Class Disrupted

Love the fresh ideas and rigorous, innovative conversation

I learned a bunch from this conversation. I especially appreciated the guest’s succinct break down of use cases and vivid descriptions of how those uses cases improve. I think it’s a fair criticism to say that technology laid on top of the current system may not be the way to see the scale of change we may need but the question of why educators may feel compelled to keep with this system is never explored. There’s one classroom experience relayed in the episode where the speaker talks about observing a teacher who did not have time to address questions a creative question because of pacing - described as she needed to get through the material and therefore had no time to entertain the question. Toward the very end of the episode, the notion of focusing on what’s mandated is touched on but that part of the conversation didn’t go any further and I wish it had. There truly is the phenomenon of teaching to the test - administrators, principals, teachers, students and parents have all been trained to think that those scores are what matter most. How can creativity flourish in environments that disincentive creativity and incentivize boosted standardized test scores? The tail is wagging the dog but that gets little to no attention when I hear discussions about “the system.” A research question I have after listening to this is: private schools don’t have the same mandated tests, how do these use cases vary in these settings?

I’m always excited when an episode appears! I get frustrated with podcasts that seem to put out content just to have a more frequent cadence. Every episode by Diane and Michael is thoughtful, engaging, and has a point. I also love how they end with what they’re reading or watching in their personal lives.

Love this podcast—topics are relevant and timely with the most current thought leaders in the field of education. I’m hooked! Favorite one is “Why Can’t Sal Khan Just Teach All of Us?”