The 5 Strategies Driving Transformative K-12 Education - Dr. Annalies Corbin, Founder of the PAST Foundation - The TechEd Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Matt Kirchner (00:00):
Matt, great to have you back again this week on

(00:10):
The TechEd Podcast. My name isMatt Kirchner, and this week,
like every week, we are going tobe talking about how we disrupt
the world of education. Ouraudience needs no introduction
to my past experiences witheducation and some of the
frustrations along the way, butalso all of the incredible
opportunities we have to changethe model of education for the

(00:31):
future. That is what thisepisode is going to be all
about. My guest is Dr AnnelieseCorbin, and Dr Corbin is the
founder of the past Foundation,the podcast host of learning
unboxed, and the author ofhacking school, five strategies
to link learning to life. Whowouldn't want to learn about
those so Anneliese, thank you somuch for being with us and

(00:54):
welcome Thank you, Matt, verymuch. I'm thrilled to be here.
We're thrilled to have you.
You've spent your entire career,by the way just helping schools
reimagine the world of educationand how we engage students, how
we teach students, how studentslearn. I mean, I've got all
kinds of opinions about how wecan improve education and and a
lot of people argue aboutwhether education is broken, at
least the way we've educatedstudents in the past. What's

(01:16):
your take on that?

Annalies Corbin (01:19):
I would argue that it's not broken, okay? It's
actually functioning exactly asit was designed 100 plus years
ago. I would argue, what'sreally going on is that our
current education system in theUS and other parts of the world
is actually obsolete. You know,we have failed repeatedly. We
kept thinking that, you know, wecould put what I like to call

(01:39):
federal band aids. So no matterwhere you are, right? You know,
governmental initiatives comealong, we put this band aid on
this thing that's not workingfor us. And so rather than
stepping back and saying, hey,it's obsolete, we need a
complete redesign of the systemitself. Rather than just a
reimagining or a reunderstanding, we toss a band
aid on it two or three yearslater, because the funding

(02:01):
cycles go away, that's whathappens, right? We rip that band
aid off and we toss a new oneon, and nothing ever sticks, and
it certainly doesn't fixanything. It's interesting.

As we recorded this less than 24 hours ago, I
was delivering the openingaddress at the Global
Polytechnic summit all thePolytechnic universities, or at
least a good portion of themaround the globe that get
together once a year to sharebest practices and so on. And
this is exactly what I talkedabout with that group. I told
the story of going back throughmy childhood grade school a few
years ago, and it was exactlythe way that it looked when I

(02:33):
was there 40 years ago. And thatbuilding was built in 1929 and
I'd be willing to bet that itlooked exactly the same as it
did in the 20s and 30s, and soto your point, in a lot of
cases, we haven't changededucation much at all in those
past 100 years. And certainly asa new administration comes
along, as a new idea comesalong, as we've got to gotta try

(02:55):
to break something, putting aband aid on education, rather
than reimagining the model, isexactly what we've done. So
going forward, I mean, whatinspired you to start your
organization? The pastfoundation? What do you do? And
how are you reimaginingeducation? So

the genesis of the organization is that I'm an
applied research scientist. I'man anthropologist and an
archeologist, and I was auniversity professor for many
years, and it was reallyinteresting, because in
conversations at conferencesaround the world, you know,
that's what academics do. We goto conferences we talk about our
research, right? We had a lot ofconversations with folks from

(03:32):
many, many disciplines, a lot ofthe tech disciplines, but also a
lot of the hard sciencedisciplines. And we were really
just talking about what's goingon with the students that are
showing up in our undergraduateor graduate programs or their
first time jobs are recentgrads, and they're, they're,
they're off into these labs fortheir first jobs. And the
conclusion from everybody thatwas involved in the conversation

(03:55):
was these are super smart kids.
They're incredibly capable. Theycan take the GRE or the LSAT or
the MCAT like they can knockthose exams out of the park, but
they can't navigate their wayout of a paper bag with a club
light on their foreheads, right?
So it's not that they're notcapable, but they were lacking
some fundamental skills and,quite honestly, some life

(04:18):
experiences that really madethem ready to progress in their
education, or to be meaningfulcontributors to society in the
places where they were going towork. And we started to ask the
question around, well, why isthis happening? And as you could
imagine, industry was blamingpost secondary. Post Secondary

(04:41):
is blaming K 12k. 12 is blamingcommunity and family and so on
and so forth. And nobody wastaking ownership of this issue
or this problem. And so westarted, then to shift our own
internal conversations and say,Okay, if we really think the
sweet spot to potentially impactwhat's going. On in our current

(05:01):
work at that moment, is k 12.
But clearly we can't rely on K12 to fix what's going on right,
because it's been decade upondecade of this getting worse and
worse. So what would happen if adifferent approach, a different
group of research scientistsstarted to ask questions of the
system. If we were askingdifferent questions of the

(05:24):
system, would we come up with adifferent set of solutions, or
at least factors that we couldidentify that were saying, Hey,
this is why this is happening.
That was the birth of the pastfoundation

got it coming out of manufacturing. We always say,
ask why five times right, askthe right questions, and you're
not going to get the answer withthe first question you have to
ask, why? Five times, eventuallyyou get to the root cause of
something, of course, comingfrom industry. I certainly live
that world of industry blamingpost secondary. No question
about it. What do you think yousay the students were graduating
it didn't necessarily have thisfull portfolio of competencies

(05:59):
they needed, what was missing?
What did you hear fromindustrial employers? You

know, the thing I heard, more than anything
else, is these students, theseyoung people, right, these young
professionals, right? They don'tknow how to work
collaboratively, and they do notknow how to ask questions. They
run into whatever it is thatthey're tasked with, with two
assumptions. One assumption isthat they know what they're

(06:23):
doing. They don't need someoneto tell them how to do it or
what the thing is. Right?
They're not valuing the yearsand years of experience that
their peers and mentors in anygiven scenario have. So that's
one of them. And then the secondthing that we were seeing, and
industry was telling us is, ifthey didn't know how to do the
thing they had been tasked with,right, they wouldn't admit that

(06:46):
and get some help in thatmoment, right? Because, you
know, you're out of industryyour experience. Hey, you know
you want someone a ask aquestion, well, I'm not sure how
to do this. Is what I think. Iwould rather have someone say
that right then and there, andthen you're like, No, we need to
do it this way. Spend the timenecessary to get somebody up to
speed quickly and then deploythem off to do the work.

Let me ask you this, if a student, and I like
the two, you know the dichotomyof what you presented there, and
I guess it's the question, Dothey come out of post secondary
feeling like they knoweverything, or that the employer
expects them to know anyeverything, and therefore they
have to play this role. And ifthey are asking questions, maybe
they're letting on that they'rethey're not quite prepared. And
are they? Is that part of thereason that they're reticent to

(07:30):
ask questions? I

think two things are happening there as
well, right? I think that one isour post secondary institutions
are so they're behemoths, evensmall institutions, they are so
process driven that the abilityto keep up with what industry
needs in that moment, sometimesit takes numerous years just to
change a dang course syllabus,right, right? So how could the

(07:53):
students possibly graduate 100%ready to hit the ground running
on day one? So you've got thatissue that's happening for these
young professionals, and thenyou couple that with the social
pressures that they all feel tobe an expert, that the only way
I can get ahead is to fake ittill you make it kind of thing.

(08:15):
So there's a lot of that goingon too, and that's just social
pressures about a particulargeneration, and it passes from
generation to generation as weknow, and I think that
ultimately, over time, it justbuilds a false narrative. I
mean, most industries will tellme, give me young people who
know how to collaborate problemsolve, who know how to ask

(08:38):
questions. It's this long listof skills that we should be
making sure that they have. Idon't need them to know the
latest software in my industry.
I can teach them that when theyget here. I need them to know
how to approach the use of asoftware or particular machinery
or what whatnot. If I can'tcount on post secondary to get
it to me, I'm going to buildinto my business model that I've
got to get this person up tospeed, and I've got six months

(08:59):
to do it, to make it profitable.
And

I think what we hear from industrial employers
is it's an and not an or right?
I mean, if you can get theskills, and you can get the,
what some people call softskills, I think that's kind of a
little bit confusing, but toyour point, asking the right
questions, being beinginquisitive, you know, having
kind of a modesty and a humilityabout you, and you get to the
workplace and recognizing, Ithink, in part, that an
industrial employer, if you'reputting the time in, if you have

(09:25):
the right attitude toward work,if you're hungry for information
and you're hungry for learning,people will be incredibly,
incredibly patient with you asyou pick things up. It's almost
like you create more opportunityfor yourself by having that
humility, as opposed to comingin and pretending to know
everything and just frustratingthe people around you that you
know to your earlier point havebeen around for so long, and
know the business and theorganization so well, and have a

(09:46):
lot to teach these youngerfolks. You know, when we talk
about the bureaucracy that ispost secondary in so many cases,
and we agree not all, because weboth seen some really, really
innovative and progressive waysof. Teaching students and
innovating and disruptingeducation. But how do we get
around some of that bureaucracy?
Is that a lost cause? Do we haveto just find another way, or is

(10:08):
there a chance to actually breakthat up a little bit? Oh, my

goodness, that's a really tough question.
Matt, you know, I think it'sprobably somewhere in the
middle, right? I mean, I dothink that the bureaucracy is a
problem, right? And bureaucracybreeds complacency, and so I do
think that it's a problem, but Ialso think I also truly believe
that if we are incrediblyinnovative, and we push

(10:34):
incredibly innovative ideas andprograms forward, that we fund
them appropriately so that theycan be researched as part of
that sort of innovative idea,that that's going to be one of
the the levers that pushes fromthe ground up back into the
bureaucracy and the system thatare in play

interesting. And you know, when we when we talk
about funding, and I mean, wecould do a whole episode just on
funding, education and so manymoving pieces right now, things
happening at the at the federallevel, with the likelihood that,
you know, not only is theDepartment of Education going to
be incredibly disrupted, italready is being but but may not
even exist in the, you know, inthe coming years. So there's
that possibility. There'schanging views on, certainly

(11:15):
funding research, and kind ofpicking and choosing, in some
cases, which universities aregoing to get that funding and
which aren't by based oncriteria, in some cases, that
have nothing to do with theresearch being done, but on, on,
pushing in an agenda. And I, youknow, I don't, I'm not going to
get into the whole discussionaround what you know, what needs
to change philosophically inhigher education and so on,
because there, again, that'sanother episode altogether, but,

(11:37):
but let's think about thatfunding model. You say. We have
to think about how we fundresearch and so on. How are we
funding it now, and how wouldyou change it?

So the way we tend to fund research now is
that we go in and especially ineducation, right? So we go in
and we look at the body of workthat's already been done, and
we're looking for proven ideas,right? We are looking for proven
ideas that just need more time,energy and effort applied to

(12:07):
them, ultimately, to validate onthe backside, I would argue
that's not the way we should befunding research, right? The
hard sciences, for example,engineering, don't necessarily
function that way, and yet we'veapplied this really odd paradigm
to the world of education. Froma research standpoint, that
doesn't make any sense to me,honestly, what I would argue is

(12:31):
that we should be fundingresearch on cutting edge ideas,
things that are not proven,because we need rapid
innovation, and we need rapidinnovation to show up out in the
landscape so that for thoseactually doing the reimagining,

(12:51):
or the true ed reform work, thesystems rebuild, if you will, or
engineering, they have access Tothe stuff right now that's out
there, that's engaging tostudents, that matters, that's
current. I would argue that alot of research and education is
just like our teaching andlearning pedagogical issues that

(13:15):
we have, right? They're old,they're old school, they're
they're not out there, they'renot bleeding edge, and they're
not asking really, really hardquestions. And we do that
because we are trying tomaintain the safety and sanctity
of an individual student, whichI applaud. And I'm not saying

(13:36):
let's do things to and withstudents. I'm saying, let's
instead recognize that a lot ofstudents and families, if given
the option to try somethingreally, really innovative, they
would opt in, because honestly,they're bored to tears. Sure,
100% agree. So I think that'swhere the research disconnect
is, is that we're focusing onthe wrong thing

interesting. So let's talk, and I want to get
into your book and so on. We'vegot all so many things to talk
about, but we were kind of gonedown this road of funding. Yeah,
it is a good road. So, I mean,if you think, and we engage with
a lot of educators and a lot offolks that are doing really
impressive research, of course,I know you do as well. Funding
is coming from the NationalScience Foundation. It's coming
from the Department of Energy.
It's coming from the NationalInstitutes of Health. You know,

(14:16):
for all different kinds ofreasons, Are we, are we set up
federally to make the kind ofdecisions that we need to be
making in terms of making surethat we're funding cutting edge
research, as you suggest, orwhat changes would you make at
the federal level? If you

could, like, another hard question from you,
Matt, you know, it'sinteresting, right? I would
argue, if we could take thescientific process right the
level and the rigor that has tohappen in cutting edge
scientific work, especiallyscientific work that involves
the intersection of scientificunderstanding and knowledge and

(14:51):
technological advancement andtechnology, right? If you think
about the work that's happening,especially in the private
sector, where those two things.
Intersect. That is reallyincredible work. That's what
federally we need to shift theway we think about what and how,
and then fund it appropriatelyand recognize that not all

(15:13):
things we try, we develop or weeven test are going to be
successful. In fact, themajority of them will not be
successful, right? That's thescientific process for sure. We
learn more in the the failuresthan we're going to learn from
the successes, and we will learnfaster from those failures. But
we are not investing, I wouldargue, in that space across our

(15:37):
broad public sectors, and weneed that level of work and
research across every industryand field you could think of if
we want to maintain acompetitive edge and
opportunity. And our studentsare desperate for this. You
know, there's a reason that somany are learning more from
YouTube than they're learning intheir classrooms, right?

(16:01):
Totally, because on YouTube,they can find anything they want
to know about exactly you cannotdo that in a current class or
most. And I love educators, andthey're incredible work that is
happening out in the world of K12 education, but it is not the
majority.

I mean, I couldn't agree with you more.
And in the past, school is wherewe would go to learn or to gain
knowledge, right? Sage on thestage, a professor, a lecturer,
delivering their vast amount ofknowledge to, you know, a
willing group of students. Andthat was the way, I mean, going
back hundreds and hundreds ofyears, that was really the only
way, either writing it down orpassing, passing knowledge down

(16:40):
through the words and theverbiage that we use. That's how
we pass knowledge on. That's howwe passed our wisdom on. And so
we would, we would go to schoolto learn or gain knowledge, and
then we would go home topractice, right? We would go
home to do our homework. Wewould study for exams. We'd
study our notes, we would writeessays and so on. And so we go
to school to learn or to gainknowledge, and we go home to
practice. We called it homework.
In fact, that's what we calledit, and that in the future, we

(17:01):
are going to we're going to stayhome to learn, right? I mean it
to gain knowledge, YouTube elearning, watching lecture
videos. It doesn't mean that thelecture is going to totally die,
but I think we're really goingto see that style of learning
kind of fade. And then school iswhere we're going to go to
practice. And so we'll stay athome to learn, and then we'll go
to school to practice, topractice, to do hands on

(17:22):
learning, applied learning, alldifferent ways of assessment,
methods of assessment, and soon. I think it's really, really
exciting, and I get the sensethat you and I see to a large
degree, eye to eye on thattopic, which is why I'm really
excited to get into this newbook. And I love the name of the
book, hacking school, right? AndI boy if I had found a way to
hack school all those years ago,and some would argue maybe I

(17:42):
did, because I managed to getthrough even though I was never
a traditional classroom learner.
But you say hacking school isthe title of the book, five
strategies to link learning tolife. If the book is half as
good as the title, it's got tobe an incredibly, incredibly
good book. Let's start withthis. In writing this book, what
are you hoping to achieve? Howyou know, what do you want
educators to get out of it, andmaybe others interested in the

(18:03):
future of education? You

know, my primary premise with this book
was to say, look, there arereally great things that are
happening out there in the worldof education, because there's a
lot, a lot of conversation,right you, and I've even had
some of it here today that'sreally talking about how it's
just not working, and whetheryou want to debate that it's
broken or it's obsolete or it'seven something else, right?
Sure, none of that reallymatters, because at the end of

(18:28):
the day, what we know is thereare pockets of really incredible
things that are happening outthere. And I wanted to
understand why isn't? Why isn't?
All of you know, to use a anAmerican phrase, our K 12
system, but our primary, oursecondary systems around the
world. Why is that not theeveryday norm? And so one of the
things that I was looking at wasso the really, really innovative

(18:50):
programs, are things that arehappening that last 10 years or
more. What's the magic? Is theremagic, or was there something
else at play, and I really,really wanted to understand
that. And the 25 years that I'vebeen running the past
Foundation, and we've beentraveling around the world,
working with these incredibleeducators in different settings,
and just really trying tounderstand, you'll go someplace,

(19:13):
right? You'll do this huge,massive, multi year project or
work, this transformation willhappen in this community, and
you go back five years after weleave, and it's gone, or it
disappeared, or it's beenmarginalized. And I was really,
really frustrated with that. Iwas like, because there's too
much really wonderful stuffhappening. And what I found

(19:33):
through that work, and this isthe reason I'm for the book, is
that the amazing programs thatare still around 10 years later,
they all have these five things.
They have other things becausethere's local context around
every single one of theseinnovative programs and for
students to thrive. But they allhave these five and if they are

(19:54):
missing even one of them, itdidn't survive 10 years. And I
was really curious, as aresearcher about. At that. And
so then I spent a lot of timedigging in, and I was very
familiar with every single oneof these, because we trained and
taught and did PD and, you know,re redesign work around these.
We just never understood theprogression of them or the role

(20:15):
that they play until I startedworking on the book to pull it
all together. So let

me ask you this before we get into these, these
five strategies. And I'm reallylooking forward to doing that.
You mentioned innovativeprograms, innovative programs in
K 12 or primary secondary,depending upon what part of the
world that you're in, what's anexample of an of an innovative
approach to learning, or maybe acouple of them that you would
highlight before we get into thecommonality between those
innovative approaches. On

the one hand, you've got innovative schools or
school initiatives, right? Soyou've got a bucket with a bunch
of those. I'm happy to throwsome out. But the other piece of
it is this idea aroundinnovative programs that
oftentimes were created outsideof the traditional K 12 setting

(21:02):
are then having broad, deepimpact when applied creatively
into an existing setting. So I'mgoing to start with that one. So
for example, the one of the onesthat I absolutely love lots of
folks are familiar with it, isthe first robotics program and
initiative, right? It'sfabulous. One of the reasons
it's fabulous is because it'srepresentative K 12, right? So

(21:25):
you start with the little,little kids in the FLL Lego
robotics element of the firstecosystem, all the way to our
Collegiate students who arecompeting with these with these
massive builds. What I loveabout it is it didn't leave any
kids behind, right? Because forthose who understand deeply how

(21:46):
first works, you know, you'vegot the kids that are interested
in business, you've got the kidsthat are interested in esthetic
and design, you've got the kidsthat are interested in
engineering, you've got the kidsthat are interested in science,
you've got the kids that areinterested in community
interactions and development.
And it requires, the programitself requires that all of
those kiddos with thoseinterests come together to make
the team. It's not enough tobuild a great robot that can

(22:08):
compete. You will not win withjust that. And the other thing
is that all kids win just fromparticipating, right? And it's
not about everybody getting aribbon. I don't think that's
necessarily good for kids, butwhat I'm talking about is that
all kids, there is a win in thatmoment. And there's a whole
bunch of programs like that.
There's best robotics, there'sthe ROV and the mate

(22:30):
competitions, I mean, andthere's and across all
disciplines and industries, youcan find things like that.
NASCAR has one. But theseprograms, and they do tend to
last, right? Because kids getengaged, they get deep with
them. And when schools grabthose and build them into their

(22:51):
ecosystems, and not just as anafter school club or a sport,
but literally build them intotheir school day, it's
transformative across the schoolsystem. Do

you see a lot of schools now, and I'll reflect on
the first robotics in just amoment. Do you see a lot of
schools integrating that rightinto the daily curriculum? Or
most, the most of them that I'mfamiliar with, it's still a club
or an after school? Yep. Is thatwhat you're seeing? We are
seeing

more and more of it, especially as schools are
struggling with finallylistening to the feedback from
students and students saying,I'm bored in my math class.
Well, you teach any and all maththrough first robotics, right? I
mean, so what we're starting tosee is finally the K 12
administration, educators andcurriculum people are finally

(23:38):
taking that message in deeplyand saying, Okay, what can we
use that we're already doing asa system, our own local system,
and how can we pull it in toenhance or to completely replace
the way we're currentlyteaching? And will that make a
difference? And they're startingto see that it is right. It's
the same thing with eSports.
It's the same thing with like,you know, elementary and middle

(23:59):
school Minecraft, right? Youknow, taking them out of the
after school space, which isfabulous learning happens then I
don't want those things to goaway, right? Learning from the
informal, because informal iswhere kids are engaged. They can
see the meaning, they understandthe relevancy to themselves. And
the learning is deeplyaccelerated. So if we can take
that and then infuse it with therigor and the relevance that

(24:22):
we're supposed to be deliveringin our K 12 time, then it could
be a magical experience foreverybody involved. So

let's talk about that second part, infusing it
with the rigor and so on. And Iguess I want to make one more
point before I pose thatquestion, and that is for
audience members who may not befamiliar with FIRST Robotics,
and it is one of severalexamples, of course, of the
style of learning and activityin secondary education,
primarily, but leading up to itin primary with other
applications. The first time, Itoured a FIRST robotics program,

(24:53):
and I was invited by a parent,but it was the students right
that led the whole discussionand what I expected to see.
Walking in was a bunch ofstudents maybe doing CAD
drawing, 3d printing, building arobot, competing with the robot.
And then you start to realizethat, yeah, that's an integral
part of FIRST Robotics so isbuilding the the challenge area
where they're actually doingtheir first robotics work. So is

(25:15):
marketing the first roboticsprogram. So is raising funding
so that they can compete, sothey can acquire equipment and
materials they need, or space sothat they can travel when they
go to different events. Theyhave a whole finance side of it,
all of that is student led. Andthat was just incredible to me
to see that this, it's really,it's a small business, and it's

(25:38):
not as complex as a typicalsmall business, but nor, nor
does it need to be for a highschool student. Just that, that
incredible exposure to all thosedifferent disciplines, certainly
the technical ones, but all theother ones. Huge, huge fan of
that, also huge believer inrunning those programs, by the
way, alongside or in addition toindustrial robotics programs.
Every once in a while we seepeople that say, Well, we

(25:58):
haven't we have a first roboticsprogram. We're preparing our
kids for careers inmanufacturing. Well, you are in
a lot of ways, but no student isgoing into manufacturing and
programming a FIRST Roboticsrobot, right there, correct
programming industrial robots.
And I was like to make thatpoint, because we spent, we
spent a ton of time on theindustrial side of people like,
why do you sponsor and we doactually sponsor a number of
FIRST robotics programs, andit's because they run in

(26:19):
parallel, and they're they'reinextricably linked in terms of
the types of opportunities thatwe can create for students. So
that leads to my question, whichis this, you know, when we talk
about the rigor of thecurriculum, when we talk about
the what, you know, whatstudents are learning in these
programs, I think one of thechallenges a lot of schools,
especially in traditionaleducation, have is aligning that
to state standards, or aligningthat to federal requirements,

(26:41):
and saying, how do we ensurethat we're delivering to whether
we like them or not, thestandards we're required to
comply with through a programlike that? Have you seen
innovative ways to

do that? Yeah, just crosswalk it. Yeah. I mean,
you know, yes. I mean, I don'tmean to make light. And I hear
this all the time, all the time,I can't tell you. And I'm like,
seriously, you need to step backfrom this, right? So, like, take
this incredible program. This isthe example that I use. I'm
like, here's this thing. Andyou're like, we really want to

(27:13):
use this. We'll go back to ourfirst robotics experience,
right? And we're going to useit, and we're going to teach all
mathematics, algebra, geometry,calculus, let's say we're gonna,
you're gonna use all of those,maybe trig, and we're gonna use
our first program as the vehiclethrough which we're going to
teach that all. And they'relike, whoa. What? There's so
many things we were not going tohit if we're doing that. I'm
like, Well, you, you'll, you'llhit them. In fact, you'll

(27:35):
probably hit them more thanonce. The actual standard. And
one of the things that I tellthem is, I said, do it for a
week. My challenge is, set yourcurriculum aside, run the
program for a week, teach thethings that you want to teach
through the robotics program inthis case, right? And let's keep
track of every single contentelement that you touch during

(27:58):
that week, sure. And here's whatI can almost always guarantee
you, you will hit more of yourrequired mathematics, standards,
algebra, geometry, whatever itis that you're teaching in that
week, doing it that way, thenteaching for one week out of
your standardized curriculum. Ilove that. Yeah, and you'll do
it every single time, right? Andthe kids the first time they the

(28:19):
other thing, I guess my pointis, the other thing that I
really love about doing it thisway, and that the reason I have
this conversation with all thesefolks is, look, the first time
you teach something, right, orthe first time, more
importantly, our learners arelearning something, it's going
to be very high level. And evenif you spend time trying to go

(28:40):
deep in that they won'tnecessarily have the time or the
experience to truly synthesizeand they certainly aren't
necessarily going to be able toapply it outside of some random
homework assignment that youprovide to them that has no
bearing on who, who they are,what they're thinking about in
the world. But if instead, theyhave exposure to that, and then

(29:02):
the next week, you do the exactsame thing again, right? And you
just keep moving on with thecontent, but it's always going
to come back. And so after twoor three times of being exposed
to a standard, they're actuallygoing to understand it. We are
not doing that in traditionalcurriculum. We do it once. We
test on it, we move on. We maynot see it again, right?
Absolutely, that is not how anapplied teaching and learning

(29:25):
environment is going to bestructured, nor is it going to
be how our learners are going toengage with

it, exactly, and especially learners. And there's
some of them that learn justfine in a classroom, and we all
know them, and they can sitdown, and they can listen to a
lecture, they can take theirnotes, they study their notes.
It all sticks. That's not, Idon't, I don't know what the
statistics are, but that itdoesn't feel like, certainly,
that was never my way oflearning, and I don't think
that's the way of learning for alot of folks. We learn by doing,
and that's when it really sticksand we understand the

(29:50):
application. How many times havewe heard students say, Well,
what am I going to use thequadratic equation after after
high school? In my case, it wasnever right. I got through life
perfectly fine, never beingable. To do math with letters,
but, but I think the point isthat these these opportunities
where we actually providestudents with that chance to
take what they would be learningotherwise, do it in an applied

(30:10):
fashion. It's going to stick,and it's probably going to be
more useful for them when theygo on to whatever comes after
their secondary educationanyway. So let's, let's get into
these five strategies I reallywant to dig deeper into, into
your book and the work thatyou've done. I'll list them out.
You tell me if I got any of themwrong, and then I want to, I
want to go through each of them.
But your five strategies forlinking learning to life in your
book, hacking school, arestudent agency, culturally

(30:33):
relevant education, masterylearning, transdisciplinary
teaching and problem basedlearning. So let's start with
the first one. What is studentagency?

So agency is all about giving students the
opportunity to have a role intheir learning. And the order of
these matters like, so I alsowant to tell folks that the
order matters like, if you'renot doing doing this type of
teaching and learning, that'snot the environment that you
have and you want to go there,and you're not doing any of
these things. Start with agency,right, and work your way through

(31:08):
that order. Does, in fact,matter, because agency is really
saying, Look, we recognize thatthe learner, our students, they
have interests, they are fullyformed individuals. They have,
you know, a whole variety ofthings, and they want to be able
to have voice and choice. That'sone of the phrases you often
hear tied to agency. But I willshare it's much more than that,

(31:31):
right, because having anenvironment that honors student
agency also means that theeducator, right? The educator
has also given themselves theopportunity to learn alongside.
I no longer have to be theexpert in that space. We can
honor the ecosystem or the ethosof discovery, and we can do that

(31:52):
together with the student. I'mgoing to spend time getting to
know that student, so on and soforth. So agency is all around
just recognizing that studentshave to have an active and
meaningful role in designing anddeveloping and progressing
through a learning journey forthemselves.

One of my very best friends was a was an art
professor at the ChicagoInstitute of Art for a number of
years, and he talks about agencyon the part of artists, right,
and the way he defines it, and Ithink it aligns really well with
with what I just heard from youAnneLise, is giving yourself
permission, right? Givingyourself permission to break the
rules. So giving yourselfpermission to be yourself. And I

(32:30):
hear that I like the fact thatyou talk about that from the
sense of the student, thatyou're responsible for your own
learning journey, that you'vegot the agency, but also the
teacher, and that it's okay notto be perfect, and you have to
give yourself permission tomaybe spend that week doing
FIRST Robotics and figuring outhow it aligns to the standards
you're required to comply withwhen you're when you're in the

(32:51):
classroom. Give yourselfpermission to do that. So So it
starts with student agency, andthen, and then it moves on. And
you said the order is important,so we'll be sure and go through
these in order culturallyrelevant education. I think that
can mean a lot of things to alot of people. What does it mean
to you?

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to start
with it has nothing to do withpolitics, right? So let's be
really clear. What this is aboutis recognizing, right, that our
students have a background. Theythey, they come to us right with
a whole set of experiences,right? And that we need to make
sure that whatever it is that wehave students engaging in, from

(33:31):
a learning standpoint, isrelevant to them. So it has to
be culturally relevant.
Sometimes that means it has tobe relevant to a particular
neighborhood, if you will,right? But sometimes it means it
has to be relevant to an entiregroup of diverse students who
come from multiple neighborhoodsthat are coming into my into my
school. But what it means andsome some folks like to use the

(33:51):
word culturally relevanteducation. Some want to use the
word culturally responsive. I'veseen a whole host of other words
tied to this, but the concept isthe same. And basically it says,
recognize who your students are,and make sure that everything
that you're throwing at them,they can identify with in some
way, even if you want them tolearn about something way

(34:13):
outside their experience ortheir comfort zone, that's okay,
but you have to bring it back tothem. And one of the examples
that I use all the time is, youknow, in physics, right? If we
want to teach and understandphysics and mathematics,
understand slope and trajectory,right, in many textbooks, right,
for example, we'll use theexample of a downhill skier. But
if I grew up in SouthernFlorida, and I've never seen

(34:35):
snow, much less the types ofhills or mountains that it takes
to actually be a downhill skier,you know, yeah, am I capable of
understanding the concepts 100%do I care? No, but if instead, I
make it about skateboarding,suddenly it has relevance for
me. And that's just an example.

(34:55):
You know, the kids in Colorado,they're gonna understand snow
skiing. So I just the. That'swhat that's about. It says, Know
who your students are and makesure that you tie everything
back to have some meaning orrelevancy for them.

So let me ask you this. Well, you know, if I'm in
Florida, certainly get the ideathat if you're you know, if I'm
at Big Sky Montana, I know youand I both have an affinity for
Montana, and I if I'm skiingthere and I'm a skier, that's
one one example, if I'm in SanFrancisco, or I'm in, you know,
I'm in Orlando, and theSkateboarding is relevant to me,
think about like an urban schooldistrict, and we've got, we've

(35:30):
got plenty of those, right? Inmy, you know, hometown of
Milwaukee, where, when we talkabout the diversity of students,
it's a real thing, right? It canbe income, it can be cultural.
Culture. It can if you're if youimmigrated from somewhere else,
certainly, that has a hugeimpact. How does a teacher make
learning relevant to a widevariety of students in that

(35:52):
example? Well, this goes

back to agency.
Yeah, right. I mean, if yourlearners have a role in crafting
the journey they're going to goon, right? You can sit down or
work with those learners andsay, look, here's the next thing
we're gonna do, and here aresome options, or some examples.
How would you design theopportunity to learn this thing?
Got it right? That's why thesethings, they all go together,
right? And so agency gives you,the educator, the permission to

(36:15):
work with the students directlyto figure out how to make it
culturally relevant. Theeducator doesn't have to be the
end, all right? And in fact, weknow they shouldn't be, because
they're not capable. No human iscapable of that much very
specific crafting, I guess, ifyou will, right? Of that
experience, that individualchild, right? That's
overwhelming. There's not enoughhours in the day. We couldn't

(36:37):
possibly do that for 120learners to take a high school
example, right? Sure, in a givenday, but those kids, they can
help you with that teach themhow to do it. If

I'm the teacher, what I'm hearing is that, you
know, it's not my necessarily myobligation to be able to
identify with the background ofevery single one of my students.
In fact, that's probably noteven possible, but letting the
student be an active participantin not just their learning, but
how they're learning it and whatmight be relevant to them,
that's, that's a big part of theanswer. Am I getting that right?

(37:07):
Yeah,

100% right. You know, I do. I want teachers to
know every kid, like know everykid they teach a hunt. I do
right, right? And there's a lotof educators that do a really
good job of honing in on that.
But the reality is, you know,you can know a kid and still not
truly know a child, right?
Because there's so much thatthey come to the learning

(37:29):
environment with. So yeah,absolutely ask them to help
craft the way they're going toget there and be open to what
that is, because honestly, nowyou're going to learn something
about your student that'll justmake you a better educator for
them, a better facilitator oftheir learning journey. Moving
forward,

ask them to craft how they're going to get their
in anticipation and with thegoal of the step number three,
which is now mastery learning,so we get student agencies step
number one, culturally relevanteducation is number two. The
third strategy is masterylearning. Define that for us and
tell us about

it. Yeah, so mastery learning, or mastery
based or competency basedlearning, says, Look, we're
going to let go of thisartificial thing called time,
and we are going to recognizethis students, some students,
you know, like we talked aboutbefore, you know, they're going
to hear a lecture, they're goingto study for a little while.
They're going to have it,they're going to keep it,
they're going to retain toretain it. They can apply it,
they can move on. But that's notthe case for the majority of

(38:26):
learners, right? The majority ofpeople need to try a thing, they
need to do a thing, they need tothink about a thing, they need
to tweak a thing, they need totry a thing again, so on and so
forth, right? And that's whatmastery based learning or
competency. Again. You know,lots of talks to these, right?
Exactly, right. But the realityis, what this says is we're
going to give you the time andthe space necessary for you to

(38:50):
explore a topic to truly, trulyunderstand, and we're also going
to raise the bar, right? Becausehonestly, you know, k 12 can't
help but assess and assign agrade, right? And so the other
thing about mastery is that thebar has been raised. So the
idea, for example, a lot ofschools will say, you know, our

(39:12):
minimal grade, I don't likegrades, but the minimal grade,
right, or assessment to earnmastery is gonna be 90%
sometimes 85% whatever ithappens to be, right? But we're
going to work towards that, andwe're going to ensure that every
every learner can achieve thatas their minimum. That's a
completely different way tothink about the obligation of

(39:35):
ensuring that students retainand are able to utilize
knowledge, because this approachsays I'm gonna stick with you
until you get it, and I'm alsothen going to assess you in such
a way that allows you, thelearner, back to that agency and
that relevancy piece right, todemonstrate to me that you've

(39:56):
got it. And it may be a test, itmay be. An oral conversation, it
may be, show me how you do this,build this thing. That's what
mastery is about. This

is reminiscent to me. We had a guest on the
podcast, a very good friend ofmine, Mike Bigley, who's the
superintendent of the WhiteHouse School District in western
Wisconsin. You should take alook at what they're doing
there, because it aligns reallywell with some of the things
that that you talked about withregard to FIRST Robotics and so
on. Mike, he just, this is justso stuck with me. I was at an
advisory board meeting with him,and he said, if you look at the

(40:29):
average freshman class, like youwalk into a classroom in a in a
high school, and you stand in agroup of freshmen in that
classroom. He said, I will havepeople in that classroom reading
at a college sophomore level. Hesaid, I will have people reading
at a second grade level in thesame classroom. And I mean,

(40:49):
first of all, I think competencybased education would inform us
that. Okay, why? Why is thatsecond grade, you know, reader
in a in the the freshmanclassroom? I mean, we gotta, we
gotta sort that out. But whenyou think about just the wide
variety of learners, learningstyles that we have, it's gonna,
you know, depending on thesubject matter, that sophomore
in college learner is going toget certain concepts probably

(41:13):
quicker than the second gradelearner. Now there may be other
concepts that because the secondgrade learner learns in other
ways that they pick up quickerthan the traditional kind of
reading, writing and arithmeticlearner. I mean, I think there's
a whole conversation we can havearound that. But you think about
the variety of differentlearning styles and different
levels that you have even in oneclassroom, and it's not like a
grade or two one way or theother. It's second grade to, you

(41:35):
know, two years out of out ofsecondary and and then we
started thinking about, allright, we have to meet every one
of those students where we are.
And if that second grade readerneeds a little extra time to get
there, they should have thattime. And if that, if that high
flyer can get there quicker,good. Let's move them on to the
next thing. And let's notfrustrate them or make, you
know, let's not make one studentfeel like they're not smart
enough, or another one feelbored because they happen to

(41:56):
learn a different way or adifferent rate. And so it feels
to me like this whole idea ofmastery learning is all about
it's not how you learned it orhow much time you took to learn
it. It's about whether you'vemastered it and whether you know
it when you're done. Is thatright? 100% Yep. All right. So
now we're through three ofthese. The fourth strategy is
transdisciplinary teaching.

(42:18):
Transdisciplinary. I have toactually look at that word to
pronounce it. That's a big wordfor me, but yeah, tell us about
what that means. So basically,

that is trying to D silo content that is a
truly the moment where we canlink learning to the real world,
link that learning to life,right? We, very few of us, very
few of us go to work and we doone thing, not connected to
anything else, right, right? Andso, you know, we step people

(42:49):
through transdisciplinary isreally hard. That's, that's
basically means that we're goingto take a minimum of, you know,
three or more disciplines, andwe're going to merge them all
together, and we're going toteach, we're going to teach
relevant and student inspiredcontent right from the sort of a
theme based sort of approach.
It's very difficult to do right,and especially in our K 12

(43:10):
environment, however, right, wecan step into it like co teach,
and then you can move your wayto interdisciplinary. But what I
can tell you is the schools thathave made this shift, and the
educators who've been involvedin this, they would never go
back, right? Because, you know,why would we teach? For example,
science is one of my favorite oreven engineering history, take
your pick. Every single one ofthese topics is related to

(43:33):
something else, and anotherdiscipline informed the way it
developed, or its history, orthe way it's moving forward. And
so the idea that we're going toteach computer science, for
example, without teachingmathematics and without teaching
science, is insane. And yet, wedo it every day. We send kids
to, you know, seven classes oreight classes, depending on the

(43:56):
school district, for 42 and ahalf minutes, right? I mean, who
thought that was was a novelidea. And then when we ring a
bell, because we're not going totreat these young people like
humans, we're going to ring abell like we would for a dog,
and we're going to say, Okay,now move on to the next thing
that's not connected to anythingelse you're doing for the day.

(44:17):
And then rinse and repeat, rinseand repeat, rinse, repeat. We do
it all day long, and we wonderwhy our students are like, just
can't wait

to get out of here. If I suffered from post
traumatic stress disorder, and Idon't, but if I did what you
just explained to me, would bemy version of it, which was my
version of education. And thebell going off every in our
case, it was every 50 minutes.
And you got so much time to getto your next class, and then
you're, you know, and thenyou're diving into the next
topic. I cut you off, so goahead and finish your

thought. No, I mean that. So that's really it.
So the idea of transdisciplinarysays, you know, we're going to a
because we've shifted already tomastery, right? We've got these
big blocks of time, right? We'regoing to recraft the way we
think about our entire day.
We're going to recraft the way.
We think about learning has tobe at the school. I mean, the
other thing is, learning shouldbe everywhere in our community.
Think totally all of theresources and opportunities that

(45:08):
are out there, right? You know,students who have some ownership
of their journey, they can cocraft with their with their
school and their mentors, theplaces they're going to go
they're going to learn. Theyshould be able to get credit for
all those experiences thatthey're doing out here. And, oh,
by the way, when I am back in myschool building, I should be
able to see how math, science,history, humanities, language,

(45:29):
how all of this rolls in, andhow they're all related. And,
you know, again, we talked aboutit earlier, where all of it can
be standards long. We're notgoing to miss anything that we
are required to teach andstudents are required to learn,
but now it's going to becompletely rolled into an
experience that the kids love.
They're engaged, and educatorslove it too. So
transdisciplinary just says,Stop teaching whatever it is

(45:50):
that you teach for the sake ofteaching just that thing. My

friend Corey Steiner from North Dakota leads
he's down to his new schooldistrict. Do you know Corey?
Yeah, so awesome. So he's beenon the podcast, former guest on
the podcast, and you know, hiswhole idea is, look, if I've got
somebody in Boy Scouts thatearns a merit badge and that
aligns to a standard, whywouldn't I give them credit for
that? And it's like, that's soobvious, right? Yeah, okay. So
no number five in the fifth offive strategies for how we link

(46:21):
learning to life is problembased learning. So I've got a
good idea of what that's about.
But what's your example anddefinition of problem based
learning?

So Problem Based Learning says that we are
going to work our way, andagain, like transdisciplinary, I
would say problem based is thetop pinnacle of sort of the
applied teaching and learningstrategies that are out there.
So inquiry, expeditionary, placebased, project based, all of
that sort of stuff falls underthis bigger umbrella called
problem based. The reason I useproblem based is because that's

(46:52):
where you want to go, andproblem based says that we are
going to engage in, quitefrankly, recognizing that every
student that walks in our doors,right? Are capable of solving
the world's greatest problems,right? And if we believe that,
then we are going to allow them,and we're going to encourage the
tackling of big, hairy,audacious issues, big global

(47:15):
issues, and through the struggleof how hard these things are to
truly solve. We're going to dolots of projects, we're going to
have lots of inquiry. We'regoing to go lots of places,
right? You know, to get theinformation and the answers that
we need. And the best part ofproblem based learning, as
opposed to some of the theothers that stack up underneath
it is that it recognizes thatthere's never going to be one

(47:39):
solution, right, right? And wetalked at the very beginning of
our conversation about all thosestudents, right, showing up in
their first jobs or or in ourundergraduate labs, not
prepared. They didn't have theexperience necessary to really
engage in the learning or thework of that moment. And I think
that this is why, because wedon't allow students the
opportunity to understand thatthere's not always going to be a

(48:01):
singular answer, and thatmultiple answers can be right,
right, and it's really moreimportant, what did you learn
along the way, and what are theelements that you pulled
together and that you threw attrying to solve that thing? And
so that's why problem basedlearning, because it really,
really honors the work ofsolving

Absolutely. I've got so many good friends that,
you know that went to HarvardBusiness School, and one of the
things that the one common traitthat they all have, or the one
common practice they all have,is anytime we're walking into
like a new doesn't matter ifit's a restaurant, it's a ski
lodge, it's a, you know, it's abusiness they have, like this
ongoing case study in theirhead, they're always trying to

(48:43):
figure out how the pieces fittogether, how that organization
or that business makes money,how it operates. And it's
because they are so conditionedby these case studies and
problem solving while they'regoing through graduate school.
And it's just fascinating to methat way of thinking and
bringing that to K 12 is almostexactly what we're talking about
here. It makes the learning comealive. It makes it a lot more

(49:04):
applicable. It's going to makeit a lot more valuable when we
move on to whatever comes next.
Speaking of valuable, I knowyour time is incredibly
valuable, and I think we want tosqueeze in yet three more
questions before our timetogether is up, honestly. So a
little bit of rapid fire, but wehaven't talked much about your
podcast now, 275 episodes. Ithink we're around 220 maybe
give or take here at The TechEdPodcast. So so you're well ahead

(49:25):
of us is learning unboxed, whichis your podcast? Give us one
surprising insight or arecurring theme that you've
picked up, given all the guestson all the topics you've covered
in 275 episodes.

So one of the one of the themes that I wasn't
surprised by is this idea of howscary technology is to lots of
educators. But here's what I wassurprised about within the
theme, yeah. And that is howmany, how many, once they
finally resolved themselves to,hey, this the. These, these

(50:00):
technologies are coming toeducation, and I'm going to
recognize that they are tools.
They are simply tools for me tobetter engage with my students,
right? The best way to learn howto use that thing was to allow
the students to teach them, oh,cool. And I was thrilled by
that, but I bump up against itover and over again when I pull
that thread and thoseconversations, ultimately, the

(50:22):
majority of the educators I'mtalking to will finally tell
you, Oh, I figured it out. Youknow, Sierra, she knew how to
use it, and she taught me afterschool.

So talk about giving yourself permission we
talked about before, right? Ateacher, an educator, giving
themselves permission to admitto the class. I don't know, and
eat everything. And you probablyknow more about this than I do
teach me, and that's an awesomeopportunity, not just for the
educator, but for the student aswell, right? Yeah,

oh, because the students feel so empowered and
they feel valued, it is amassive win, and it can happen
in a moment, including bringingsomething in, some topic in the
classroom, and just say right upfront, I have no idea how to do
this, but let's figure this outtogether. Does anybody have any
suggestions? And then justrunning, even if it's not a
great suggestion, pull with thatthread a little bit, see what

(51:12):
happens, and it'll be prettyamazing. I'm

amazing indeed. I would, I would love to be a fly
on the wall watching watchingthat happen. I would also have
loved to be a fly on the wallduring your personal education
journey, because I think you,like like me, have a lot of
opinions about traditionaleducation that were formed over
the course of our educationjourney. What is one thing that
you believe about education, orour education system that would
surprise others? And I knowthat's a tall question for

(51:37):
someone who's already so deepinto disrupting the world of
education, What would surpriseother people?

You know, I think we are all very familiar
with the concept, especiallywhen students get into post
secondary, whether it's career,tech or traditional. You know,
college experience, the idea ofhow often students change
majors, right? And so that'shappening, right? Because we
don't give them enoughscaffolded experiences in K 12

(52:03):
to further refine so that theycan get there and know, hey,
this is what, what I want to do,right? I don't know about you, I
pretty much tried all themajors. Yeah, yeah, right. And
so I think that the surprisingthing is that that that
phenomenon goes away when wetransition the K 12 experience
to be fully applied,transdisciplinary problem based

(52:26):
all those things we talked aboutthat give students the
opportunity to try so manydifferent things that it changes
the trajectory of the successstory, absolutely

the number one influencer of a young person's
career pathway. We say it seemslike almost every episode is
their own interest andexperiences in middle school and
high school, and if you don'thave an experience in a specific
area, you would never even knowthat that's a career that you
could have. So you and I agree100% on that one final question
for Dr Anneliese Corbin here onThe TechEd Podcast, and that is,

(52:58):
let's take we ask this of everyguest, let's go back in time to
your 15 year old self. I knowyou lived a lot of different
places, not sure exactly whereyou were living when you were
15, but picture that individual.
And if you could go back andtell that 15 year old on at
least one thing, what piece ofadvice would you give her?

Don't believe what anybody else tells you
you're capable of. Just don'tbeautiful

and in a sentence, I love that. Agree
100% it's been a wonderfulconversation with Dr Anneliese
Corbin, who is capable ofplenty, as we have learned,
capable of thinking reallycreatively about how we disrupt
technical education andeducation in general, k 12,
education especially, certainlycapable of hosting a podcast,
275 episodes in capable ofwriting a book, and we'll link

(53:46):
that up in the show notes. Ofcourse, hacking school, five
strategies to link learning tolife, and capable of captivating
my interest, and I think ouraudiences as well. So Anneliese,
thanks so much for being withus. Thank you for having me.
I've enjoyed it, and thanks toour audience for joining us
again this week on The TechEdPodcast. Wonderful conversation
with Dr Anneliese Corbin. Wementioned the show notes, we

(54:07):
mentioned her book, we mentionedour podcast. You can find links
to all of that in this week'sshow notes. We'll put those at
TechEd podcast.com/annalise DrAnneliese Corbin, TechEd
podcast.com/on a lease thatwould be a n, n, a, l, I, E, S,
when you're down there, check usout on social media. We are all

(54:28):
over. We are on Facebook,Instagram, tick, tock, LinkedIn.
Wherever you go for socialmedia, you will find The TechEd
Podcast. Connect to us. Reachout, comment, let us know you're
out there. We would love to hearfrom you, and we'd love to hear
you and see you next week on TheTechEd Podcast. Until then, I'm
Matt Kirkner, thanks for beingwith us. You.

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The 5 Strategies Driving Transformative K-12 Education - Dr. Annalies Corbin, Founder of the PAST Foundation

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The 5 Strategies Driving Transformative K-12 Education - Dr. Annalies Corbin, Founder of the PAST Foundation