Juli Coleman, Chief of Improvement for School Networks at the CORE Districts in California talks to Dr. Brandi Nicole Hinnant-Crawford, an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, Clemson University, Dr. Louis Gomez, a Distinguished Professor of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, about doing improvement with the goal of advancing equity in education during the current moment.

Learn more about continuous improvement

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

In this live recording from the 2026 National Summit for Improvement in Education, Partners in School Innovation CEO Derek Mitchell interviews Tenette Smith and Elise Brown about their roles in Mississippi's extraordinary improvement in reading, and how they are bringing the lessons from that into their new work in Maryland.

Learn more about continuous improvement

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this live crossover event for the National Summit on Improvement in Education and the Deeper Learning Conference, Alec Patton interviews Ben Daley, Jim May, and Ash Vasudeva about what deeper learning and continuous improvement have to offer each other.

Learn more about deeper learning

Learn more about continuous improvement

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

****

This episode is about a disturbing subject—we don't recommend listening with kids around.

Episode Resources:

Photos of the completed mural (both versions) and more

"Choosing Sean," an article Patrick Yurick wrote for Unboxed

The Imagine Mural in Changing the Subject

__Sean Fuchs performing the poem that inspired the Imagine Mural

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Stacey Caillier talks to Cornelius Minor about what it means to be bold in education right now, and the journey he and his colleagues took from observing a problem to making meaningful change with students.

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

What are you waiting for? Sign up for National Summit for Improvement in Education or The Deeper Learning Conference (March 30-April 1st)!

• Watch this if you’re trying to figure out which conference to come to.

Learn all about Cornelius Minor and The Minor Collective here.

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Robyn Snyder, Director of Supplemental Services at Clovis Unified School District, Ray Gamez, the principal of Janet L. Young Elementary School, and JJ Donat, who’s the guidance instructional specialist at Janet L. Young, about how that school cut the suspension rate for African-American students from 8.7%. to 4.2% in a single year.

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out!

If you're looking for a good introduction to Continuous Improvement in education, start here.

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out!

Episode Notes:

• You can read an article by Kate Hogan and Sandra Park about this improvement network on

Unboxed

here

!

• To learn more about the System Improvement Leads (SIL) team and their supports, visit 

systemimprovement.org

• To learn more about California’s Compliance and Improvement Monitoring process, visit 

caltan.info

• In partnership with Cloverdale, SIL has published a strategy handout 

linked here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Liz Chu, Executive Director of the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University, about the new book she co-authored, The Learning Hive: Leading Collective Innovation to Transform Education Systems.

__

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out!

Referenced in this episode:

• The Learning Hive: Leading Collective Innovation to Transform Systems

(Teachers College Press 2025) by Elizabeth Chu, Andrea Clay, Ayeola Kinlaw, and Meghan Snyder

• An Innovative New Vision of Leadership and Governance in Education: Learning Hives Show What's Possible

(Teachers College Press blog)

• The CARPE network

• Partners in School Innovation

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Alec Patton talks to math teachers Sunny Chan and Sandy Tu, and improvement coach Amanda Meyer, about Fremont High School's remarkable success at improving ninth-grade on track.

Every other week, the High Tech High Graduate School of Education publishes a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

Amanda is going to be talking about her work on ninth-grade on track in Oakland at the National Summit for Improvement in Education. It'll be like experiencing this podcast episode in 3D! Book now so you don't miss out!

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• The Gradebook Review protocol used in the Breakthrough Success Collaborative was adapted from High Tech High Graduate School of Education's CARE Network. 

• The Gradebook Audit protocol mentioned in the episode was co-developed between educators in Oakland Unified and the Breakthrough Success Community

• To learn more about the Breakthrough Success Community and how to join, visit  https://www.btsc.coredistricts.org/

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to teacher High School teacher Karen Shaffran and student Alegria Vargas about how their class created a socially conscious cosmetics business, featuring products made from plants grown hydroponically in a storage room!

Every other week, we publish a newsletter with great resources like this one, sign up for it here!

Listen to our podcast miniseries about Cheltenham High School's PBL program here

See photos from the PBL Farmacy Project here

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Tammy Unck, Maria Smith, and Uchenna Lewis about Bernal Intermediate School's work with Partners in School Innovation on improving outcomes for multilingual learners, using techniques such as "shadow a student" and elements of the AVID curriculum.

The result was remarkable: During the 2022-2023 school year, Bernal achieved a 250% increase in the rate of multilingual learners reclassified to fluent English proficient status!

Check out Ivannia Soto's Shadowing Multilingual Learners**

Also Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton's Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals* *

What are you waiting for, register for the National Summit for Improvement in Education before you miss out!

Check out this Blog Post from Partners in School Innovation with resources for student shadowing and so much more!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Lincoln High School Principal Melissa Agudelo about the challenges of bringing exhibitions of student learning to a large urban high school, and how they made it successful by literally doing everything all at once.

Want do bring exhibitions to your school, or take your exhibition game to the next level? Check out our resources here!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Michael McDonald, Stephen Rinaldo, and Tarima Levine about how Yonkers Public Schools and Bank Street Education Center improved eighth grade math proficiency particularly for students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty.

Learn more about the curriculum Yonkers used, i-Ready Mathematics

Read this Case Study to learn more about Yonkers' work

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to PBLWorks Lead National Faculty in Math Bryon Demerson about why led him to shift from being a highly successful "traditional" math teacher to embracing project-based learning.

Read Bryon's blog post: Overcoming PBL Hesitancy in the Math Classroom: A Teacher's Journey

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Dr. Kim Carter, superintendent of Battle Creek Public Schools in Michigan, about how her district broke a pattern of outmigration through building relationships with families and local businesses and nonprofits based on transparency and LOTS of conversations.

Dr. Carter is a member of the National Attendance & Engagement Meta Network

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Paola Capó-García about "Politics of the Personal," the twelfth-grade English project she created in which students chose a topic of personal interest to write an essay about—and create a piñata

Read more of Paola's poetry

See photos from the project

Learn how you can do professional development with Paola and the rest of the team

Learn more about the San Diego Teacher Residency

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Bell Middle School reduced its D/F rate from 51% in 2022 to 28% in 2024. That's a 23 percentage point reduction.

Even more impressive, for low income students, the D/F rate was 67% in 2022, and Bell cut it by more than half, down to 29% in 2024.

In this episode, Alec Patton talks to science teacher Teddy Meckstroth about how they did it.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman
• How to do the 2x10 Strategy (article) (video)
• The CARE Network

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Alec Patton talks to Hamilton Elementary Principal Dr. Brittany Daley and San Diego County Office of Education Executive Leadership Coach Julia Bridi about how Hamilton cut its chronic absenteeism rate from 24% to 10% in a single year, using creative parent communication, home visits, data checks, and public sliming

See photos of the sliming, silly string, and Brittany's rainbow mohawk here!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Attendance home visit script
• ICAN school team self-assessment rubric
• How to do a 2x10 intervention (article) (video)
• Interview with Simon Breakspear about the Pruning Principle (podcast episode)

Learn more about how the RAISE Network is tackling chronic absenteeism in California here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Derek Mitchell, CEO of Partners in School Innovation, about his daily reading rituals. Mentioned in the episode:

• Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto
• Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews
• Jeanie Daniel Duck, The Change Monster
• Sheldon Eakins, Leading Equity
• Brian McClellan, The Powder Mage Trilogy (strictly speaking, Derek mentioned Blood of Empire, which is part of the trilogy that follows the Powder Mage Trilogy)

Derek’s recommendations to get started: Morning reading:

• Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father

Lunch reading:

• Rudy Crew, Only Connect

Evening reading:

• Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Alec Patton talks to Maria Curtis, director of the Early Childhood Center at La Jolla Country Day School, in California, and Junior Kindergarten teacher Kristin Owen, about how they turned the discovery of a mud nest being built outside a classroom into a year-long project.

You can see photos from the project, including photos of the book, here (as soon as the link is live).

This episode is part of an occasional series on Regenerative Education. Here are the other episodes in the series (so far):

• Derek Mitchell and Scott Sampson on Regenerative Education
• Green School: Regenerative Education in the Balinese Jungle
• Green School Student Louis Lacour
• A Story of Butterflies, Regeneration, and Hope
• Solar for All Schools [guest episode from the Climify podcast]

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Sofía Tannenhaus talks to Jarrod Bolte, CEO of both Improving Education and Bedtime in a Box, a nonprofit that provides families with boxes containing everything you need for a positive bedtime routine. Each Box contains four age-appropriate books; bath wash, a towel, and bath toys; a toothbrush and toothpaste; pajamas; a stuffed animal; an alarm clock; a Teach My Learning Kit; and a kid-friendly routine log.

Bedtime in a Box has delivered more than 50,000 Boxes so far, with 80% going to families experiencing poverty.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto
• Bedtime in a Box website
• Kobi Yamada and Mae Besom, What Do You Do with an Idea?

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

This episode comes from the Climify podcast, which is hosted by Eric Benson, and produced by the Climate Designers Network. Benson interviews Tish Tablan, senior program director at Generation 180, about how going solar can benefit schools' budgets and provide opportunities for PBL, as well as helping us all thrive as we face an unprecedented climate crisis.

Links:

• Check out This Episode on Climify
• Check out all the great episodes on the Climify website
• Climify Design Class Resources
• Learn more about Cradle to Cradle Design, and check out the book that started it all!

Other episodes in the High Tech High Unboxed Regenerative Education Series:

• Derek Mitchell and Scott Sampson on Regenerative Education
• Green School: Regenerative Education in the Balinese Jungle
• Green School Student Louis Lacour
• A Story of Butterflies, Regeneration, and Hope

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Juliette Price, the senior Improvement Science coach at the National Association of Higher Education Systems, about how their Network Improvement Community has achieved its remarkable results on transfer enrollments from two-year to four-year colleges.

You know you want to try it: David Williams’s Mr. Potato Head Game

Check out Juliette’s Substack Newsletter, This Is Your Brain On Improvement

Read more about NASH

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Ben Krueger talks to cellist, composer, and teacher Okorie Johnson, who performs as OkCello, about music, teaching, and community. And, appropriately, they talk about how all three of those are, themselves, a form of conversation.

OkCello Website

Learn more about the PBL Leadership Academy

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Nika Dubrovsky about Anthropology for Kids, a project she started with her husband, anthropologist David Graeber.

Referenced in this Episode:

• Anthopology for Kids
• Cities Made Differently by David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky
• The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
• David Graeber on the Charlie Rose Show
• Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber
• David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky, “Another Art World, Part 1: Art Communism and Artificial Scarcity”
• David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky, “Another Art World Part 2: Utopia of Freedom as a Market Value”

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Linzi Golding, Erin Asselin, and Melanie Gonzalez about keeping things simple, celebrating small changes, smart ways to share data with schools, and how to recognize and celebrate effort, even when it doesn’t lead to the outcomes we were hoping for.

• To see an example of a driver diagram (and get a transcript for this episode) click here
• Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, Improvement Science: A Primer
• RISE Grade 9 Symposium
• Learn more about the RISE Data hub

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Cary Sabados (national director of teacher leadership development at Teach Plus) and Morgan Hython (fourth grade math and science teacher at Piccolo School of Excellence, a public preK-to-8 school in Chicago) about their work in the Teach Plus Network for School Improvement.

Learn more about Teach Plus

Learn more about the National Coalition for Improvement in Education

Stacey Caillier talks to Michelle Pledger and David Montes de Oca about the ways that school districts are using Michelle's book, "Liberate: Pocket-Sized Paradigms for Liberatory Learning"

You can find Michelle's book, and Montes's study guide, here

You can find Michelle's podcast, Unapologetic and Uninterrupted, here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Deeper Learning 2025 keynote speaker Dr. Heather Michel about about her difficult experience with school as a kid, her own career as a teacher, and the strategies that she’s developed to help teachers take care of themselves.

If you want to try a body scan, try this 11-minute guided body scan by meditation teacher Tara Brach.

You can find journal prompts and affirmations on the Teachers of Color Matter website, here.

Learn more about the Deeper Learning Conference

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Jason Nious, founder of the stepping and body percussion crew Molodi, about the journey that brought him here, and about what he’s learned from dance and body percussion about connecting to young people in school.

Learn more about Molodi

Learn more about the Deeper Learning Conference

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this special live episode from the 2025 Deeper Learning Conference, educator Ron Berger talks to two Japanese educators and their two brilliant children, who have experienced education across cultures in Japan, the United States, and Europe.

Learn more about the Deeper Learning Conference

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Alec talks to Nichelle Woodson, the Chief of Network Success at RISE Eileen Mezzo, an Assistant Principal at Naugatuck High School in Connecticut. They talk about how the RISE Network has achieved remarkable gains in ninth-grade on track rates (for example, on-track for Black students has risen by 27 percentage points since 2015).

The RISE Network Website

The RISE Data Hub

Nichelle’s other appearance on the High Tech High Unboxed podcast is here

Nichelle and Eileen’s favorite data protocols:

• KidStat Data Protocol
• Attendance 3Rs Data Dive Protocol
• Student-Centered Data

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to fifth grade teacher Jeff Govoni about a project he and his fifth grade colleagues did last year, in which students designed and built dog houses and cat condos for animals seeking adoption.

Read Jeff Govoni's article for Unboxed, about this (and other) projects, "Deconstructing Construction Projects"

For more ideas about assessing projects, check out our episode with physics teacher Ted Cuevas, "How to Assess Students like Scouts"

Read Ron Berger's thoughts on Models of Excellence

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Sara DeMartino, an English Language Arts Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Learning (IFL), about how schools in the IFL's network for school improvement increased 8th grade on track for Black and Latine students by more than 25 percentage points, and improved on-track rates for Emerging Bilingual Students from 35% to 80%, since 2018.

Check out the Institute For Learning’s Vision of Collaborative Work!

Here’s what Sara DeMartino says about it: “While the driver diagram was helpful in thinking through the theory of change, we found teachers and leaders, more than anything, wanted to know the role that they played in that theory and the role other members of the system were playing as well. We reviewed this document at the beginning of each year to make sure it still held, but also as a way to remind all of us that we had a stake in making change and were responsible for supporting the vision of teaching and learning that we collectively set.”

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Shelley Glenn Lee, director of High Tech Elementary North County, and Durrell Kapan, a Senior Research Fellow at the California Academy of Sciences, about how the Silvery Blue butterfly is filling the ecological niche left by the extinction of the Xerces Blue butterfly in San Francisco... with some help from Durrell and his team

Check out this video about the sIlvery blue/Xerces blue surrogacy project!

The Silvery Blue/Xerces surrogacy project began with the ideas of Robert Michael Pyle, and have since included many partners. These include Robert Michael Pyle's Xerces Society, Creekside Science, and Revive and Restore.

Durrell Kapan wanted to take the opportunity of these notes to say a bit more about his biology teacher Neal Maine (who threw the book out the window). Here's a note from Durrell:

"It’s relevant to note that Neal's impact has been far-reaching—not only on the students he taught but also on the conservation programs he helped begin. These include the Haystack Rock Awareness program, which started with a “failed” non-game grant application I made under his tutelage that led to the city starting the program (I worked on it for two years, first as an interpreter and later as the coordinator), and the North Coast Land Conservancy, which has conserved thousands of acres of the Oregon Coast, started by Neal Maine after he retired."

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Sofía Tannenhaus talks to Julie Smith, co-founder of Community Design Partners, and Casey Chiofolo, an Assistant Principal at Respect Academy, an Alternative High School in Denver, about how Respect Academy dramatically improved first period attendance by talking to kids about what they wanted from school, and what was keeping them from getting there on time.

Community Design Partners’ library of Student-Powered Improvement resources

• In his work, Casey drew particularly on this guide: Building Student-Powered Classrooms

Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, “What Improvers Can Learn from Civil Rights Organizers”

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton and Nuvia Ruland talk to artist Scarlett Baily about her life, her art, and in particular the process of collaborating with 200 elementary school students

Check out a photo gallery of Scarlett's murals here

Scarlett Baily's website

Kumeyaay Community College Website

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Amiee Winchester and Zack Jaffe about their continuous improvement work on improving literacy at Baltimore City Public Schools.

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Dr. Simon Breakspear about the book he co-wrote with Michael Rosenbrock, "The Pruning Principle: Mastering the Art of Strategic Subtraction Within Education"

Our other episode with Simon Breakspear, “If It Doesn’t Work for Teachers, It Doesn’t Work”

You can find great free tools (and order The Pruning Principle) at pruningprinciple.com

Simon mentions Cal Newport. You can find out more about his “20% over capacity” principle in this blog post: What Would Happen If We Slowed Down?

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Sean Mortimer, co-author of autobiographies by Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, and Joe Namath, about how to help people figure out how to tell the stories of their achievements—whether they're pro skaters or educators.

Hawk: Occupation Skateboarder

The Mutt: How to Skateboard and Not Kill Yourself

All the Way: My Life in Four Quarters

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Ron Berger about why learning targets put kids in charge of their own learning, and how to make sure they are a success in your class.

Leaders of Their Own Learning by Ron Berger, Leah Woodfin, and Leah Rugen Other podcast episodes featuring Ron Berger:

• Ron Berger on Presentations of Learning
• Ron Berger on Student-Led Conferences
• Ron Berger on Whole-Class Close Reading
• Ron Berger on Beautiful Lessons and “No Lesson at All”

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to physics teacher Ted Cuevas about why portfolios and badges are a better way to assess student learning, and how he does assessment in his class.

Learn more about the “Light on Literacy” project

Check out the platform that Ted uses for student portfolios, Inkwire

We have another scouting-connected podcast episode! Eduard Vallory: What School Can Learn From Catalonian Scouting

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Stacey Caillier and Curtis Taylor talk to Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford about what Septima Clark, Ella Baker, and Bayard Rustin can teach us about continuous improvement.

Learn more about Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford’s work here

Brandi’s other episodes on this podcast:

• Dr. Brandi Hinnant Crawford, Improvement as a Tool for Our Collective Liberation (High Tech High Unboxed podcast)
• Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford & Dr. Luke Wood at Gates CoP NSI (High Tech High Unboxed podcast)

Articles, books, and people referenced in this episode:

“ImproveCrit: Using Critical Race Theory to Guide Continuous Improvement,” by Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, Ericka Lytle Lett, and Shamella Cromartie, appears in Continuous Improvement: A Leadership Process for School Improvement

Septima Clark, “Literacy and Liberation”

Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

Bettina Love, Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal

Adrienne Marie-Brown, Octavia’s Brood

Decoteau J. Irby, Stuck Improving

The Interrelationship Digraph (Stacey’s favorite protocol)

Amanda Meyer has two articles on Unboxed, both very much worth reading! Improvement as a Journey and Swimming Against the Current: Resisting White Dominant Culture in Improvement Work

Khalifa, M. A., Jennings, M. E., Briscoe, F., Oleszweski, A. M., & Abdi, N. (2014). Racism? Administrative and community perspectives in data-driven decision making: Systemic perspectives versus technical-rational perspectives. Urban Education, 49(2), 147-181.

To learn more about QuantCrit, look out for this piece (once it is published): Castillo, W., & Gillborn, D. (2022). How to “QuantCrit:” Practices and questions for education data researchers and users. Manuscript under review.

Louis Gomez is a professor at UCLA

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to High School teacher John Santos about how he and his students explored AI together, and how it became a tool for building curiosity.

John Santos's other episodes on the podcast:

• Rigor shouldn't mean Some Kids Fail (a better grading strategy—easy to implement too!)
• How to Design a Great Project Launch

The AI project-planning tool that John talks about is the AI Kaleidoscope by Inkwire and the High Tech High GSE

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to High Tech High Graduate School of Education president Ben Daley about one of the most powerful (and simplest) data-collection tools in the world: the “by-name list.”

We start the episode by talking about the book Upstream by Dan Heath. It's really good—you should read it.

You can find more find more podcast episodes, articles, and videos about Continuous Improvement here!

You can find a transcript of this episode here.

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Kelly Wilson, HTH GSE Dean, talks to Louis Lacour, an eleventh grader at Green School in Bali, about project-based learning, local renewable energy infrastructure, and his plan to transform reef conservation with biodegradable zip ties!

You should also listen to Kelly's interview with Benjamin Freud, head of Green School's Upper School

You can see the 2023 Greenstone presentations here

Green School website

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Kelly Wilson, HTH GSE Dean, talks to Benjamin Freud, head of Upper School at Green School in Bali, about doing socially-meaningful, student-driven PBL grounded in the local community, in a school with bamboo buildings and no walls.

• Cofounder John Hardy’s Ted Talk about the Green School
• Green School website
• Coconut Thinking

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Partners in School Innovation CEO Derek Mitchell and Executive Director of California Academy of Sciences Scott Sampson about what "regenerative education" is, and why the world needs it right now.

• The Nature article about the dinosaur Masiakasaurus Knopfleri
• Smithsonian article about Majungasaurus
• To find out about Derek’s history with cockroaches listen to this episode
• The UK’s National Education Nature Park project
• Dacher Keltner, the researcher studying awe, on the On Being podcast
• Reimagining San Francisco
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talked to 23-year-old keyboard player, band leader, public speaker, and Akron, Ohio native Kofi B mere hours before Kofi kicked off the 2024 Deeper Learning conference with an incendiary set!

Kofi B’s opening performance at Deeper Learning 2024

Kofi B’s Closing Keynote at Deeper Learning 2024

Where to find Kofi B's music:

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Youtube
• Facebook
• Website

Made in Akron documentary

Do you want to come to a conference whose opening act is this good? Of course you do! Learn more about the Deeper Learning Conference!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

At Deeper Learning, Alec just started recording this interview to show Jessica how the mics worked—but once she started talking, he knew it was going to be an episode!

Learn more about Nowell Academy Here

Learn more about the Deeper Learning Conference here

Find all the podcast episodes from Deeper Learning 2024 here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Stacey Caillier talks to Rob Riordan about the beliefs at the heart of his philosophy of teaching and learning

More episodes with Rob

• Kaleb & Rob’s Fireside Chats: Where They’re Coming From—In this conversation between Rob and Kaleb Rashad you can hear about Rob's education journey—from Morocco, to Alabama, to Boston, to San Diego!
• Kaleb & Rob’s Fireside Chats: Adult Learning At High Tech High—In this conversation between Rob and Kaleb, they talk about how High Tech High's pedagogical philosophy informs professional development.

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

At Deeper Learning 2024, artist/choreographer Aysha Upchurch and Enrique Lugo talk about being artists in school, and the power of the cypher (and cuffed Levis 501s).

Aysha Upchurch's organization, HipHopEX

The best place to see Enrique "Chikle" Lugo's art is his instagram account

The custom Padres shoes that. Enrique was wearing at the Den Talk

Did you like listening to this but wish you could have been there and seen those shoes (and the rest of it) in person? Come hang out with us at the Deeper Learning Conference next year!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Rosemarie Biocarles-Rydeen talks to Alec about "Everybody Needs a Rock", the kindergarten geology project she designed and ran at High Tech Elementary Chula Vista

This video about the Everybody Needs a Rock project played at the end-of-project exhibition

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education's Professional Learning Team here

Learn more about the New School Creation Fellowship and the Center for Love and Justice here

Learn more about the San Diego Teacher Residency here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Big Picture Learning Co-Executive Director Carlos Moreno and Co-founder Elliot Washor talk about love, care, and vulnerability, the three key characteristics of leadership that Moreno identifies in his book, Finding Your Leadership Soul

Get Carlos Moreno's book, Finding Your Leadership Soul

Learn more about the Deeper Learning Conference

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Waverly Zhao and David Lee, co-founders of Iowa WTF, about what it took to organize a state-wide school walkout in response to anti-Gay legislation in 2023

Listen to the first episode in this series, Iowa WTF: The High School Students Fighting for Free Speech in in Schools

Iowa WTF on Instagram

David’s pre-walkout video message for organizers

Article about the walkout in the Des Moines Register

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Waverly Zhao and David Lee, co-founders of Iowa WTF, an organization founded by Iowa High School students in response to state laws restricting what they could talk about in schools.

Iowa WTF's Instagram Account

The instagram post announcing Iowa WTF's first walkout

An article about the Johnston Community School District

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Derek Mitchell talks to Stacey Caillier about what he’s learned about how to help schools get better at giving every kid what they need to thrive, and about why this work matters so much to him.

The book that Stacey and Derek talk about is Change Agents, by Justin Cohen

Listen to a conversation between the author, Justin Cohen, and Derek Mitchell here!

Learn more about Derek's organization, Partners for School Innovation on their website

Check out our full library of podcast episodes, articles, and videos about Continuous Improvement here!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Dr. Gladys Velazquez talks with Garett Brownleee Plantz and Alec about sustaining a college going culture at Warren High

Find out more about college access here: CARPE Collective

Listen to our other episodes about college access here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Nikki Hinostro talks with author Marisol Quevedo Rerucha about building a culture of equity, connection, and healing

Beyond the Surface of Restorative Practices

Watch Marisol's keynote from the PBL Leadership Academy

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Envision Education CEO Jillian Juman about the experiences that brought her here, and shaped her vision for education

Jillian's Recommended Reading/Listening:

• Street Data by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan
• Street Data Pod hosted by Shane Safir and Alcine Mumby

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to the XP Trust's Chief Academic Officer, Andy Sprakes, about how XP schools make sure every child's work makes it into the final product, and the hard lesson that made them take this so seriously.

This is the "director's cut" version of this episode. It includes a section on how XP does student portfolios and uses them for student-led conferences and "passage presentations." You can find a shorter version of the episode here.

• Examples of XP Trust Expeditions and Student Work
• The XP Trust Statement of Values and Ethos
• XP Schools Assessment Handbook
• Click here to see a photo of Toby’s Dust Jacket for the book "What Makes a Successful Community?", photos of the student portfolios at XP School, and XP's "anatomy of a learning expedition" photo

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to the XP Trust's Chief Academic Officer, Andy Sprakes, about how XP schools make sure every child's work makes it into the final product, and the hard lesson that made them take this so seriously.

This is the shorter version of this episode. To find out about how XP does student portfolios and uses them for student-led conferences and "passage presentations," listen to the "director's cut" version of the episode here.

• Examples of XP Trust Expeditions and Student Work
• The XP Trust Statement of Values and Ethos
• XP Schools Assessment Handbook
• Click here to see photos of Toby’s Dust Jacket for the book "What Makes a Successful Community?", and XP's "anatomy of a learning expedition" photo

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Navajo teacher Bernita Bedah teaches a bilingual kindergarten class in Navajo and English. She talks to Alec about why that's important for her students, and her community.

Make sure you also listen to the companion episode to this one, For Assistant Superintendent Peter Deswood, Connection to Navajo Students is Personal

Bernita references Rochelle Gutierrez’s keynote address from the 2023 Deeper Learning conference. You can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform here, and find the transcript here.

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Peter Deswood is Assistant Superintendent of the Central Consolidated School District, in Northwestern New Mexico. He's also a member of the Navajo nation, and he talks to Alec about why that's important to his students, and to him.

Make sure you also listen to the companion episode to this one, For Navajo Teacher Bernita Bedah, Language is Foundational to Building Identity

Check out Peter’s podcast, 21st Century Native Leaders!

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Teacher Kristian Basaraba and his former student Layla Jonas explain "The Colonialism Project" to Alec

Kristian Basaraba's podcast, the Rad Dads Podcast

Joe Buffalo on Instagram

The New Yorker Documentary about Joe Buffalo

Oasis Skateboard Factory

Colonialism Skateboards

Read more about Michel Blades Bird’s work here

John “JCat” Cardinal on Instagram

You can see photos from the project (including Layla's deck) here.

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High Tech High Interim CEO Kaleb Rashad and co-founder Rob Riordan talk about how High Tech High's approach to teaching and learning informs professional development in the organization.

Video: Rob Riordan Introduces High Tech High’s Design Principles Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Stacey Caillier interviews Connecticut RISE's Nichelle Woodson and Peter Lorinser about how to keep it simple while improving 9th grade on-track for students furthest from opportunity

Learn More About Connecticut Rise

How RISE Partners are Collaborating to Keep Students On-Track

Referenced in the episode:

• On-Track Coaches
• On-Track Data Teams
• Conditions for Grade 9 Success,
• RISE Data Hub
• Margaret J. Wheatley, “Willing to Be Disturbed”

Listen to another episode from Unboxed about Ninth grade success here

Want more awesome stuff about Continuous Improvement? Click here!

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This is a special bonus episode. The jury's out on whether it's "educational" but this is not a story you want to miss.

Liberate! Pocket-sized Paradigms for Liberatory Learning by Dr. Michelle Sadrena Pledger

The San Marcos Writing Project

The Deeper Learning Conference

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High Tech High Interim CEO Kaleb Rashad and co-founder Rob Riordan sit down to talk about what they were doing BEFORE High Tech High, and how it shaped their philosophy of education

If you have questions you’d like me to ask Rob and Kaleb in their next episode, send them to unboxed [at] hthgse [dot] edu.

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Garett Brownlee Plantz talks to Alison Murray and Antonia Guzmán to find out how International Studies Learning Center (ISLC) achieved its extraordinary 100% FAFSA completion rate.

Article: "Improving FAFSA Completion Rates," by Ben Daley

Podcast Episode: The $50,000 Prize: How Calexico High School Raised FAFSA Completion by 13 percentage points in one year

Click Here for More Continuous Improvement Stuff than You Can Imagine!

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Veteran teacher Andrew Lerario talks to Alec about "sharing the cognitive load" with students, and treating the project as a shared journey you go on together. He also talks about doing rocket science with high schoolers.

See a video about the rocketry project here.

Read more about Andrew Lerario and Blue Dot Education here.

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Sofia Tannenhaus talks to High Tech High International's College Advisor, Erik Castillo, about how his team makes sure no student slips through the cracks

The CARPE Collaborative

High Tech High International

You can find more great podcast episodes, articles, and videos about improvement here!

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Stacey Caillier interviews math teacher Janet Hanshaw and instructional coach Joanna Burt-Kinderman, both of West Virginia, about the Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teachers (M3T).

• EdWeek article about Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teachers (M3T)
• Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teachers
• Center For Research on Equity and Innovation

You can find more great podcast episodes, articles, and videos about improvement here!

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Brandon Wiley has been a part of Deeper Learning from the beginning. In this episode he gives his perspective on how the Deeper Learning group came together and developed, and how to bring Deeper Learning into your school.

The Deeper Learning Hub

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Scott McLeod shares advice for school leaders who want to pivot their schools towards deeper learning.

Scott's book, Leadership for Deeper Learning

The website (and book) Scott shares with schools to show them examples of what they could do:Changing the Subject: Twenty Years of Projects from High Tech High

Books written by John Holt

Books written by Tom Vander Ark

Getting Smart

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Veteran PBL teacher Brian Delgado explains the power of thinking about the first time you do a project as a “first draft,” and unpacks a phrase coined by High Tech High cofounder Rob Riordan: “Let the experience be the text.”

Brian's article about weather balloons, "From Socratic Seminar to Space Science"

Blue Dot Education

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Rochelle Gutiérrez, a professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois specializing in mathematics, talks about reconnecting math to our lived experience, and sharing the world's rich history of different approaches to mathematics with kids.

Rochelle’s recommended reading:

• “Why (Urban) Mathematics Teachers Need Political Knowledge”
• Introduction to Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students
• A Spiritual Turn: Toward Desire-Based Research and Indigenous Futurity in Mathematics Education

Also, check out the ethnomathematics program at the University of Hawaii!

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Ruby Ibarra kicked off the Deeper Learning 2023 conference with a blistering set featuring members of her band, the Balikbayans. In this episode, she talks to Alec Patton about identity, Bay Area hip hop, the legacy of Tumblr, how her mother handles haters, and much more

Ruby Ibarra's album, Circa 91, on Bandcamp

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

This is a guest episode from Taking off the Mask, a podcast that provides men a space to have conversations about life, challenges, joys, heartbreak, dreams, failures, and whatever is ready to be revealed.

You can learn more about Ashanti and the Ever Forward Project here.

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Resistance Communication co-founder Aisha Bain and Stanford d.School Design Lecturer Manasa Yeturu to talk about how we care for ourselves and live in community with each other

Aisha Bain's website

Manasa Yeturu - Stanford d.school

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They have developed a unique approach to running an improvement network, and it’s pretty exciting!

To see an image of the three-year Schools That Lead "cohort journey," go here.

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High Tech High Interim CEO Kaleb Rashad and Vista Innovation and Design Academy Principal Eric Chagala talk about school leadership, and how to turn soaring rhetoric into concrete reality.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Books

• Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools by Tony Wagner, Robert Kegan, Lisa Laskow Lahey, Deborah Helsing, Harriette Thurber Rasmussen, Richard W Lemons, Jude Garnier, Annie Howell
• What's Worth Fighting For in the Principalship by Michael Fullan
• The Moral Imperative of School Leadership by Michael Fullan
• The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive andThrive by Michael Fullan

Online resources

• National Equity Project Leading for Equity Framework
• National School Reform Faculty Protocols
• Center For Adaptive Schools Thinking Collaborative

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this keynote from the 2023 Deeper Learning Conference, hear a story from Walter Cortina, 19, founded Bridgemakers when he was still in high school. Check out what he did, how he did it, and who helped him out along the way.

To find out more about the deeper learning conference visit the website, deeper-learning.org.

Walter Cortina, 19, is Bridgemakers President and Co-Founder. Led by Minnesota youth from backgrounds of extreme adversity, Bridgemakers amplifies the voice and mentors the leadership of under-resourced youth to bridge America’s toughest gaps. Walter became homeless at 13 after his parents were deported to Mexico. The Minneapolis native worked three jobs to support himself and his family and encountered the juvenile justice system. Experiencing trauma and poverty at an early age, Walter discovered his passion to channel anger and pain into action and purpose. At 15, he created and led Venture Academy’s Changemakers team to advocate for student-centered school improvement. At 17, he interned for the Minneapolis Foundation CEO and co-keynoted the Teacher-Powered Schools National Conference. After losing their jobs in the 2020 pandemic shutdown, Walter and other youth built a bipartisan statewide coalition that generated 65 media features, successfully sued the State of Minnesota and permanently changed state law, bringing $33 million in unemployment benefits to 20,000 eligible students. Walter’s journey is featured in Sam Seidel’s Hip-Hop Genius 2.0: Remixing High School Education (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). The first in his family to graduate high school, he graduated from the High School for Recording Arts (HSRA) in St. Paul last May. Walter’s life purpose is to create a world in which youth have the resources, mentorship, access, and opportunities to be leaders of their destiny to create a better tomorrow for everyone.

You can learn more about Bridgemakers at Bridgemakersmn.org

Also, read the article “Building Bridgemakers” in Unboxed!

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this keynote from the 2023 Deeper Learning Conference, hear from Kristin DeLaTorre, a second-grade teacher in South Florida.

To find out more about the deeper learning conference visit the website, deeper-learning.org

Kristin DeLaTorre (@delatorretcs on twitter) holds a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Florida Atlantic University. She is an educator in South Florida with 19 years of teaching experience. She has been nominated for the Dwyer Award in the area of Elementary Education and twice in the area of Stem-Project Based Learning Education. Kristin serves as a mentor for the Innovative Schools Project in the School District of Palm Beach County, where she supports teachers with implementing project-based learning in their classes. Her classroom has become a learning space for teachers and leaders as she works closely with the Innovative Schools Lead Instructional Program Developers and the Assistant Superintendent for Palm Beach County schools, helping teachers integrate Project Based Learning. This implementation will allow this methodology to be utilized across more schools in Palm Beach County. Kristin spends summers as a lead trainer for the Inquiry Project Collaborative as well as onboarding new teachers in the methods of Inquiry and Project Based Learning. Kristin started her work at The Conservatory School in the fall of 2015. In her time at TCS she has immersed herself in the PBL process and shown her students a greater understanding and empathy for the world beyond themselves. Over the past seven years, her students have been involved with, raised money, or donated goods for The Water Project in Africa, HIP Africa, Challenged Athletes Foundation, UNICEF, El Sol Food Bank, Rocking Horse Foundation, The National Honey Bee Conservancy, The World Wildlife Fund, and bought an acre of land in the South American Rainforest. The consistent mantra in her classroom is “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. Kristin has also become an expert in student-led learning, developing and implementing creative practices in the classroom that emphasizes self-directed education, creativity, and discovery, rather than rote memorization. Students are encouraged to incorporate their own interests into projects, within their current topic. Kristin strives to offer students agency and having their voices heard as they work together as a collective towards setting goals, being reflective and acting responsibly to effect change.

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this keynote from the 2023 Deeper Learning Conference, hear from LA Region South Superintendent Andre Spicer, who tells about what was missing from his own education, and how he's making sure every kid in his district gets what he didn't.

To find out more about the deeper learning conference visit the website, deeper-learning.org

Andre Spicer (@drespicer88 on twitter and @regionsouthsupt on Instagram), a career educator of 27 years, has had the honor of serving children, families and communities as a Teacher, Dean, Coordinator, Principal and Instructional Director, Administrator of Instruction and Superintendent. Andre grew up in Compton, California where he learned first-hand, the perils of inequities, systemic racism and oppression plaguing our inner city public schools. Before becoming an educator, Andre served in the United States Marine Corps (1988-1992). A veteran of the Persian Gulf War, Andre uses many of the leadership qualities that he learned serving alongside some of the world’s finest men and women. Andre attended California State University Long Beach to obtain a BA in History and Teaching Credential. He attended CSUDH earning a master’s degree in Educational Leadership. Today, Andre is a PhD student at Claremont Graduate University where he is engaged in research on college access for Black and Latinx students while sharpening his tools as an urban leader.

As principal, Andre eliminated barriers through a cycle of continuous improvement, professional development and training emphasizing the importance of cultural awareness and the persistent achievement gap of Latinx students and Black students. As Administrators of Instruction for LD Central, Andre’s responsibilities included, aligning student needs with resources to ensure academic success, while assisting the Local District Superintendent and Community of Schools in providing instructional support to all schools within the service area.

Mr. Spicer served proudly as President of the LAUSD Council of Black Administrators. During his tenure, the membership of over 400 administrators gained knowledge on how to better serve the communities of under-served students. Andre and team ensured that the Black Educational Civil Rights Agenda was at the forefront of their work, and under his leadership members of COBA collaborated to advocate for the acceleration of black student achievement. As President, Andre oversaw the 40th and 41st Annual Black Child Conference and Scholarship Luncheons. Attended annually by over 1000 faculty members and parents, the conference provides workshops on a variety of topics including CLRP, MTSS, College Board, and student access to STEM and STEAM education, all vital tools to help ensure equity throughout our schools.

Currently Andre is serving as the Region South Superintendent for Los Angeles Unified School District

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

This is a "reissue" of a classic episode. The original came out in January 2020. In it, poet and activist LeDerick Horne talks about getting a segregated education... in the 1990s

You can learn more about all the awesome work LeDerick Horne is doing at his website, lederick.com

The poem at the start of the episode is called "New Beginning". You can hear it on LeDerick Horne's first album, Rhyme Reason and Song. You can also see LeDerick performing it here.

LeDerick's book, which he wrote with Margaret Vreeburg Izzo, is called Empowering Students with Hidden Disabilities: A Path to Pride and Success.

In this episode, veteran teacher John Santos explains how he designs amazing launches to his amazing projects!

Watch Personalized Learning through Collaborative Experiences (the companion video to this episode)

Listen to John Santos’s other Podcast Episode: “‘Rigor’ Shouldn’t Mean ‘Some Kids Fail’”

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Last year, 14 high school seniors took part in C3 Mobility DAO, a summer program created by the High Tech High Graduate School of Education’s CARPE Collaborative with a very specific goal: to help students from underrepresented populations navigate the transition from high school to community college, and then from community college to a four year university. To achieve this, the DAO used a secret weapon: college students

Learn more about the C3 Mobility DAO in this article

Read more about the software "Airtable" in the article “Educators Building Software: Two Case Studies”

Click here to learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

High Tech High Graduate School of Education Director of Liberation Michelle Pledger talks to Stanford D.School's Laura McBain about how the Deeper Learning conference came about, and what it takes to help conference-goers EXPERIENCE deeper learning, rather than just talking about it.

Resources:

Read about (and register for) this year's Deeper Learning Conference! (March 28-30 2023)

You can see the deeper learning competencies here (scroll down a little bit)

The Deeper Learning video series

The Edweek Learning Deeply blog

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Janhvi Kanoria and Lolwa Al-Saigh of Education Above All about the Internet-Free Education Resource Bank.

Resources:

• The Education Above All Internet Free Education Resource Bank (IFERB)
• Janhvi Kanoria's Ted Talk, A is for Arrow

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Adelric McCain (Network for College Success) and Xiomara Padamsee (Promise 54) explore the intersections of equity and improvement while sharing stories, wisdom and wobbles from their own journeys to integrate the two.

This episode is part of a three-part series from the Gates Foundation Fall 2022 Community of Practice Convening in San Diego, California. You can find all three episodes here.

You can find the other den talks from this event in this youtube playlist.

You can find lots more podcast episodes, articles, and videos about continuous improvement here!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford and Dr. Luke Wood in conversation about liberation and improvement

This episode is part of a three-part series from the Gates Foundation Fall 2022 Community of Practice Convening in San Diego, California. You can find all three episodes here.

You can find the other den talks from this event in this youtube playlist.

You can find lots more podcast episodes, articles, and videos about continuous improvement here!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Justin Cohen and Derek Mitchell (Partners in School Innovation) discuss Justin's newly-released book, Change Agents.

Justin Cohen's book, Change Agents, is available here

This episode is part of a three-part series from the Gates Foundation Fall 2022 Community of Practice Convening in San Diego, California. You can find all three episodes here.

You can find the other den talks from this event in this youtube playlist.

You can find lots more podcast episodes, articles, and videos about continuous improvement here!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode Alec talks to Eduard Vallory. Eduard is the Director-General of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, the chair of the center for UNESCO in Catalonia. And this is striking because Eduard did really, really badly in school, but he thrived in scouting...

Eduard Vallory's latest book is Aprendre

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Michelle Bowman and Elizabeth Foster, of Learning Forward, share how they have incorporated continuous improvement into adult learning in schools.

You can find Michelle and Elizabeth on Twitter! Michelle is @DrMiBowman and Elizabeth is @EFoster11

References further reading:

• Michelle’s dissertation Bowman, M. A. (2021). Learning together: A quantitative examination of inter-district collaboration in a community of practice. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.10867.45609
• Standards for Professional Learning – https://standards.learningforward.org/
• Three Stack Protocol – attached slides from the Charles A. Dana Center
• Redesign Professional Development Community (205-2017) -- https://learningforward.org/networks/redesign-professional-development-community/
• What Matters Now Network (2016-2018) – https://learningforward.org/networks/what-matters-now-network/
• Professional learning for a virtual world – https://learningforward.org/journal/leadership-under-pressure/professional-learning-for-a-virtual-world/

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Sarah Strong talks to Cate Challen about the book she co-authored with High Tech High graduate Gigi Butterfield (class of '21), "Dear Math: Why Kids Hate Math and What Teachers Can Do About It"

Read the first chapter of Dear Math: Why Kids Hate Math and What Teachers Can Do About It, “Dear Math, You are Dreadful”

Buy a copy of Dear Math: Why Kids Hate Math and What Teachers Can Do About It

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

High Tech High Mesa Instructional Coach David Roney explains how his colleagues designed August PD to put projects front and center, so teachers were ready to launch their projects on day one of school.

Here are the models that David and Hannah made for the project slice:

• David writing for Hannah
• Hannah writing for David

Resources you can use if you want to create your own PD based on what David and the team did:

• Project Slice Note-Catcher
• Slides for Day 1
• Slides for Day 2
• Slides for Day 3

Read more about Blue Dot

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec Patton talks to Stefanía Rodriguez Campo and Juliana Kairuz Correa about Confama Schools in Medellín, Colombia

• Map showing location of the department of Antioquia in Colombia
• Map showing the city of Medellín’s location in Antioquia
• Comfama website (in Spanish)
• Cosmo Schools website (in Spanish)

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

High Tech High Chula Vista director Edrick Macalaguim shares what he's learned about building and restoring classroom culture from over 20 years working in schools

Watch the video that Edrick and the High Tech High Chula Vista staff made for the start of the year (seriously, watch this): HTHCV—Where Passion and Projects Take Flight

Watch the full-length Meals and Muppets movie

Here are instructions and templates for the Broken Circles activity

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

This episode is a live recording of a deeper learning Den Talk, hosted by Michelle Pledger, with guests Suzie Boss and Ken Kay. Suzie and Ken have both done way more in education than I can get into here, but most recently they co-authored the book Redefining Student Success: Building a New Vision to Transform Leading Teaching and Learning.

Redefining Student Success book

Deeper Learning

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Anjel and sam met 20 years ago as student and teacher. This co-keynote about deeper learning, hip hop culture, design thinking + community will amplify over two decades of learning together and leave you ready to do the work as you return to your context.

Hip Hop Genius 2.0 book

AS2020

k12 Lab

Deeper Learning

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Alec talks to Valerie Hannon and Amelia Peterson, the authors of "Thrive: The Purpose of Schools in a Changing World"

Thrive: The Purpose of Schools in a Changing World by Valerie Hannon and Amelia Peterson

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Stacey Caillier talked to Network for College Success's Adelric "Del" McCain and Sarah Howard about how Chicago Public schools increased their “on track to graduate” rates from 61% to 89% in ten years. The secret? “Fix the system, not the kids”

The Make-or-Break Year: Solving the Dropout Crisis One Ninth Grader at a Time by Emily Krone Phillips

The CARE Network

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UnSuk Zucker of Promise54 and Sheldon Eakins of Leading Equity Center discuss their upbringings paved a path to fighting for educational equity

Leading Equity Center

Promise54

Deeper Learning Conference

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Sixth Grade DJs DJ Dice and DJ Rose play their favorite clips for Alec, and give advice on running a youth radio show along with one of their teachers, Alex Owens.

In New Orleans, listen to the Be Loud Radio Hour on 102.3FM on Saturday mornings at 9AM.

Everyone else can listen online at whivfm.org

You can listen to old episodes on Soundcloud, and you can listen to that Hotseat with Tank and the Bangas here!

Plus you can read all about Be Loud Studios here: https://beloudstudios.org/

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Ron Berger talks to Alec about Presentations of Learning

This is the video Ron refers to in which a senior needs to redo her passage presentation

High Tech High Unboxed resources on Presentations of Learning

“Share Your Learning” resources on Presentations of Learning

Leaders of Their Own Learning, by Ron Berger, Leah Rugen, and Libby Woodfin

You can watch clips from the portfolio presentations in Ron Berger’s own class from the 1980s

More EL Education resources for portfolio presentations

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In this episode, Nuvia Ruland Nuvia hosts a Deeper Learning Den and discusses advocating for undocumented students in higher education

Camino 21

Freedom University

Deeper Learning

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Alec talks to Jean Kluver and Jeff Robin, co-authors of Changing the Subject: Twenty Years of Projects at High Tech High, about how they wrote the book, what they learned from it, and how they hope schools will use it.

Experience Changing the Subject for yourself! Visit www.changingthesubject.org

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You can learn more about the Western Carolina Education Leadership Program from this website and this video

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

This episode is a guest episode from the Hip Hop Genius podcast. Find all their episodes here, or wherever you get your podcasts!

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Ron Berger interviews three educators of color about their strategies for making their schools into genuinely anti-racist spaces, and the challenges they've faced.

Justin Lopez-Cardoze Instructional Coach and Curriculum Coordinator, Capital City Public Charter School

Ron Berger Ron is Senior Advisor, Teaching & Learning for EL Education. Ron was a public school teacher and carpenter in rural Massachusetts for 25 years. His writing and speaking focus on inspiring quality and character in students, specifically through project-based learning, original scientific and historical research, service learning, and the infusion of arts. He works closely with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he did his graduate work and now teach a course that focuses on high-quality student work. He has authored or co-authored eight books, An Ethic of Excellence and A Culture of Quality; and with EL colleagues, Leaders of Their Own Learning, Transformational Literacy, Management in the Active Classroom, Learning That Lasts, The Leaders of Their Own Learning Companion, and We Are Crew.

Arria Coburn Arria Coburn is the principal of The Springfield Renaissance School, a 6-12 EL Education School located in Springfield, Massachusetts. She is entering her sixth year as principal and has been in education for 14 years. Prior to becoming a principal, she worked as a special education teacher before transitioning into the role of an assistant principal. Under her leadership the school earned the title of Secondary Magnet School Merit Award of Excellence. In 2018 she was named the Magnet School 2018 Region 1 Principal of the year. She entered the EdD program in Curriculum, Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (CTLL) at Northeastern University during the fall of 2018 with an interest in studying how to use student centered learning strategies to increase the achievement of African American students. Her research on student centered learning strategies has given her a deep understanding of how to utilize student voice to build a sense of community for all students.

Laina Cox Laina Cox is the Middle School Principal at Capital City Public Charter School, a PreK3-12th grade EL Education School, in Washington DC. She also currently serves as a School Ambassador Fellow for the United States Department of Education, one of seven educators from around the country, chosen to help improve education for students in the development and implementation of national education policy. Laina graduated from Spelman College with a B.A. in Psychology and received an Ed.M in Teaching and Curriculum from Harvard University. She began her career in Boston Public Schools, first as a teacher and later as an Assistant Principal. She worked as a School Designer for EL Education for two years prior to becoming the founding principal of the Middle School at Capital City PCS. Laina was named a Ted Sizer Principal Fellow through the Coalition of Essential Schools, she was the recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Fellow for Hopkins School, her high school alma mater in New Haven, CT., is currently a mentor principal for EL Education, and is a member of the Trinity University Coalition on Education. In 2018, Laina was named the recipient of the Silverberg Leadership Award for EL Education, awarded annually to one exemplary school leader who raises student achievement through deep implementation of EL Education practices. And most recently, in 2020, Laina was selected as a member on the District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendent’s Principal’s Advisory Committee. Laina is an active member of the National Alumnae Association of Spelman College, where she founded the Blueprint Conference for Middle and High School Girls as well as a mentoring program for Middle & High School students. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and the proud wife of Winston and Mommy to Jaida (13) and Solomon (9).

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This episode comes from the Deeper Learning 2022 Conference.

This is a recording of the opening keynote, in which four educators from around the country told stories of deeper learning from their own lives.

Here's a little more about our four speakers:

German Gallardo German Gallardo is a Fulbright Scholar who holds a B.A. from the University of California Santa Cruz and a master’s from Claremont Graduate University. Before returning to education German served as an Executive Director and a non-profit consultant with a focus on the creation of healing programs for youth. As a social science educator German centers the knowledge and experiences of marginalized peoples through the use of project-based learning, inquiry-based instruction and youth participatory action research. German strives to create learning experiences that address generational trauma and community challenges, allowing students to identify and nurture their gifts and strengths to generate real world change. As a school founder German seeks to bring the founding principles that have guided his career to the families he serves. By focusing on healing generational trauma through the use of powerful educational experiences and the use of indigenous healing practices to create a school that challenges all forms of oppression and helps the community radically reimagine what is possible. German currently serves South Central Los Angeles California at Wallis Annenberg High School as a Dean of Culture. German is also developing professional development for school and developing a high school with La Junta Educativa collective. Connect with German~ gmgallardo@gmail.com

Sommer Jones Sommer Jones is an alum of Longwood University, and a current graduate student in High Tech High’s GSE leadership program. Over her last 15 years as an educator, Sommer has taught middle and high school English, and served as an Instructional Technology and Innovation Coach. She is currently the Dean of Student Experience for K12 CREW Academy in Hopewell, Virginia where she supports teachers and students as they engage in their core values of Community, Real-World Deeper Learning, Empathy and Equity, and Championing the Wins. Sommer believes that culture and identity work remains at the heart of deeper learning, and she is passionate about co-designing brave and liberating learning spaces where students can elevate their voice, develop emotional resilience, and experience the freedom to become their most authentic selves in our schools and our communities.

Christian Martinez Christian Martinez, is an educator & poeta. Born in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico, he and his family migrated to Oakland, California in 1999 to pursue a better future. Growing up in East Oakland deeply influenced his desire to elevate in the community. Christian witnessed and experienced the social and educational inequities first hand and wanted to contribute to leveling the playing field for communities of color. In 2010, Christian commenced his career as an educator in his beloved Fruitvale community. Here, he co-founded Latitude 37.8, a unique high school that focuses on real-world project-based learning, with strong arts, multimedia, and technology integration. The focus of the school deeply aligns with Christian's creative vision.

Christian developed a passion for music, recording and producing all while fostering a drive to succeed.

In 2018, Christian founded Noxhegalactica Podcast & Magazine. Noxhegalactica invites all participants--the host, its guest, and listeners--to reveal our struggles and build the community we never thought we would have. Noxhegalactica aims to elevate the community. Christian's is a big fan of fashion and promoting mental health. In 2019, he took a trip to Tokyo, Japan where he was inspired to uplift and motivate people through his message. He started his own clothing brand named swimgood. Swimgood is rooted in the idea that "No matter where you are in this ocean called life , you’ll be okay if you just swimgood."

Haben Ghebregergish Haben Ghebregergish is an alum of the University of Chicago and a current student at the Hamline University Graduate School of Education. This year she successfully defended her thesis entitled Math Students as Changemakers in a Transforming World: How African American Girls Connect Mathematics and Social Justice in the High School Classroom During Online Learning. Haben is the Lead Facilitator at the High School for Recording Arts. Haben has the pleasure of co-facilitating social justice mathematics courses at HSRA. The student-centered and problem-driven classes allow students to take ownership of their learning by exploring topics that are important to them, including the impact of the Black Lives Movement, Billionaires in our society, and owning a business. She is passionate about learning through travel and has collaborated with colleagues and students to organize trips to Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New York City. Haben is also a coach to youth advocates in two organizations. The first is Bridgemakers, a nonprofit, youth-led organization that works on issues such as education reform and economic justice for marginalized Minnesotans ages 14-25. One of Bridgemakers’ most recent victories was passing a law that made high school students in Minnesota eligible for unemployment benefits. The second is Reconnect Rondo, whose mission is to revitalize the Rondo community of St. Paul, a once thriving black neighborhood that was devastated by the construction of I-94.

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When her work for the Gates Foundation brought her to Beijing, Yinuo Li couldn't find a school she was excited to send her kids to, so she founded one.

You can see photos from the Garden project and the launch at the Forbidden City, and find a full transcript of the episode, here.

Note: Yinuo started interviewing candidates at McKinsey in 2006, not 2002.

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In this episode, Dr. Stacey Caillier talks to Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford about what Improvement Science looks like when equity and liberation are embedded in the PROCESS, not just the hoped-for result.

Reading List All these are referenced in the episode:

Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, Improvement Science in Education: A Primer

Frederick M. Hess and Jon Fullerton, "The Numbers We Need: Bringing Balanced Scorecards to Education Data."

Colleen Capper, Organizational Theory for Equity and Diversity

Sonya Douglass Horsford, Janelle T. Scott, and Gary L. Anderson, The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality

Audre Lorde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House"

Shane Safir (Author) Jamila Dugan (Author), _Street Data_

Anthony S. Bryk, Louis Gomez, Alicia Grunow, and Paul LeMahieu, Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better

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This is the final episode in our series about Cheltenham School District. Check out all the episodes here!

You can hear the three episodes made by teachers at Cedarbrook Middle School here.

Examples of Student Work:

• Philadelphia Museum of Art Photo Challenge (11th Grade)
• Johnson & Johnson Collaboration (11th Grade): Podcast Episode, TikTok video, Children's Book
• Foodology Project (9th Grade)

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This is the fourth episode in the series about Cheltenham School District. Check out all the episodes here!

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You may want to start with Episode 1: “I Hear You Want to Do Something Different,” which is three episodes back in the podcast feed, but this one will also make sense on its own!

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This is the second episode in a series about Cheltenham School District. Check out all the episodes here!

You may want to start with Episode 1: “I Hear You Want to Do Something Different,” which is two episodes back in the podcast feed, but this one will also make sense on its own!

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Alec talks to Cat Magielnicki about how to tell when a student might be struggling with their mental health, and how to help them

Find Cat on Instagram here: @the_feelingsteacher

For more resources on connecting with kids, Cat recommends Dr. Ross Greene's website

The phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 800-273-8255

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This is the first episode in a five-part series about what happened when a 130-year-old public school started an ambitious PBL program. Check out all the episodes here!

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Tracy Fray-Oliver talks to Stacey Caillier about creating system change by engaging people at all levels of the system

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Lindsay Fox talks about how to listen to people so that you understand what they actually need, and want from you...

For more information on the United Way visit uwfm.org

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Find all the episodes in our student-led conferences miniseries here

Read a how-to guide to Student-led conferences written by a teacher!

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Teacher, school leader, and parent Shani Leader on how to do a great student-led conference, and what makes them so powerful

Find all the episodes in our student-led conferences miniseries here!

Read a how-to guide to Student-led conferences written by a teacher!

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Alec talks to Ron Berger about student-led conferences: what they are, why they’re powerful, and how to make them a success at your school.

Find all the episodes in our student-led conferences miniseries here

Read a how-to guide to Student-led conferences written by a teacher!

The kindergarten student-led conference videos Ron refers to are here:

Kindergarten Student-led Conference

Station-based Kindergarten Student-led Conference

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Alec and his former student, Dany Francis, talk about his most ambitious and stressful project, a live-action simulation of the process of escaping Syria.

You can learn more about the Syrian Refugee Simulation at Changing the Subject

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This episode was inspired by Stacey Caillier's interview with Ron Berger, "Crafting Beautiful Lessons."

And THAT interview was inspired by a 2008 interview with Ron Berger that appeared in the inaugural issue of Unboxed, called "Crafting Beautiful Work."

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Three seventh grade teachers from Cedarbrook Middle School in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, interviewed their students about what it was like being in school, and out of school, this year, and they turned those interviews into podcast episodes. This is the second episode in the series. It was written and edited by seventh grade English teacher Kristyn Sanborn.

Watch Isaac Stanford's Year in Review video here

Check out more of Isaac's music at https://www.sloweyandtheboats.com/

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Stacey Caillier interviews Don Berwick about learning from variation, detoxifying "data," learning from users, avoiding the "hero" trap, and more

Learn more about Don Berwick and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement at http://www.ihi.org/

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Jean Catubay talks to Rick Oculto about supporting LBTQ+ youth

Resources referenced in this episode:

Our Family Coalition https://ourfamily.org/

ONE Archives Foundation https://www.onearchives.org/

Teaching LGBTQ History http://www.lgbtqhistory.org/

Billy DeFrank Center https://www.defrankcenter.org/

The LGBT Youth Space https://youthspace.org/

Our Germs, Our Future. Human Microbiome as a Community of Self. | Miriam Lueck Avery | TEDxMarin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJTjuiYrmFs

California History-Social Science Project, Resources & professional learning for K-12 history-social science: https://chssp.ucdavis.edu/regional-sites

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker, Julia Scheele (Illustrations) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28957268-queer

A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10065595-a-queer-history-of-the-united-states?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=xC389q7h8s&rank=1 Transgender History by Susan Stryker https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2420983.Transgender_History?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=9OT4gsFOrH&rank=1 Making Gay History hosted by Eric Marcus https://makinggayhistory.com/

Queer America: Learning For Justice hosted by hosts Leila Rupp and John D'Emilio https://www.learningforjustice.org/podcasts/queer-america

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There's nowhere in the world quite like the Habla Center in Mérida, Mexico. Teachers go there for professional development and come back talking about it the way people talked about being at Woodstock.

To understand where the magic comes from, Alec spoke to the founders, Marimar Patrón Vasquez, and Kurt Wootton. The roots of Habla turn out to include Brazilian dancing, 19th century literature, and alcohol-smuggling ancestors!

Full episode transcript here

To learn more about Habla and High Tech High's collaborative institute, "Found Beautiful," visit https://hthgse.edu/events/found-beautiful/

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Jean and Alec interview Marcy Clayson, of Planned Parenthood, about how to teach kids about consent, plus a whole lot more about sex, gender identity, and relationships.

Sex Ed To-Go

Marcy's email address: mclayson [at] planned.org

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A conversation about why more engaging learning tends to happen in electives and extracurriculars than during "core classes", and how what we can learn from these "peripheral" classes, teams, and clubs.

In Search of Deeper Learning, by Sarah Fine and Jal Mehta

This Teenage Life Website (you can also find it wherever you get your podcasts)

The Center for Research on Equity and Innovation at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Read a full transcript here

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Stacey Caillier interviews Don Berwick, one of the world's foremost authorities on improvement

Learn more about Don Berwick and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement at http://www.ihi.org/

The book Don recommended is The Improvement Guide

Learn more about the Center for Research on Equity and Innovation here

A full transcript is available on the Unboxed Website

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Alec Patton and Jean Catubay talk to Ayo Magwood about the importance of explicitly teaching the history of race in America...

The transcript of this episode is here

You can download Ayo's lesson plan and slides for The Blind Man and the Elephant here

You can download a slideshow of maps showing racial and economic segregation across the USA here

A collection of statistical evidence about systemic racism is here

You can find out more about Ayo's workshops and online courses here

Send Ayo an email: ayo.magwood [at] gmail.com

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Brent Spirnak speaks with Rachel Angeles about synthesizing everything around us and co-creating with students.

Little Things Are Big: Jesús Colón

You can read a transcript of this episode HERE

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Alec talks to 7th grade math and science teacher Kat Wu about how the kids in her team got talking in breakout rooms.

You can read more about Kat Wu and rest of the High Tech Middle Media Arts 7th Grade Team here

If you have an idea for a pro session, or a teaching question you want help with, send an email to unboxed [at] hightechhigh.org

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Alec talks to Dr. Simon Breakspear about how he developed his “Teaching Sprints” program, and the intellectual journey that got him there.

Episode Transcript HERE

Further reading:

0:38 The Innovation Unit, where I used to work

0:44 Agile School Leadership

0:50 Teaching Sprints

2:05 The OECD and PISA

4:54 Valerie Hannon

4:59 Tony Mackay

5:03 Michael Fullan

5:16 Michael Fullan, "Large-scale Reform Comes of age"

6:38 Andreas Schleicher

8:16 Jeffrey Sachs

15:10 Anthony Bryk on Networked Improvement Communities

15:28 Nelson Gonzalez

17:41 Anthony Bryk, Learning to Improve

18:11 IDEO Design Thinking, Human-centered Design

18:15 Agile Development

18:19 Lean Startup

18:31 Implementation Science

22:07 James Clear, Atomic Habits

22:16 BJ Fogg, Tiny Habits

27:34 Boulder, Pebble, Sand protocol

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Jean and Alec talk to artist, community activist, entrepreneur and Dean of High Tech High Chula Vista

Read a full transcript of this episode HERE

Follow Chikle on Instagram: @chikle79

Check out all his merch at https://chikle79.bigcartel.com/

Podcasts:

• Emo Brown, The Saddest Mexican
• Dale Gas Confidentials

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In this episode, Alec talks to Nikki Giunta, Chief of Staff at New Visions for Public Schools in New York City, about how they used a 270-column spreadsheet (and later, a “data portal”) to combat the sometimes-bizarre administrative problems that were preventing kids from graduating.

You can read a full episode transcript here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Check out the "This Teenage Life" website at https://thisteenagelife.org/

You can also find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

There is a transcript of this episode here

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Full episode transcript here

Notes and references:

Part 1: First Aid (starts 7:15)

10:57 The GLSEN activity about using "gay" as an insult is here

14:49 Julie uses this video from Jay Smooth to help students understand why not to use the n-word

20:54 The book Jean is reading is We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love

Part 2: Design and Planning (21:30)

22:04 The person who gave Julie the idea to start from data is Ayo Heinegg Magwood. Follow her on Twitter at @UprootingInequi

22:54 The teacher who shares data about the Cross-Bronx Expressway is Edrick Macalaguim. Follow him on Twitter at @EdrickMac

24:38 The article Julie reads with her students Philando Castile is here

28:40 Julie worked with Nuvia Ruland to create the Social Justice Project Think Tank as a tool for project design

29:14 Here are the Stanford D. School Liberatory Design Cards

29:24 Ana de Almeida Amaral and Izadora McGawley, co-founders of High Tech High Chula Vista’s Ethnic Studies program, created this Culturally Responsive Project Tuning protocol

32:36 Read more about the poet Natasha Hooper here

38:35 The book Julie’s reading is Not Light but Fire by Matthew R. Kay

39:41 The University of Michigan activity about identities is the Social Identity Wheel

42:57 You should read the comment piece that High Tech High Chula Vista Ethnic Studies co-founder Ana de Almeida Amaral wrote for the San Diego Union Tribune

47:28 To find out more about student consulting, read For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood (And the Rest of Y’All Too) by Chris Emdin, and Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching by Alison Cook-Sather, Catherine Bovill, and Peter Felten

50:10 The book Julie’s talking about is The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Part 3: The Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) (43:50)

43:51 GLSEN has great resources for starting your own GSA here

51:46 Follow Julie on twitter at @julieruble

52:12 Follow Zaretta Hammond (@readyforrigor) and Cornelius Minor (@MisterMinor) on twitter

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In this episode, Brent Spirnak interviews 9th grade humanities teacher Carol Cabrera about staging student-written “zoom plays” in quarantine.

Episode transcript here

Some of he "quaranscenes" that Carol's students wrote:

From Across the Street by Evonna Esparza

Surf Going South by Lauren Zirinsky

Wasteland by Rishi Halker

The Parking Lot by Nicholas Castro

Inside the Dog House by Walker Settle

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Biology Teacher John Santos breaks down what’s wrong with how we grade (and a simple way to do it better)

You can read a transcript of this episode HERE

You can learn more about John Santos's research on his digital portfolio

Just to be clear, the mahogany wall hooks John made for me are made of salvaged wood - we're not buying new mahogany, and neither should you

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In this episode, Alec talks to LeDerick Horne about what teachers can do to support kids with special educational needs (and their families) in the midst of this craziness.

Read a full transcript here

The website that LeDerick recommends is https://www.educatingalllearners.org/

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In this episode of the High Tech High Unboxed podcast, Nuvia Ruland interviews Prof. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a professor of education and psychology at the University of Southern California about what she’s learned from her research into education and psychology, including. They get into why so much of her research focuses on low-income communities, why she prefers talking about “development” to talking about “learning”, the difference between genes and gene expression, and Mary Helen’s (formidable) woodworking chops.

Writing referenced in this episode:

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang's book is Emotions, Learning, and the Brain Exploring the Educational Implications of Affective Neuroscience

The Aspen Institute report is "The Brain Basis for Integrated Social Emotional and Academic Development"

Learn more about the High Tech High Graduate School of Education

In this episode, Alec talks to Dr. Margo Vreeburg Izzo, Program Director of Transition Services at Ohio State University Nisonger Center, about how they moved their program for students with intellectual disabilities entirely online.

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School psychologist Cat Magielnicki talks about how to support your students’ (and your own) mental health in this crazy time, including tips for talking to elementary, middle, and high school kids about coronavirus, and the very cool “PEACE” acronym (which comes from Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson’s book, The Power of Showing Up (order it from your local bookstore if you can – lots are doing free home delivery).

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This episode is about how High Tech High transformed its teacher induction program to make it all about Continuous Improvement, and put teachers in control of their own learning.

Transcript here.

The Fishbone Diagram and Interrelationship Digraph that Julie Ruble's group made.

You can get a PDF of an effort-impact chart here.

To find out more about High Tech High's teacher induction program, visit the High Tech High Teacher Center

You can find all our podcasts, videos, articles, and "project essentials" toolkits at High Tech High Unboxed.

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In the inaugural episode of the “High Tech High Unboxed: Pro Sessions” podcast series, EL Education Chief Academic Officer Ron Berger explains how to help a class work together to make sense of an academic text that most adults would be unable to read on their own.

You can read a transcript of this episode here

Our other podcast episode featuring Ron Berger is Ron Berger on the magic of beautiful lessons, and of "no lesson at all

Stacey Caillier's interview with Ron Berger is “Crafting Beautiful Lessons: An Interview with Ron Berger”

Resources from EL Education: In this video, Hillary Mills' 11th grade biology class at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in New York City grapples with a scientific figure taken from an article on TALEN gene therapy.

This video shows Peter Hill's 8th grade science class at King Middle School (Portland, Maine) grappling with an article about how magnets and wires generate electricity.

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In this episode, Alec talks to Mackenzie King, a teacher at High Tech High Chula Vista whose students are screening applications to the California Innocence Project from prisoners who say they were wrongfully convicted and want the Innocence Project to take their case.

To see if there's an organization like the California Innocence Project near you, visit www.innocencenetwork.org

Table of Contents

1:29 What the California Innocence Project does, and how XONR8 helps them

2:17 XONR8: the project in a nutshell

3:31 XONR8: Origins (how Mackenzie came up with the idea for it)

5:15 How XONR8 starts: deciphering autopsy reports

6:17 Gavin & Sofia on figuring out the autopsy reports

7:48 Step 2: the whole class looks at a case file together

8:23 Step 3: the students get assigned a real case file

9:38 How Mackenzie makes groups and decides how to assign cases

10:40 Gavin and Sofia on how it felt to get their case files

12:04 Structures for project-management within groups

12:58 Sofia and Gavin on how well their groups worked together

14:09 The low point of the project for Sofia and Gavin

15:43 The verdict that Gavin's group reached

16:07 The verdict that Sofia's group reached

16:54 Preparing to present to the Innocence Project lawyers

17:27 Giving the presentations

19:26 High Tech High students are better prepared and better presenters than the law students

20:13 Differentiating for kids who struggle with reading

20:59 The other part of the project: Reading "Just Mercy" by Brian Stevenson

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You can listen to our episode about how Calexico High School raised their FAFSA completion rates by 13 percentage points in one year here.

Table of Contents

1:40 The three questions that define "Improvement with a capital I"

1:56 How improvement normally happens, and what's missing (with an example from a classroom)

3:44 The CARPE College Access Network's plan to raise FAFSA completion

4:41 The CARPE network's four recommended FAFSA practices

7:31 "We tend to underestimate how much rich work goes into the implementation of an idea"

8:20 Ben's take on whether "handholding" is a problem in the college application process

9:39 How Ben learned to stop worrying and love specific suggestions

10:42 There are SO much stuff to improve in our schools, so if someone has some ideas, that's pretty compelling

11:56 A revolutionary idea: maybe not everyone does everything they plan to do

13:03 How the CARPE team actually collected data about what schools were doing

15:32 School Improvement Networks: a secret tool for influencing education policy

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Rebecca and German came to High Tech High and talked to Alec about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and what's standing in their way.

Table of Contents

1:25 Growing up in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, and childhood trauma

2:16 College and Hurricane Katrina

2:55 Starting again in North Texas

3:30 Working at Wal Mart

4:07 Returning to college to finish her undergraduate degree

4:33 Brandy starts teaching math

5:22 Brandy becomes an English teacher

5:35 Brandy returns to New Orleans start an “Earn to Learn” program run by Tulane University

5:45 Why Brandy decided she had to start a new school: her son

9:30 How Brandy’s son’s experience changed how she looked at other students and parents

11:20 Brandy joins the 4.0 Schools Essentials program and starts planning her new school

11:40 The difference between “customer” and “user” for a school

12:30 Brandy’s first iteration: a school for twice-exceptional learners ONLY

14:10 Brandy’s vision for spread and scale of Generation Success Academy

14:45 Where Generation Success Academy is at in their development process now

15:40 How you pilot a school without actually opening a school

16:15 Which students the Generation Success Academy will serve

17:00 How they’re making this financially sustainable

18:00 Why and how to build a strong network

You can read more about San Antonio Preparatory Charter School here

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Who Joe Truss is & why we're talking to him (0:37)

White Supremacy Culture, defined (1:02)

White Fragility, defined (1:44)

Growing up in the Tenderloin (2:24)

Why Joe was academically successful when most of his friends weren't (3:57)

Tracked classes and White Supremacy Culture (5:52)

How writing is taught and White Supremacy Culture (6:29)

Reading: For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education by Chris Emdin, and We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love (8:16)

Joe's initial approach to teaching: "social justice wrapped in white supremacy culture" (9:41)

Joe's journey to transform his school's practice begins (14:00)

Reading: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond (14:31)0

The year of tackling White Supremacy Culture begins with "Brave Norms" (14:54)

Joe describes the staff's first day back from summer break (15:28)

Reading: “Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces: A New Way to Frame Dialogue Around Diversity and Social Justice” by Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens, from "The Art of Effective Facilitation: Reflections from Social Justice Educators" (16:02)

How Joe would prompt first-day discussion differently if he did it today (21:52) What happened after that first day back, for Joe and for the school (25:17)

Joe's mentors and how he found them (27:19)

Reading: Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun (29:59)

Joe introduces "White Supremacy Culture" and "White Fragility" to the staff in December (32:36)

Getting into the risks to Joe's own position of tackling this (37:16)

What happened next: January (47:35)

Connecting White Supremacy Culture to School Discipline (49:42)

What Joe's doing with his staff this year to build on last year (52:01)

Joe's long term goals for the school (55:30)

More about Joe Truss

Check out Joe’s website, and follow him on Twitter here: @TrussLeadership.

Joe is leading a full day workshop on Dismantling White Supremacy Culture coming up on Saturday, November 2nd. Details can be found on the site.

And one final shout-out...

The English headteacher who told me the line about “what happens on a wet Wednesday afternoon” is Andy Raymer, now-retired headteacher at Matthew Moss high school in Rochdale.

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

You can learn more about the CARPE College Access Network (and apply to join) here

Episode image: photo of Calexico High School by Susan Myrland (Flickr)

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This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

You can read Stacey Caillier's interview with Ron Berger here

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Shelby's project was inspired by the Library of Congress's Voices Remembering Slavery collection. HBO produced a film based on interviews from this collection, called Unchained Memories.

The "Push-pull protocol" that Shelby used for writing conferences is here.

Our theme music is "Agassi (Into the Spider's Web)" by Brother Hershel

This episode's other music comes from Truxtun Road, which, it's worth mentioning, was made by students and staff members at High Tech High Media Arts.

Alec talks to math teacher Mele Sato about how she appealed to students' sense of fairness in order to teach them about alternative voting methods.

You can find out all about the electioneering project here.

You can find out all about the electioneering project here.