company, or if you're looking to
just become better at the current craft you're in and not
(34:01):
looking for something new, but better at the current craft.
Root yourself in your own value set and really look at like,
what is the mission that I'm about?
What it, what am I trying to change?
And go deep on that, right? Like Smartlab, we sell stuff,
but I am rooted in what is the goal?
What are we trying? The bigger picture here.
What is the bigger picture here?And I think that as any leader,
(34:22):
whether you're starting in your career or you're at the top of
your game, you should always be pushing yourself to ensure that
you're moving the needle on something in a positive way.
It contributing to this world that's hard right now.
It's hard. This environment that we're in
right now is hard. There's a lot of, you know,
social media and the news and our political landscape has
created a lot of fear and, and polarization.
(34:45):
And so how do you step above that and be on light to to make
this world a better place? And I think that that would be
my third piece of advice. Really look at your own value
set and then make sure you're rooted in the mission and
everything you do. I love it.
Great, 3 great pieces of advice that we haven't heard before.
Very awesome. I can't thank you enough for
(35:05):
coming on the show and sharing about your your journey,
Smartlab, your advice, all the different things.
I know this is definitely going to resonate with a lot of people
in our audience, so thank you somuch for coming up on the show.
Thank you, Holly. I'm glad we made it work and it
was so nice meeting with you. No.
Technical issues, we did great. We did great.
And everything is going to be inthe show notes about how to
connect with Doctor Jennifer Berry, find Smartlab, all the
(35:28):
different things to go to the show notes and you can find that
information. So thanks again.
Thank you. Talk to you soon, all bye.
Thanks for spending a few minutes with Holly.
She knows your podcast queue is packed.
If today's episode sparked an idea or gave you that extra
nudge of confidence, tap, followor subscribe in your favorite
(35:48):
app so you never miss an episodeof Ed Up L&D.
Dropping a quick rating or review helps more educators and
learning pros discover the show,too.
Want to keep the conversation going?
Connect with Holly on LinkedIn and share your biggest take
away. She reads every message.
Until next time, keep learning, keep leading, and keep believing
in your own story. Talk soon.
(36:12):
Hi, we're ispring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who helped more than60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
Our two flagship solutions are ispring Suite and ispring Learn
LMS. Ispring Suite is an intuitive
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(36:33):
platform for onboarding, upskilling and certifying your
teams. We'd be happy to get to know you
and pick a solution that fits your needs best.
Go to www.ispringsolutions.com to learn more about us and
connect.
Welcome back to another episode of Edup L&D.
I'm your host, Holly Owens, and today's conversation is one I've
been looking forward to for a while.
After conquering some technical issues behind the scenes, I
finally get the chance to sit down with Doctor Jennifer Berry,
the CEO of Smartlab. Doctor Berry's journey is
(00:20):
nothing short of inspiring. She went from the world of
professional dance and retail management to becoming a
powerful leader in education andSTEM innovation.
In this episode, she shares how storytelling, curiosity, and
drive to remove obstacles shapedher path to the CEO seat.
(00:40):
We dive deep into Smartlab's mission of building STEM
identity in learners, helping students believe they belong,
master rigorous challenges, and understand that their ideas have
real impact. And trust me, whether you're a
teacher or thinking about your next move, an LNB professional
looking for a fresh perspective,or an inspiring leader with CEO
(01:03):
dreams, you're going to walk away with practical wisdom and
inspiration. So let's jump in.
Here's my conversation with Doctor Jennifer Berry.
Hi, we're Ice Spring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
(01:26):
Our two flagship solutions are Ice Spring Suite and Ice Spring
Learn LMS ispring Suite is an intuitive, all in one authoring
tool for creating engaging e-learning content, and ispring
Learn is an innovative online training platform for
onboarding, upskilling, and certifying your teams.
We also provide tons of free resources for aspiring and
(01:49):
experienced e-learning professionals, conduct weekly
webinars with top industry experts, and organize annual
e-learning conferences, challenges, and championships.
We'd be happy to get to know youand pick a solution that fits
your needs best. Go to www.icepringsolutions.com
to learn more about us, downloadour resources, and connect.
(02:14):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another fabulous episode of Add
Up L&D. My name is Holly Owens and I'm
your host. And I'm really excited today
because I finally, finally, finally we got all the technical
bad things out of the way. Get to talk to Doctor Jennifer
(02:35):
Berry. She's the CEO with Smart Labs.
So, Doctor Jennifer, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me Holly. I really appreciate your, your
time and your listeners time. And I know we had a little bit
of technical challenges, but we wouldn't be a STEM organization
if we didn't figure out those technical challenges.
So. Exactly.
We are steadfast. We, we don't let challenges, you
know, block us. We, we, we figure it out and we
(02:57):
move forward. So I'm excited to have you and
to learn more about you. So our audience is obviously
made-up of like L&D, professional CEO's, founders,
transitioning teachers, people who are still teachers in the
classroom. So I would love for you to share
your journey with the listeners.How did you become a CEO of
Smartlab? I love this question.
(03:19):
So I started early in my career.Well, first of all, I was a
professional dancer so early in my career I did storytelling
through a physical movement. So I am a physical movement
individual. I really believe in telling a
story through your body. I also been in the performing
arts theater world for some years.
(03:40):
Everything from directing and choreographing and all of that.
You know, after your body ages and you can't professional
audience anymore, you have to gointo choreography.
Yeah. And I'm really passionate about
especially young, young storytellers that want to tell
stories through their bodies. I'm really passionate about
that. So that was my early career.
And then through my college experience, I needed to get in
(04:03):
state tuition at University of Arizona.
And I decided to walk down the mall with a baseball hat and a
sweatshirt, ask for applicationsin the mall and happened to meet
a meet a bunch of men that were standing in front of the Gap
store. And and they said to me, hey,
not only we're going to give youan application, do you know that
(04:24):
we're starting a management intern program for individuals?
Yeah, that are in their junior year of college.
And this will be the first time that we do this intern program.
And at the end of the program, we'll automatically give you a
job and you can move to anywherethat you want, preferably San
Francisco, where Gap was headquartered.
Headquartered. And I was like, wait, me in this
baseball hat and a sweatshirt? I'm just walking through the
(04:46):
mall, but that sounds great. So here I joined Gap Inc and
joined their management intern program.
It was the first intern program across for the company.
And this was this was back in the 90s and so early.
Of the 90s. Yeah, the 90s are the best,
right? And this is when Gap was at
their peak and really at the forefront of advertising and
(05:09):
customer service and really branding themselves as something
that was differentiated in the marketplace from the way in
which they presented their product as well as how they
joined the customer service atmosphere.
Although they mostly sold jeans and sweatshirts, they also
differentiated themselves from their wow factor when you walked
into a store and through their advertising.
And so I got to learn a ton about every aspect of retail,
(05:32):
spent 15 years of my career in retail.
So from there I moved to San Francisco.
I was store manager. I was, I worked at the corporate
office for some years. I then worked in the field doing
regional management and then district management.
So I really got to learn all facets of the retail business.
And I got recruited one day by somebody that said, hey, we have
(05:52):
this education company who is looking for retail heads, as we
were called back in the day, back in the 90s, looking for
retail heads. Because most of the individuals
that have joined and started this amazing organization, this
amazing education organization are educators.
And so they need people to really understand customer
service. They need people to really
(06:13):
understand leadership and leadership skills.
And so they brought me in and I had just received my master's
degree in public administration.So I was looking for something
that really made me feel like I was computing and doing
something bigger than myself. And so I, I gladly jumped into
the, into the, the boat of the education field and have been
(06:34):
there ever since. And I, and I really have been
thoughtful and intentional aboutthe roles I take.
I like to not only be able to give and be able to produce
something from my talents to theorganizations that I give, but I
also really like to learn. I'm a real consummate learner
and I really make sure that whenI am in an environment,
(06:54):
especially in an environment that is an education space, that
I feel like I'm contributing, but I'm also learning.
So I've done everything from thetutoring space that I started
in, so the supplemental tutoringK through 8 tutoring space.
Then I did test prep. Then I moved over to a company
that helped teachers become moreeffective in their craft.
(07:14):
So focused on the students firstand then moved to teachers and
administrators to make them moreeffective in their craft.
Then I moved into the special education.
Well, first I went to the nonprofit space.
I wanted to dip my toe into thatspace.
I spent five years in the after school space to really
understand the the work that amazing educators to do do in
(07:35):
that space to help students growand develop and things outside
of just the basic learning academic environment.
And then I moved into the special education space, which
was really a passion point from for me to really understand that
niche market and what it takes for learners that need
differentiated learning for their own, for their own unique
brains. So that was really amazing.
(07:56):
And then recently, for the past year, I've been in this
beautiful STEM space where I getto sort of bridge all of my
learnings along the way. Into this Yeah, my.
Passions of hands on, you know, project based learning all into
one and that's been really, really exciting for me and I'm
really happy to be here. What a journey, yeah.
(08:19):
It's been really fun. Wow, Yeah, it sounds really fun.
Yeah. And I'll tell you that we do
have sort of a commonality. I worked at Old Navy, which is
learned by Gap, Yeah, when I wasin college and I, you know, they
were huge with the with the dog and all the different things.
And like, I learned so much in that role, like just about like
marketing, merchandising, like that wasn't what I was going to
(08:41):
go into, but it was, it was a great learning experience for me
to be in retail and like say customer service.
That's definitely something thathelps when you're in the, in
this space. So I love that we have that
connection. And I'm a former high school
teacher. So accessibility is very close
to me in terms of like, you know, knowing all the different,
like the 508, the the compliance.
(09:01):
And of course, as an instructional designer, that's
big to us too, and the people listening on the show.
So I love that you dipped in allthese different spaces.
You kept quite the journey. Yeah.
Thank you. You know, it's interesting.
When I decided to get my doctorate, I really looked for a
doctorate program that was focused on leadership and
change. And so you would see they had an
(09:22):
amazing leadership and change degree and I dove head first
because I and, and this is what we really focus on with our
students at Smartlab too. I love to master rigorous
challenges, right? And I love to look change in the
face and look at hard things in the face and like figure out how
(09:43):
to remove boulders, right? My most of my career was in
operations essentially before I became ACEO, as ACEO of many
different organizations. And that was my passion point of
figuring out what is the obstacle that gets in people's
way to being effective, to be efficient, to be effective in
their job and to be the best, best versions of themselves.
And that, that sort of like removing of obstacles and
(10:04):
mastering rigorous challenges issomething that's been really a
passion point for me. And I love that I get to be a
part of an organization that focuses on students and focuses
on how they can own a STEM identity.
And, and we define that smart lab STEM identity as a learner,
self belief that they belong, they can master rigorous
challenges and and their ideas make an impact.
(10:26):
And when you think about that, when I think about my journey
and I sort of explore and, and do that reflective exercises
that we do as we grow older, I really believe that all the
things that got put in my way helped me gain my own STEM
identity. Although I'm, I'm not in
directly an S TEM field, I have STEM identity because I do
(10:46):
believe I belong. I do believe I can master
rigorous challenges and I believe I add value.
So that is what my wish is for all students across the country,
whether they're in a smart lab or in a STEM environment, in
their, in their, in their classroom, that they're really
getting that self belief that they belong here.
They can do this. They're future ready and they
add value. I love that.
(11:07):
Well, tell, tell the listeners who haven't heard of Smartlab
like what it's all about. I love your, you know, your logo
is really cool. And I love the I love the little
subtitle Learning is different here.
That really resonates a lot, especially as a former educator.
So tell us all about Smartlab, what you all do.
I love already some of your philosophies, your goals, your
(11:27):
connections, the things that youmake with students and
educators. So tell us all about it.
Yeah, thank you. So Smartlab is an integrated
ecosystem that sparks aha moments and build STEM identity
for learners. So many times when I first got
here, everybody said, what does Smartlab do?
And it's like, oh, we're a learning environment, we're a
STEM learning environment. And I worked really hard with
(11:48):
the entire staff because I believe that you get the best
ideas from the people that are doing the work.
To say, hire people smarter thanyou.
For sure hire them and make surethey're around you at all times,
right? Exactly.
But I I, what I tried to do is really listen to the people that
worked here. You know, I did what I call
listening tour. I listened to every single
employee. I made an appointment with every
(12:10):
single employee. I went out to every single
school. Well, not every single, we have
over 600, but I've got to a lot of schools.
Yeah, I went to a lot of facilitators.
I talked to a lot of students. I got on the floor with the
students and played with the manipulatives that they were
working with or the robots they were designing to understand
what really is it that we do? Sure, we put an environment in.
(12:31):
Sure. We have.
Amazing curriculum. Sure, we train the facilitators,
but what really do we do? And what we really do is create.
We manufacture a, an environmentthat gives that child the
ability to, to have productive struggle.
And so when I talk about an integrated ecosystem, the
(12:51):
ecosystem is really important because as we all know, as an
ecosystems, integrity is out of whack as one of the components
of the ecosystem is not optimized.
And so we talked about 5 components of the ecosystem, the
customized learning environment.So whether the learning
environment is a room, which Smartlab can absolutely design a
full turnkey room, or you put itin the corner of a, of a multi
(13:16):
purpose room, or teachers just build STEM into their their
classrooms and, and, and use STEM applications and industry
pathways to like merge whatever is being learned.
However you do it, we believe ina customized learning
environment that fits the schooldistrict.
So we will do consultative conversation as well as help
design what that customized learning environment is to the
(13:39):
school district. So that's one thing we do.
We also make sure that we curatecurriculum and the tools and
equipment that is hands on on tools and equipment, career
connected project based curriculum and really make sure
that that's intentional within the customized learning
environment. And then we also not only train
(13:59):
the facilitators that are going to be in these learning
environments, but we create an environment that is sustainable,
meaning we put them in professional learning learning
communities. We ensure that there's extend
trainings for them. It isn't just like we train you,
we leave you, we're out right? We're we're more of the
organization that says you matter almost the most out of
all the components facilitator. And so our job is to make sure
(14:23):
you're set up for success. You're having your own aha
moments. You yourself are are practicing
and learning and really pushing your ability to put the best
environments in front of are thebest tools and equipments and
goals in front of the students. And then of course, lastly,
which I'm really proud of, is our support and partnership.
(14:43):
So as an organization, we do what most do, which is we have a
customer success team, We have atechnical success team, of
course. But the partnership piece is
really key. Because what I've heard from
principals and superintendents and really even business leaders
when they're thinking about helping fund these labs into
schools is how do we ensure thatthis thing is sustainable?
(15:04):
How do we make sure that people don't just purchase, yeah,
purchase a bunch of stuff and then make it a a dusty storage
unit after? After overtime, a lot of the
times like teachers are like allthis Ed tech, you get Ed tech
fatigue, like all this stuff being thrown at you and you just
want, you want something that, like you said, that's
sustainable and that can last and something that's really
impactful throughout. Yeah, I agree.
(15:26):
And I'm sure you've had many environments where you've had
something that's sustainable andthen something that the school
district purchased they forgot about.
Yeah, absolutely. Or they purchased it without
consulting with the educators. You know, I teach graduate level
courses in instructional design and most of my students are K to
12 New York City public school teachers when they they have
(15:47):
constant like feedback about when technologies are purchased
and they're not consulted and then like how that just a bad
experience for the. Kids a bad experience.
Yeah, I'm glad to hear that you're there the whole way
through and and what you're doing to support.
Yeah. And and we hope that they
continue to stay with those professional learning
communities. And we have a community that
they can talk to other facilitators across the whole
(16:09):
country. So they're also gaining skills.
So they're not because again, asyou know, when you're a STEM
teacher, you're sometimes the only STEM teacher in that school
or sometimes in the whole district.
And so there's a special education department and then
there's the teachers and then there's the staff right to, and
then there's you all by yourself.
So we really try to make sure there's a community that people
(16:29):
can reach out to and coordinate with and communicate with and
talk and share and learn with each other.
And that's part of the support for the facilitator that we
give. But we also believe part of the
sustainability is bringing the community into the environment,
right? When when parents and, and
business leaders come in or, or employees of particular
(16:53):
businesses come into the environments and tell their STEM
identity journey, talk to the students about what careers are
out there. Because every industry uses STEM
applications, right? A lot of people think of STEM as
just science, just technology, just engineering, just that.
Pouring liquids out of graduatedcylinders and making things, you
(17:14):
know, blow up. Explode or building robots,
right? That's not only what STEM is,
right? There is STEM applications in
every single industry, right? You think of data collection and
analysis, that's a STEM application.
Data collection, analysis, pretty much every industry,
agriculture, entertainment, sports, advanced manufacturing,
(17:35):
I mean you could go on and thinkabout all the industries, data
collection and analysis is in all of those, right?
So you know, mechanics and structures are in pretty much
every industry, right? Robotics and control technology,
especially with this AI powered world that we live in, is in
every industry. And so really giving those
students that ability to take those STEM applications and
(17:57):
align them to industry pathways I think is really key.
And bringing the community in totalk about that with students, I
think is the magic because it isn't just about mastering A
rigorous challenge like you, youbuild or you're trying to code
this robot to go from point A topoint B.
And you're like, yeah, I did that.
But what career is that it? How how is that thing that you
just learned something that you can apply to a real industry?
(18:21):
That's really exciting. And we really make sure that we
have avenues for bringing the community into the lab.
In fact, on November 7th, we have what we're calling STEM
Identity Day. We're going to have it not only
in. Yeah, not, not only in every
smart Lab, we'll have the STEM Identity Day, but also we'll
have it in any school that wantsto participate with us.
(18:41):
So whether you're a Smartlab school or not, you're welcome to
join us on November 7th for STEMIdentity Day.
And so you can find free resources and contact us on our
website in. Order.
You will have all of that in theshow.
Notes yeah, all about in the show.
Notes yeah, So you can learn more about STEM Identity Day and
invite the community into your school to talk about.
It's like an oversized career day, but connected to STEM
(19:04):
identity and really challenge the community to come in and
talk about their own semi identity and to talk about how
it applies to their careers and their jobs.
Yeah. To make it free, all this is
just connected to everything that we do.
Yeah. You're connecting it to careers,
you're connecting it to professional development, You're
connecting it to building communities and building that
space. And you mentioned AI, so I did
(19:25):
have a question for you. And in terms of like students,
you know, these students that are coming up are going to be
living in a world that didn't, they don't know pre what it was
like. We know what it was like in the
90s without cell phones and AI and all that stuff we do.
How are we going to prepare themfor jobs and roles that
currently don't exist? Because what's going to happen
(19:45):
with AI? What is happening with AI?
What's your take on that? Yeah, I've thought a lot about
this and my team and I spend a lot of days and a lot of hours
really grappling with what is our goal in helping students be
prepared for the future, for thecareers that to your point don't
exist yet. And we've, we've honed in on
(20:06):
STEM identity because if you have STEM identity, whatever
career you're in, whatever application or whatever AI is
going to do. Today or tomorrow, that is not
being done today, which will be many things because it's already
at the speed of light training itself to do many things.
(20:26):
If a student comes out on the other side of their learning
journey with STEM identity as we've defined it so as we've
defined it of a learner self belief that I belong.
I can master rigorous challengesand my ideas add value.
Whatever's in front of them, they can be the ones that create
those prompts, right? They can critically think about
(20:47):
whatever AI is delivering and going, yeah, but is that
actually solving the problem that we need?
Or do we need to tweak this prompt?
Or do we need to tweak what AI produced for us in order to
solve the problem at large? They will think almost above
what AI creates because what we're not going to get rid of as
humans, right? As much as people are very
worried and scared that there's going to be robots out there.
(21:08):
I know there's even like controversy about students
dating robots, right? All this.
Is. Happening.
I know it's pretty scary out there.
However, it is scary. However, we have a
responsibility as educators and as adults to ensure that the
students are fearful that AI just does things for them, but
instead knows that it can do stuff for them, but knows
(21:30):
they're smarter than the machines, Knows that they can
master master the rigorous challenges better than the AI
can do it for them. Because we all use AI.
I'm sure you do. I know I use it.
Every day. Every day and I'm ensuring that
I'm using it for good and challenging when it spits
something out like I'm not sure I gave it the right question.
(21:51):
Or or. Wow, that didn't actually say
the thing that I was trying to say, right?
So, but because I have STEM identity, right, I believe I can
master rigorous challenges because I've proven that in my
life over and over, right? I've failed hard many different
times over and so giving students in that controlled
environment the ability to fail and to be OK with that, whatever
(22:14):
answer they come up with is the answer right?
To not be like, there's only oneanswer to this problem.
That ability to do that Yum fromkindergarten all the way
through, right is really important because the more they
learn how to fail, the more theylearn how to sit in discomfort
of not knowing answers and or celebrate when they come up with
(22:34):
something, something that was new and novel that no teacher or
adulthood ever thought of. The more they do that, the more
when they come out the other side of their education journey,
they'll be able to be smarter than the AI world.
That's power. And I don't mean smarter from an
intellect standpoint, but smarter from their capacity to
think above it, right? To be able to say great AI can
(22:55):
do that. But I am the one that can
critically think. I am the one that can master
rigorous challenges. I am the one that is OK with
productive struggle and I sit incomfort actually in productive
struggle struggle. So we believe that STEM identity
is actually even more important than learning how to code right?
Like we actually teach kindergarteners.
(23:16):
How to codes for you now? AI codes for you.
That's what I was going to say. We teach kindergarteners how to
do basic coding, right? And what we said to ourselves is
like, oh, but AI is going to do that.
Why do kindergarteners need to learn it?
But instead, what we've spun on it is instead of we still want
the kindergarteners to learn howto put the green down for go and
put the red down for stop and yellow for paws, right?
So they understand the process. But instead we're teaching them
(23:39):
to think about, OK, let's talk about a career application.
This is for five year olds, right?
Let's think about a career application.
Your job is to get a, a car, right?
That you are going to have self driving from the farm to the, to
the, the, the market from the farm to the, to the house, right
(24:00):
to deliver to the house. And so your job is to create
this self driving car that can get from point A to point B.
So whether you create it or AI creates it, we want you to
create it because you're going to learn how like when you put
the red down, it stopped and it didn't make the right turn that
you wanted it to do, right? So you understand that.
So you understand the coding, basic coding for
(24:20):
kindergarteners, but more importantly that there's a way
to design A car to get farm to table, right?
And that there's a career in that, right?
So that's really what we push inon, which is the STEM
application that connects to careers.
Not necessarily that we're teaching you to code because
again, AI is going to teach you to code.
(24:42):
But what AAI can't teach a student is how to fail.
And what AI can't teach a student is how to critically
think through a problem and and figure out a way to solve the
problem, right? Because in the future, kids are
going to be like, OK, I see the problem, this is the way I want
to solve it. OK, I'll just have AI do that
(25:02):
for me. But that's good.
But if they haven't thought of the problem and they hadn't
thought of the solve, AI is justgoing to sit there and wait for
you to give it to prompt. Exactly.
It's it needs you to, it needs you to solve the problem and put
in the information. Absolutely.
And I think all of what you're doing really makes me think
about application. Like application is something
where you have to try something and you fail about.
It's like trial and error when you get to that point of the
(25:25):
blooms, if we're talking about Bloom's taxonomy in that point,
like the higher order thinking skills, you definitely have to
fail and feel fail safe. I think that's something like,
you know, probably when we were growing up, that wasn't
something that existed necessarily like this
environment where you could fail.
Like if you didn't get 100% on the quiz, it was like the
recall. It's like, what's wrong with
(25:47):
you? You know, like what's wrong with
you? Why can't you remember that?
You know, whatever Napoleon did and it's just crazy stuff.
It's. Crazy stuff.
Yeah. You know, it makes me think of
this story. So I was, when I first joined
Smartlab, I was out talking to friends of mine and thinking
about like, what is how did you get into a STEM field or how did
you get into not a STEM field, but use STEM applications in
(26:09):
your field? And I was just asking a lot of
my friends, my peers, their stories, because I believe
stories helped me root into who we are as an organization beyond
the stuff we sell, right? Because that's a very important
to me that our mission is reallybeing accomplished and we're
optimizing on what our goal is for students.
And one particular woman told menow she is in the STEM field,
she's a doctor. I asked her, tell me about the
(26:31):
first time you remember that feeling of I want to be a
doctor. And she told me this really
fascinating story. It's a little gory.
So here you go. Not gory, but it was great.
She was, she said she was about.A gory Warner Brother was in
the. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She was 8 years old. Her brother was in the backyard.
She was watching television, andher brother fell out of a tree.
(26:52):
And she heard him fall out of a tree, and she heard him
screaming. Right.
So she's 8, and they're home alone because, you know, back in
the 80s, people were home alone.And when they were kids.
Yeah, exactly. I had my key around my neck,
Right. And she ran outside and her
brother was laying on the groundand his phone was sticking out
the side of his leg. And she was like in a panic at
8, right? This is the story she's telling
(27:13):
me. She was like, I was in a panic.
I looked down and the tree had fallen out of there was a branch
that fell down with him. So I grabbed the branch, I stuck
it on his leg and I found a hosethat was right there.
And I wrapped the hose and the branch and pushed his bone back
into his leg and wrapped it right.
Then I ran in, called, called myparent, they called the, you
(27:33):
know, 911911 came and it basically saved his leg.
And she goes, from that moment on, she had my identity because
she was like, oh, I reacted, I knew what to do.
I kind of looked at the problem and I solved the problem.
And from then on, she had STEM identity and then had passion to
be a, a doctor, right? That's her journey.
(27:54):
I thought about that story and Ithought, you know, what could we
at Smartlab do so that people don't have to wait till their
brother falls out of a tree? To figure it out.
Yeah, like something tragic, youknow, it could have been worse.
Yeah, because many kids are sitting and playing video games
all day, right. So they don't actually have that
ability to go out there and explore and get hurt and figure
out how to solve it. Or, you know, they're not,
(28:15):
they're not as outdoors as we used to be when we were were
children and, and alone like we were when we were children,
right? I find a lot.
I have a 10 year old and I'm constantly letting her just go
be outside. And many of my peers are like,
do you know where she is? Does she have a smart watch?
And I'm like, no, I we're in a STEM organization and she
doesn't have a smart watch. She doesn't have a phone.
(28:36):
And I just know that I've given her boundaries and I want her to
go explore the world and to likecome be bored and to maybe.
Come on. Skin a knee skin a knee right
and know that like she can be OKwithout me jumping to putting
new stuff on it a Band-Aid rightso she can figure it out.
But the story that my friend told me about her journey as a,
(28:58):
as become her STEM identity, become a doctor really made me
think about that's our job at Smart Lab is to manufacture
environments for folks for, for students that, that they can
have those aha moments, right? That sudden realization that
occurs right when they connect things in new and meaningful
ways that like sudden realization that they go, oh, if
(29:21):
I put this here and I wrap this here, right, without it actually
being broken. If we manufacture those
environments, then we're giving those students that STEM
identity in a manufactured way. And that those moments of STEM
identity will then serve them intheir future, whether they
become a doctor, or they become ACEO, or they become a podcast
(29:42):
host and a teacher, whatever they choose, that STEM identity
can really serve them in this AIpowered world.
Love that, love that and and that wasn't too gory of a story,
I mean. I know, I know, but some people
don't like to hear. About yeah, I know they're like
they, yeah. I don't, I don't really get the
egg. But yeah, that's a really great
story. And as we're coming up on the
(30:02):
end of the episode here, I thinkone of the things I would love
for you to do is we have a lot, we have a variety of different
people in our audience. Like I told you, mostly L&D
professionals, people looking totransition possibly out of the
classroom, do their own thing, have their own business, be a
CEO. So if you could give them like 3
pieces of advice on like how they could potentially do that,
like some takeaways for them, I'm sure they would love to hear
(30:25):
that coming from you and your vast experience and the, and the
journey that you told us about the beginning of the episode.
So what would be 3 pieces of advice?
Let's say if they wanted to be ACEO at A at a edtech company,
Yeah. Thank you for that question.
I appreciate it. The first thing I'd say is be
curious. I have found that I've always
been curious. And what I mean by that is don't
(30:49):
be afraid to ask people questions.
Find another CEO, call me, find me on LinkedIn, Doctor Jennifer
Berry, find me on LinkedIn, reach out and say, can you meet
with me for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour and just share
with me your journey. What were some of the hard
parts? What were some of the the pain
points that you experienced? And I think that curiosity of
(31:11):
asking other people how they gotsomewhere is key.
I also would say the second thing is take jobs or
assignments that you're not expecting anything from, right?
Meaning you're not expecting a title change, you're not
expecting more money, you're expecting to learn, you're
(31:32):
expecting to gain skills, you'reexpecting to fail and maybe not
be the smartest person in the room.
I have found through my whole journey when I just sort of took
on a role without any expectation, I then magically
was given that role. And I don't know if it was
magic, just maybe prove myself. And then people said, right.
And I talk a lot about this withwomen, young women leaders that
(31:54):
are yearning to be CE OS becauseeven to this day, there's not a
ton of women CE OS out there, right?
And I believe that I had to force myself to push down that
imposter syndrome, force myself to push down that I don't really
know how to be that role, whatever that role was, that was
my next part of my journey. Or I may be not good enough that
(32:14):
I just forced myself to just tryit.
Be uncomfortable, be uncomfortable.
Yeah. And so that would be my second
piece. The first one being be curious.
The second one is just put yourself in environments, put
take on roles, take on assignments without expectation
other than learning, other than gaining skills.
That would be my second piece ofadvice.
(32:36):
And then my last piece of adviceis to root yourself in the
mission of whatever your, whatever your value set is,
right? I spend a lot of time in my
early career watching my parentsfollow their passion, right?
My dad's an actor. He runs a theater in Los
Angeles. My mother's a flight attendant.
She's passionate about travelingand would come home and tell me
(32:56):
about all these amazing travel stories and these amazing
different cultures that she got to experience and really got me
out of my own 4 walls. And that sort of lens and
perspective of learning about the world through my mom's
travels, learning about the world through my dad's
storytelling of other people's stories as a theater, theater
guy really helped me see the world bigger than myself.
(33:19):
And so in that they kept reminding me, what is your
value? What are you passionate about?
What are you here to do in this world that's bigger than
yourself? And so I've always tried to
really root everything I've chosen, even the retail days,
right? I tell my story.
If they look good, they feel good.
If they and if they feel good, they're contributing to this
(33:40):
world in a positive way, right? And so like I've always rooted
whatever I've done in my own value set.
So that would be my third piece of advice that whatever passion
point you have, if you're looking to get out of something
and into something else, or you're looking at being an
innovator and starting a new company, or if you're looking to
just become better at the current craft you're in and not
(34:01):
looking for something new, but better at the current craft.
Root yourself in your own value set and really look at like,
what is the mission that I'm about?
What it, what am I trying to change?
And go deep on that, right? Like Smartlab, we sell stuff,
but I am rooted in what is the goal?
What are we trying? The bigger picture here.
What is the bigger picture here?And I think that as any leader,
(34:22):
whether you're starting in your career or you're at the top of
your game, you should always be pushing yourself to ensure that
you're moving the needle on something in a positive way.
It contributing to this world that's hard right now.
It's hard. This environment that we're in
right now is hard. There's a lot of, you know,
social media and the news and our political landscape has
created a lot of fear and, and polarization.
(34:45):
And so how do you step above that and be on light to to make
this world a better place? And I think that that would be
my third piece of advice. Really look at your own value
set and then make sure you're rooted in the mission and
everything you do. I love it.
Great, 3 great pieces of advice that we haven't heard before.
Very awesome. I can't thank you enough for
(35:05):
coming on the show and sharing about your your journey,
Smartlab, your advice, all the different things.
I know this is definitely going to resonate with a lot of people
in our audience, so thank you somuch for coming up on the show.
Thank you, Holly. I'm glad we made it work and it
was so nice meeting with you. No.
Technical issues, we did great. We did great.
And everything is going to be inthe show notes about how to
connect with Doctor Jennifer Berry, find Smartlab, all the
(35:28):
different things to go to the show notes and you can find that
information. So thanks again.
Thank you. Talk to you soon, all bye.
Thanks for spending a few minutes with Holly.
She knows your podcast queue is packed.
If today's episode sparked an idea or gave you that extra
nudge of confidence, tap, followor subscribe in your favorite
(35:48):
app so you never miss an episodeof Ed Up L&D.
Dropping a quick rating or review helps more educators and
learning pros discover the show,too.
Want to keep the conversation going?
Connect with Holly on LinkedIn and share your biggest take
away. She reads every message.
Until next time, keep learning, keep leading, and keep believing
in your own story. Talk soon.
(36:12):
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