The Future of Education

Michael B. Horn
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The Future of Education

Interviews with the top innovators & changemakers so that you can stay on top of the trends transforming transform learning, education, and the development of talent worldwide so that all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose michaelbhorn.substack.com

  1. 1일 전

    Entrepreneurship by Students, Educators, and Networks

    Shiren Rattigan joined me to talk about her work as a founder of Colossal Academy and the Innovative Educators Network. We discussed the motivations, challenges, and opportunities of starting a microschool and connecting microschoolers in her area. We also dove into how Colossal is preparing students to be similarly enterprising through its entrepreneurship-focused curriculum. Thanks for reading The Future of Education! Please feel free to share this conversation with those who would benefit from it! Michael Horn: You're joining the show where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose and to help us think through how we get there, I'm really excited because we have Shiren Rattigan. She's the founder of a school we're going to hear a lot about today, Colossal Academy, as well as the Innovative Educators Network, which we're going to discuss what that does and the ecosystem, really, that she has built around helping a lot of school founders build meaningful places for kids to learn. So first, Shiren, great to see you. Thanks so much for being here. Shiren Rattigan: Thank you so much for having me. You're one of the people. I have very little accolades, and you're one of the check marks. I'm like, I’m on Michael Horn’s podcast. The Origin Story of Colossal Academy Michael Horn: That’s very kind of you to say, but you're the one doing the work. So let's dive into that. Introduce folks to your origin story of Colossal Academy. I'm excited to hear it. Shiren Rattigan: Yeah. So I am a fifth-generation teacher. My great grandmother, my great great grandmother was a one room schoolhouse teacher on a farm in Illinois. My great grandmother was a teacher. My grandfather was a superintendent of schools in rural Illinois. My mother, special education in an urban setting for 35 years. And then I came in, and I was like, no way I'm breaking the cycle, right? And all signs pointed always back to being a teacher. And so I finally submitted to the fact that that's my calling. And I went into public school because that's where you go when you're a teacher. You get trained. You become a public school teacher. And then I swiftly found out that it was physically dangerous for me to be there. I was breaking up fights. I was pregnant, and I was like, this is nothing… What I saw, I saw myself as Miss Frizzle. And we're going to go to the digestive tract, and we're going to learn all these things. And when we get there, it was like, mandates, here's your curriculum. How come they're behind the test? Here's the state. And it wasn't what I thought. So I said, okay, let me go to private school. It must be better there, right? Really elite, very expensive, top 2%, very elite. But there were bodyguards for different reasons, right? Cause these kids could be taken right? At the school that they had their personalized bodyguards. And I was like, this isn't it either. I'm still checking in badges. There were still some expectations there that I just was like, this isn't it either. Something's wrong. We're not outside. We're not going on field trips. We're not in the real world. Maybe Montessori is it. Let me go find Montessori. So I went to Montessori, and that was lovely, but I felt like something was missing for the future, that I felt like students really needed to have some future forward competencies in order to be successful. Computations, coding, programming. And I know that many Montessori schools do that, but I felt like it needed to be real and relevant and actual. The pandemic hit, and I decided I really love teaching. I didn't want to be a people manager and asking how long they're washing their hands for and mandating the mask and making sure it's up past their nose. It's not what I wanted to do. I don't know if I got fired or if I quit, but short end, I no longer had a job at my school, which meant that some of the families that wanted to be a pod hired me to be their full time teacher. And I said, okay, well, if they're paying a little bit less than what they're paying as tuition, they could pay me to be... All I need is four kids to make my salary. And then I started with four kids. We moved to six and 10 and 12. And so that's kind of the genesis. But what I found out there is like, I get to do whatever I want, and when I mean whatever I want, it's whatever the kids want, whenever they want in real time. You want drones? Look at drones. It'll be here on Thursday. Let me Amazon. What do you want? You want to learn how to code? You want to go surfing? Whatever you want. I can be that, and I can give it, and I can create those opportunities for you. And I was like, this is it. This was the Miss Frizzle that I had imagined, and it took me so many stops along the way to get there, but I found it, and I found where I was able to be the teacher that I knew I needed to be for young people. Colossal’s Education Model The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Michael Horn: So cool. I'm just reflecting on what I heard, and my father's family is from Illinois, sort of a city, but not a main city anymore from there, so have some resonance there. And then I feel like I went to public schools. I was then in the independent school world, and the board of NAS for a little bit. Microschools have certainly spoken to me. My kids were in Montessori schools. The pandemic hit. We went into sort of this pod like thing very similarly, but they went back to Montessori because we couldn't find a different solution that would lean into some of the things you just talked about. To be clear, it's been beautiful, and I hear some of the excitement and passion you've introduced. So tell us a little bit more about the educational model itself from Colossal Academy. And as you do so, I'd love you to sort of reflect on, you know, kids desiring to learn about drones getting whatever they want versus, like, are there certain non-negotiables that you say, well, and this is really important that you learn through the experience? I'd love to hear you sort of walk us through that. Shiren Rattigan: Sure. So there are definitely absolutes. We really firmly believe in a deep knowledge in language, literacy, and numeracy. We deeply understand that. And we think that we're presupposing that we're going to need that in the future. Right? Even if we are replaced with robots, I still believe in, like, passing on knowledge. Right? As humans, that's what makes us different than any other animal, that we're passing on knowledge and we're teaching. We also firmly believe, and we're declaring that nature is a future competency. You have to be in touch with nature. You have to understand how nature works. You need to be able to identify plants and know how to grow some food. That is a part of our model as well. Entrepreneurship is really rich and deep. We understand that the traditional education system is outdated. And part of it, the reason it's outdated is it's not relevant for the future moving forward. We're not in an industrial era. We're in the future era. And so what is that? It's going to require people to be entrepreneurial, make their own jobs, problems, solve on a deep level, and consciously make money. And that's part of what we do. And what we found is we have amazing projects. And we took over this vacant lot next door and turned it into a food forest. We're in downtown Fort Lauderdale in the art district, and there was a vacant lot full of bricks and rebar and the kids themselves pulled it out. We got it. We had to talk about responsible dumping.Where do you put things like that? Where do you put a battery? Where does that go? Right? And so that was a beautiful project that we were able to do. And they love their garden, and they think it's amazing. And they eat from it. We have sugarcane and bananas and all kinds of local Florida native tomatoes and foods and roots. But what I find really unlocks them is when they have an enterprise. So when they are making money, that's where I find that it's like, oh, I got to understand how to work. Okay, what's the spreadsheet about? I'm like, I told you guys, like, you need to see your projections. What's your Q3 looking like, guys, how many more to get your $200 goal that you spend for yourself? Okay, once you make $200, what are you gonna do with it? Like, so those things, those skills, I feel, become super relevant when there's an actual dollar amount that they are earning. So all of our students own their own business. They learn to be CEO's of their companies. Right now we're working on a beautiful project.Across the Collosal Academy. We have an online school as well where they design T-shirts based on their identity. So they go into their identity, they build out t-shirts, and they all have their own drop shipping site, right? And so all of that goes into being relevant. They learn how to use Canva, they learn how to design. They learn how to ask questions. They learn how to, like, show their identity, find their core values, attribute those to colors, find the chroma hacks, all of those things. They have a brand kit, all of their brand kit, and that's theirs. And they have to justify why they're using Kelly green, right? Like kids, like, I'm Irish, I'm using Kelly green. I'm like, that's great. You have to be able to understand, why do those colors create that kind of reaction in you? And what is that doing for you? And how does that represent the brand and what kind of font do you want to use? Right? So asking questions like that, and then the skills that we're learning in it are transferable. They're able to have that. They can build portfolios. They have their own websites that they build. Every, every week they drop into their websites. They have their own LinkedIn accounts. They're meant to find and cre

    29분

  2. 1월 6일

    Optimism for the Future of Business Education

    Bill Kerr, Professor at the Harvard Business School and Co-Chair of the Managing the Future of Work project, joined me to talk about his perspective on the present and future of business education. We discussed the hastening rate of skill obsolescence,  how HBS keeps their pedagogy up-to-date,  and the role of AI in the future of business education. Michael Horn: Welcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their human potential, and live a life of purpose and to help us think through that and frankly, the shifting landscapes in how we prepare managers and leaders to lead organizations in this world. I'm delighted to have Bill Kerr. He is the D'Arbeloff Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, Senior Associate Dean for faculty development and research. Long list of accolades, but the one that I also want to hit is he's co-director of Harvard's managing the Future of Work initiative, which is so critical in thinking about how we develop human talent and how organizations, leaders, managers evolve in this world. And he's Faculty Chair of the Launching New Ventures program. I could go on and on, but I'll also just add Bill's neighbor, friend, and used to be a CrossFit buddy. I think you still work out occasionally with my wife. But Bill, it is great to see you. Thanks so much for being here. Bill Kerr: Michael, thank you for having me for your work and for those listeners that don't know it. Michael is amazing at CrossFit. He smokes me every time. The Evolution of Business Education Michael Horn: Not true when we get on a rower, but this will be fun. So look, so much is happening in the world of work right now. Big technology changes, automation, rapid changes in skills, demographic shifts, could go on and on. Haven't even mentioned AI, obviously, but I want to focus on the areas in which you teach as well as research and think about the future of business education itself, particularly at places like the Harvard Business School where you're training the next generation of managers, leaders, frankly, through the exec ed programs, people already in leadership roles. How do you see business education itself evolving, Bill? Bill Kerr: Well, I think there's a very robust future for business education, Michael. I would suspect that the future is going to have many more types of programs. They're going to be more granular. They're going to be fit for many different purposes. But all the features that you began describing, the world's kind of constant evolution and very rapid pace of change is going to require business leaders and business students to stay at that cutting edge. So I think our MBA program is going to have a robust future as people look to prepare themselves for careers that will be ones where they're going to change jobs a number of times. And they're going to be thinking about the impact that they could have on the world. If you go later in career, many companies and many individuals are going to need to retool, reskill themselves for that future. That's going to give us a lot of exec ed opportunities and gaps to kind of help there. And then you can go even back upstream. Harvard Business School doesn't teach undergraduates, but many schools do. And in that business context, if you're an engineering student, you're going to want to have some business school courses to go alongside that. We don't separate those two functions anymore in the corporation. And so likewise, education is going to mix across them. The Velocity of Change in Business Leadership Michael Horn: Yeah. So I want to then focus, Bill. I'm just sort of curious because we talked about all these technical skills changing. You talked about more granular ways of educating leaders more on the job, in many cases adapting curriculum. But sort of at a base level, as you think about the future of work, and frankly, where we've been like, have the essential skills for business leaders changed all that much in recent decades? Do we see the same velocity of change in those skills that we do in the technical fields? The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Bill Kerr: Well, let me start the end part there. There has been some important work that describes the rate of change for technical skills, for digital skills and similar compared to more traditional, non-digital skills. David Deming, who is a faculty member in the Kennedy school, did a remarkable study where he looked at the same job ten years, so 2009 to 2019, same company, same position, everything was exactly the same and did this at scale with many, many job postings and quantified that digitally focused activity, had a faster turnover in the skills that were required, what the job ads were asking for compared to non-digital activities. So if you looked at what traits people or qualifications employers were requesting, if it was something that was closer to the digitally based world, it moved faster than, than otherwise. But that, you know, kind of how that plays out for the broader landscape of business success, like what helps a leader kind of move faster up in the career. I think we're still learning a little bit. My favorite study on this regard goes from Joe Fuller, who's my co director of the Management Future of Work project, as is Rafael Sedun, his co-author here, where they looked at CEOs and job descriptions and also what mattered most for CEO success over a 20-30 year period. And there was a lot more emphasis on social skills today compared to two decades ago or three decades ago. A lot more emphasis on technology and kind of products and sort of those relationships to consumers, less on things like finance and some of the more traditional strategy functions. Likewise, if we look at some of the, the profiles of people that have been most likely to kind of ascend up through the ranks and ultimately end up in the CEO role, they've been coming out of a different, a different set of line responsibilities than before. So we'll anticipate that continuing forward. And the question I think many of us are going to have to work with is in a world where it moves so fast, let's face it, sometimes the academic programs don't move as fast as we need them to be. And you're going to see some differences emerging both across fields, across schools and so forth, as to what's the gap of the recency of what's required in the workplace versus the syllabi and so forth that are being taught. Now there's some very interesting work that's being undertaken at Yale right now that's measuring that for the first time. Like actually measuring syllabi and what are they teaching there versus what are employers kind of saying is the crisp latest frontier skills that they're hiring for? Do Employers Know What Skills They’re Looking For?  Michael Horn: So I want to come back to that in a moment, but I want to stay on what you just were talking about. Also about if you look at job postings and what employers at least seem to be requesting from technical skills, the rapid turnover that we've seen in the past decade now, plus there, compared to maybe other managerial skills, what some people call the softer skills, I don't always love that phrase of turn, but I know it is one. But I'm just curious, like as you analyze this space, how much stock do you put in the job descriptions and what people say they want? Leave aside the technical skills for a moment, but the softer skills, the social skills, the managerial ones, how much stock do you think we can really read into what's in a job description versus actually spending time shadowing managers and CEO's to see what they actually do? Because, and I'll betray my hand a little bit, it often seems to me, of course I'm going to write critical thinking and problem solving in the job description, but what that actually means on the job is not always as clear, if that makes sense. Bill Kerr: Yeah. Yeah. Let's, first off, we will label soft kind of a social skills because I think that at least captures a bit more of the essence there. Michael, you raise a great question that I'm going to broaden slightly, which is a lot of the ways we have been talking to employers at the Managing Future of Work project is to appreciate what is their expectations of new hires and what is it they are kind of most hoping to grasp with the new talent that they're bringing in. And there's one version of the world which is I am going to wait until I have a specific need. I'm going to write out a very exacting job description, and I'm going to expect a fully loaded, fully prepared candidate like Michael to show up and then, you know, offer his services to me at a very, very low rate, you know, and that really doesn't work for a variety of reasons, including the, you know, the overall challenges in finding the talent these days. But it also doesn't work in an environment where six months, 18 months after Michael joins the job, I'm actually probably gonna need to have him shift into different types of activities, like the pace of change is going to move where he is. And so what we would hope that the employers would begin to appreciate more is the willingness to go learn, the openness to new experiences, the capacity to learn on the job through that shadowing process, through the ability to kind of see both what others around me at the organization are doing, and then also what's the emerging opportunities that I should be learning as quickly as I can in ways to be useful for those tasks. So it's going to be both in the job ad, but it's also in the expectations of how we're hiring somebody for the next. If you're going to keep somebody for five years, ten years, which should always be your ambition or goal, then you're going

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  3. 2024. 12. 23.

    How MEFA Pathways Increasingly Includes College and Career

    Jonathan Hughes, Associate Director of College Planning and Content Creation at the Massachusetts Education Financing Authority, joined me to discuss the organization's work of helping students prepare for post-secondary education. We discussed how MEFA has evolved over its 40 years, including the addition of MEFA Pathways, an initiative focused on career navigation. Thanks for reading The Future of Education! This post is public so feel free to share it. Michael Horn: Welcome to the Future of Education, the show where we are dedicated to a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their human potential, and live a life of purpose, and to help us think through how individuals navigate so that they can do all of those things. Delighted to have another neighbor to the show and our guest, Jonathan Hughes. He's the Associate Director of College Planning and Content Creation at MEFA, the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. We're going to find out all about that and more in just a moment. But first, Jonathan, thanks so much for being here. It's great to see you. Jonathan Hughes: Yeah it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much. The History of MEFA Michael Horn: Yeah, you bet. So let's start with just that. Like, you know, the history of the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority, which in the state we call MEFA, but people outside of Massachusetts might not know the acronym. Tell us the history, how it's changed over the years. What does it do now? Jonathan Hughes: Yeah, absolutely. So MEFA, as you said, is the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. And we were actually created, we're a state authority. We were created by the Massachusetts State Legislature back in 1982, so about 42 years ago. And what we were initially created to do was to offer a loan. We were actually created at the behest of colleges. At the time, there was a limit on the plus loan, which is the parent loan for undergraduate student, at $4,000. And there was not a lot of educational loan options for families to go for financing.And so MEFA was created to offer that loan. That's something that we still do. However, as I like to say when I'm doing presentations, you know, since 1982, as you may have noticed, the cost of college has continued to go up. So we have a public service mission to help families to plan, save, and pay for colleges. Just offering that loan wasn't going to be sufficient to do that. So we expanded in the nineties to offer two savings programs. In 1995, we added the U Plan, which is a prepaid tuition program. And in 1999, I believe it was 1999, we added the MiPA U Fund, which is the Massachusetts 529 plan. So that takes care of paying for college and saving for college. The third part of that being planning. That really started to bloom about maybe 20 years ago or so, where we really started to flush out our guidance initiative. And so we offer hundreds of free seminars and webinars every year, you know, in person and virtual, on all topics related to planning, saving, and paying for college. So that's savings, admissions, college financing, et cetera. And now even further sort of branching out from just being college focused, like a lot of things recently, you know, we're sort of branching out to include college and career training. So we have MEFA Pathway, which we'll talk about later on. And we also were selected to offer the state's 529A, or ABLE plan, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but it is essentially, it works in a similar way to the 529 college investing plan. It's for individuals with disabilities, so you can save in a similar way, tax deferred, and use those funds to tax free for qualified educational, I'm sorry, not qualified educational, but qualified expenses, which include educational expenses, but also health, assistive technology, transportation, daily living expenses, things like that. So that is a real change for us as well, and a real expansion of what we do. So I know I'm talking a lot, but it's hard to encapsulate everything that we do, and it takes a lot. But also, I think the backbone of who we are is offering that free guidance to people. So we are here for people in Massachusetts, but anyone as well. The Evolution of the Organization The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Michael Horn: Okay, so that's interesting. So I'm curious then state authorizes you, that's how MEFA is created. It's evolved a lot, as you said, not just loans, abilities to save, like the 529 Able Plan you just talked about, the guidance and so forth, is that, and then obviously, you said the big thing also not just college but also career guidance, is, you know, how does an organization like this evolve? Is this an independent set of decisions? Is this a state sort of mandates that help you evolve? Like, what's the interplay with the state at this point around those decisions? Jonathan Hughes: Well, I think it's a bit of both of those things. So we have certain things like MEFA Pathway, which was, and then we're going to talk about that later on. That's our college and career portal. That was an initiative from the governor's office at the time, Governor Patrick, and we set to work creating at that time, it was called your plan for college. But also, you know, we, in order to do the work that we need to do and be a resource for everybody in Massachusetts, we have partnerships with high school counselors, college administrators, and try to be a resource for them and for their population. So we hear basically what's needed. I'll give you a good example of this. We heard from our college administrators that they were seeing a lot of students who were confused at the point of when they were receiving all their financial aid award letters from colleges, and they needed to make that decision of where they were going to go. A lot of them were having a difficulty deciphering the letters and then comparing the offers among different schools. So, as you know, they're really confusing. Michael Horn: Yeah. Jonathan Hughes: Yes. It's confusing when you're looking at one of them. Michael Horn: Let alone comparing them. Yep. Jonathan Hughes: Right. And, you know, there's not a lot of uniformity between award letters. So we created this campaign called our paying the college bill campaign, where we go and sort of break down what you might see in award letters and also how you figure out what your balance due is at each. And we encourage people to actually bring their award letters so we can help them compare and figure out what they have due at each college. So a little bit of both. Some things come from sort of top down, and some things, a lot of things, I would say, are in reaction to what we hear from partners and what folks need. Building In-State Networks Michael Horn: No, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, one last question, and then I'm going to switch to the MEFA Pathway. But I'm just sort of curious. In general, you have all these products, services. I didn't realize people outside of Massachusetts could use them as well. But within Massachusetts, does the relationship as a state created entity, even though you're a separate nonprofit, does that allow you to get better distribution, to have these partnerships with high schools? Or, you know, how does what you offer get in the hands of not just students, but frankly, the students who maybe need the most support and guidance around these questions that, you know, maybe they're a first gen potential college student, they might not have that knowhow in their household they really need a service like yours. They, you know, plausible. aren't getting the support given what the student to teacher, excuse me, student to guidance counselor ratios are something like what you offer would seem really important. How do you get that distribution and connection with schools, district students? Jonathan Hughes: Yeah, and I think you hit it there. I think it is the relationship with the counselors, and it is relationship not just with counselors, but with CBOs, community based organizations as well, other agencies like agencies. For example, there's one called Mass EdCo, which is headquartered in Worcester, but it's also a free resource for students to use to file financial aid forms and help figure they can help them do a lot of things, basically. And I think so. Trust is key and ease of use, I mean, we are a free resource for folks to use. We do try to encourage guidance counselors or high school counselors rather, to reach out to us with any questions. We are happy to take calls. We do have free appointments that people can set up with us and we do, as I said, take that feedback from counselors. What are their students experiencing? We work with a sort of number of ambassadors that offer free financial aid nights. We will come up with materials, and a lot of this fits in with me for pathway as well, because high schools that use MEFA Pathway have access to us for free, and we're able to sort of hop on a call or run out to a high school to help them administer that. So it is just a lot of important partnerships that we cultivate, and that's why, as I said, trust and usability is so important for us. Michael Horn: Gotcha. And you're able to offer it free because the state helps fund that or how does that work? Jonathan Hughes: Yeah, so we are, financing is done through our loans. So that's how we keep doing what we're able to do. And that's why the loan piece of it is very important to us. That's how we keep the lights on. That's how we keep going out to colleges and to high schools and to K-12 schools and to offering everything that we need to offer to our citizens in Massachusetts and elsewhere. MEFA Pathway Michael Horn: Gotcha. Okay, so let's get, we've teased it now multiple times coming up with another question, but MEFA

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  4. 2024. 12. 16.

    Storytelling to Create Demand-side Change in Education

    Kevin Stoller, CEO of Kay-twelve, a school furniture provider, and Board Chair of the Second Class Foundation, joined me to discuss the importance of reimagining learning spaces in the broader effort to transform education. Kevin shared how his work in creating adaptable school furniture drove him to create a new docuseries on school spaces titled “What We Show Them.” You can watch episode 1 here. Michael Horn: Welcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn, and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And to help us think through how we can better do that, particularly in the K12 education system. Delighted that we have Kevin Stoller. He's the CEO of Kay-Twelve. That's spelled K-a-y twelve spelled out so not the normal sort of K12 that you often see. He's the author of the book Creating Better Learning Environments—after my heart—about how do we can think about space and architecture and the furniture inside of places to better facilitate learning. And he's also behind the Second Class Foundation's new docu-series called “What We Show Them,” which we will get into in a little bit in this episode. But first, Kevin, great to see you. We were on a podcast in the midst of the pandemic as I recall together talking about some of these things. It's good to see you here. Kevin Stoller: You too. Thanks for having me. You are one of those change makers in education that I always talk about. So I learn a lot from you. I love all the work you're doing. So I just really appreciate you having me on. Reimagining School Spaces  Michael Horn: Well, very, very kind of you to say, but I'm excited to learn from you today because you've got a lot of things going. But let's, let's start high level. Introduce yourself to the audience. Like, the premise behind your work more broadly has been what? Kevin Stoller: So it's really been around how do we improve education? And I got into this in total, total by accident. I always say that. I ended up. I never thought I was going to be anywhere near education. To me, school was just something you get through. And then I somehow landed in my career of owning a school furniture company. And I still remember the moment where my mindset shifted when I was just walking into really the most ordinary type of school anywhere in the country, happened to be in my backyard when I was living in Worthington, Ohio, and walked into the lobby. And this time something felt different. Something felt different. I went to go check in with the principal that I was going to meet with, and I just felt there's this, like, buzz coming from this one wing of the school. Like there was this, like, almost like electricity coming. And he comes out and he's one of those. One of those principals that just like everyone, like, looks up to and loves. He just makes everyone feel great. It's one of those where it's like people want to move into the boundaries of his school so your kids can go, yeah. And he just smiles. And he's like, follow me. And I'm like, what? I'm like, what is going on over there? And he shows me. Brings me into a classroom and shows me a teacher. And she goes, watch this. And she has all the students kind of in a U shape around her, and they're all paying attention, and she explains what they're going to do today. And then all of a sudden she does like a clap, like a break, like they're breaking from their huddle and they go. And they immediately go into groups of three or four working together. One kid you would see, like, break away from the side and start doing some solo work just trying to comprehend something, then come back in. She would just kind of dance around the classroom and all of this would happen. And by the end, there'd be presentations that would happen in there. And then she'd bring them all together and wrap it up. And it was the first time that I realized I'm like, oh, crap, I don't own a school furniture company. Like, my this actually matters. And it was like the moment where, like, we need to figure out how to do this, because these straight rows of classrooms facing the front of the room, like, that's all I knew school was. And that was really the turning point that shifted us from having a school furniture company to having a mission driven how do we improve education company. Michael Horn: Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, I've had that experience now a couple times where I've spoken to school furniture companies or design companies or whatever it is, and I got lucky enough to take Vince Scully's class in college. And you just realize so much of how we relate to each other is because of the space in which we inhabit together. And we don't even think about the impact on mood, collaboration, all these patterns. And you're right. Like, if you reframe it, you can all of a sudden be part of that change and create that dynamic, exciting environment that you got to see that day in Ohio. It sounds like. Kevin Stoller: Yeah, it really was eye opening to me because it was, you know, like the engagement level that you start seeing in there. And, you know, and that was only the first part of the story, because the other part is we did this in four classrooms. So we were trying out this new furniture in four classrooms, and we go to the other three, and the other three literally would have X's with painter tape of saying, this is where your chair has to go and you cannot move it. Michael Horn: Oh, okay. Kevin Stoller: So. So it was really like the entry of, like, oh, wow. I can see where it can go. But I also see that this is a much bigger, bigger initiative here, because this isn't just about changing out the furniture. This is about how do you really change the culture and how do you really drive things from the leadership level and, you know, and really changing the perception of what school could actually look like.  Michael Horn: All right, I have to tell one more story because it's now fun, because my kids, they go to a Montessori school and they're now in fourth grade, but they call the type of school traditional schools that I went to and my wife went to, they call it schools with desks, because to them, that's what it looks like, right? So, like, you went to a school with desks. Let me get this. Like, why did it work that way? And I'm like, I can't really explain to you why, but anyway, there we are. So then you have the Second Class Foundation, where I think you're the board president, and they are launching this docuseries. Tell us about this organization and how it intersects with your work. Extreme Makeover: School Edition The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Kevin Stoller: Yeah, so what. What really happened was it was a lot of years in works here, and it really came from someone on our team. Kirsten, on our team was like, you know, I'm sitting here and I'm watching all these, like, home renovation shows and, like, these makeover shows, and I see the work we're doing and how it really changes the learning environment and, like, where's, like, an extreme home makeover but school edition of it? So this is really, you know, four or five years in the works of, like, hey, that's a good idea. Why can't someone to do it? And, you know, because we. Our mission is to improve. Improve learning environments. We said, well, this is really the missing piece. It's like, we can talk about these at educational conferences, but we really need the movement to come from outside of the walls of school. How do we get to the point where people, like, just general community members start saying, well, why doesn't my school look like that? Like that? And that was really what we identified early on of, like, that's really the tipping point that if we really want to drive this change, how do we get it to that point where it's not like saying, like, well, don't put this fancy school furniture in my school. It's more of like, why doesn't our school have those types of opportunities for our kids. So we went down this path of saying, hey, can we pitch this show to Netflix? How do we get this on the network? How do we do this? And we quickly learned that either we could sell this concept, we can do this, and we can sell the concept, and then, you know, they can, you know, whoever buys it can do whatever they want. But we said, that's really not the intent of why we want to do this. And we said, well, we really can't do this by getting, like, product placement. We don't want to look like a big commercial. So we were like, we really need to do this as a nonprofit. So we set up the foundation a few years ago, and it's really with a blank slate of how do we improve education through the use of media and storytelling? Because we really want to do a lot of projects like this docuseries that we're launching, but as well as we want to highlight other types of work that's going on and how do we meet people where they're at in a more entertaining format so that this isn't just for people who are seeking kind of education documentaries. How do we do really entertaining, good work that people would want to watch when they're sitting down trying to figure out what do we watch on Netflix tonight? Showing the ‘Before Picture’ of School Infrastructure Michael Horn: Yeah, I, Well, I love that premise of Extreme Makeover School Edition and the demand side of the equation, because I think you're right. And obviously you're. You live in Arizona, so you're in the land of ultra school choice and parents making different decisions around their school at the moment. But I think the bigger premise is correct, which is parents saying, like, no, I'm not settling for the school with desks, because now I know that there's something else out there that can be done that's going to light

    20분

  5. 2024. 11. 25.

    Hopes and Dreams Behind ETS's Acquisition of Mastery Transcript Consortium

    Mike Flanagan, CEO of the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC), joined me to talk about the organization's recent “acquisition” by ETS, as well as its broader work in changing how we measure student learning and represent that to colleges and employers. Could the broader adoption of MTC change the game for how students choose college—and allow colleges to be more diverse, rather than “one-size-fits-all” as many are today? This was a fun conversation where I pushed Mike on a few ideas around skills—and then learned a lot from his nuanced answers. Look forward to your thoughts in the comments. Michael Horn: Welcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn, and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to building a world where all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And to help us think through that today. I'm. I'm really excited. It's my longtime friend, Mike Flanagan. He's from the town over from me here in Massachusetts. But we've known each other since I was on the board of the National Association of Independent Schools, and he was running one of the very cool business lines for NAIS, as well as, frankly, all things technology for the organization. But then he became the CEO of the Mastery Transcript Consortium, which was acquired recently by ETS, an organization focused on testing across the country and internationally as well. And we're gonna talk about all of that today. Mike, so good to see you. We're not in person, but it's great to be with you on camera. Michael Flanagan: I am so excited. Yeah neighbors first, but, like, this is, what a great opportunity. I really, really appreciate the invite. Michael Horn: Yeah, I should have added, you're a CrossFit certified coach, as well. So, you know, we've got, like, I'm not that, but, you know, we have certain other things in common, as well, so. Michael Flanagan: Yeah, I always have to put that in asterisk on that. I was former. Former coach. Unfortunately, my certification lapsed when my job changed, and I found wound up spending 90% of my time on planes. You know, Crossfit's a great way to be healthy and stay in shape, but if you want to get injured, a really good thing to do is do Crossfit once a month. The History of Mastery Transcript Consortium  Michael Horn: Fair enough. Fair enough. Don't do that. Get some regular rhythm, but hopefully not afflicting you. But it's good to see you. Let's dive in. You and I have had a long set of conversations around what the Mastery Transcript Consortium pre ETS acquisition is. We might call it MTC, so you know that's the acronym. But let's just talk about what Mastery Transcript Consortium was at the outset through its history, before the acquisition itself. Michael Flanagan: Yeah, I mean, I will say just a preview. It's what and still is, the changes as a result of our new home with ETS, which we'll talk about in a bit are much more about expansion and kind of continuation of what we're doing versus, like, a radical kind of rethinking of it. But to go back to the start, the way we talk about MTC, to educators out there is, to start with a pretty simple premise, which is that we think there are better ways of doing school, right. That the schooling models we have today, for a lot of kids, they don't feel very relevant, they don't feel very useful, they don't feel very engaging. And yet, at the same time, there's all these counterexamples of amazing schools. You talk to them all the time, right? School leaders who are innovators. They're doing project based learning, doing interdisciplinary work. They're getting kids out of classrooms, into the world of work. They're putting kids in teams and solving real world problems, and they're really focused on skill building. And the challenge we had, or the thing that kind of kept pushing us was like, these models are awesome. Why aren't they everywhere? Why doesn't every neighborhood have a school like this? And what

    29분

  6. 2024. 11. 18.

    Providing the Tools to Found New Microschools

    Amar Kumar, Founder and CEO of KaiPod Learning, joins Danny Curtis in this conversation! They discuss the growing microschooling movement, unpack what teachers need to feel successful starting and operating their own schools, and envision a future in which districts leverage the power of microschools. Danny Curtis: Welcome to the Future of Education, where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can fulfill their potential, build their passions, and live a life of purpose. I'm Danny Curtis, producer of the podcast and collaborator with Michael Horn on all things learning innovation. And I  am stepping in front of the camera here again this week for a conversation with Amar Kumar who is the founder of Kaipod Learning, which is a technology solution and service provider for microschools. Amar, thank you so much for joining us here today. Amar Kumar: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me, Danny. Amar’s Journey to the Work Danny Curtis: Yeah. Well, Kaipod Learning has been such an important player within a microschooling movement that has been growing rapidly and earning a lot of attention. So I'm so excited to have the chance to learn from you about all of the great work that you're doing. And so to start us off, Amar, could you tell us about your journey to microschooling and the founding story of Kaipod learning? Amar Kumar: Yeah, happy to. I have been in education for almost 20 years now. I started off as a school teacher where I taught a high school math class in a very high needs school in India. And I discovered in front of the classroom what I think a lot of teachers discover, that you might be planning to teach the pythagorean theorem today, but there are kids who are not ready for that. They're maybe doing math at a fourth grade level, and there are some kids who were way past the pythagorean theorem and they're doing calculus and they're all sitting in front of you waiting for a lesson. That problem of I just couldn't appropriately target all kids with the same lesson plan was really, really difficult for me, and it caused me to want to try things differently, create small groups. I started experimenting in my classroom, which worked to some small effect. I became the principal of the school, saying, I'm going to do this across the whole school. And it all failed because I started to realize that the construct of a rectangular classroom with a teacher at the front and students sitting down all getting the same delivery at the same time, that construct itself is the problem. I wasn't the problem as a teacher. So I left traditional brick and mortar education to do a lot of things in education. Eventually, that journey led me to online schooling, where a curriculum and lesson plans and assessments are all pre-created on a predictable path, and the students move through that at an unpredictable pace. So students get to choose how fast they're consuming that knowledge, demonstrating understanding before moving on to the next thing. And I loved it. I fell in love with that model because I said, this is the future. Every teacher doesn't have to reinvent the lesson plan. The teachers just focus through an online network how to help each child. Loved it. I became the head of product for Pearson's online schools business. And of course, as much as I loved it, I started to also realize the flaws in that system. When students are completely home alone, it can be really difficult from a social and emotional perspective for them. It's difficult for parents when maybe just need some childcare, when the kids should be in a safe place outside of the home. And so I knew that that solution was also incomplete. And when the pandemic happened, like all education companies, I said, what do we do now? And we in Pearson were seeing massive growth of our online schools business.And the families who were in those schools were saying, wow, my child is thriving in an online learning environment. And never predicted i

    32분

  7. 2024. 11. 11.

    The Language of Skills in Degrees

    John Woods, provost and chief academic officer at the University of Phoenix, joined me to discuss how the University is drawing a closer connection between college and career. We discuss steps the college has taken to build career pathways and equip students with the language and signals to communicate their skills. This episode is worth the read/watch/or listen, as all that they’re doing I suspect will surprise you. Michael Horn: Welcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and I'm excited about today's show because we're going to get to geek out on topics that have just become more and more of interest to me as we think about where the puck is going in education, learning, upskilling and so forth, which is a lot about careers and skills and things of that nature. And so to help us navigate that conversation, delighted, we have John Woods. He is the Chief Academic Officer and provost for the University of Phoenix. John, thanks so much for joining us. John Woods: Thanks, Michael. And thanks for the hockey reference. That resonates with me as a Canadian. John’s Journey to the Work Michael Horn: There you go. And we’re trying to make you really feel at home, right? But let's start and make you feel even more at home. Before we get into some of these conversations around skills and careers generally, let's talk about your own career path to the University of Phoenix and perhaps reintroducing the University of Phoenix to folks. You and I got to spend some time together just a few months back and with a lot of the senior leadership team at the University of Phoenix. And it's clear to me anyway that it's a very different place from, say, 15 years ago, say a decade ago. So if it's easy to do, interweaving your own story with how the University of Phoenix has evolved and how you've landed as the provost there. John Woods: OK, so real kind of quick backdrop here. I've got a coal miners lamp on the shelf behind me, one of the many things on that shelf. Both my grandparents were coal miners and my parents, neither one of them went to college. I had two older sisters that didn't go to college, so I was a prototypical first generation college student. I was not a very successful student. I tell the story of my mother dropping me off and some upper class students grabbing my duffel bags and me waving goodbye. And that was it. And I was there for eight years. I don't think my parents visited the campus once. I did an undergrad and a master's and went on to do my PhD in higher ed, higher education administration. And I took a real interest in that because of my own experience in higher ed. And I did a couple areas of focus within my PhD work. One was adult learning theory and the other one was academic honesty. And I thought I would return to Canada from the US with my PhD in hand and go to work at a Canadian university. But I had a lot of opportunities in the US and stayed. I worked for about 25 years for adult focused institutions some eight years ago, I was contacted by the University of Phoenix when they were looking for a future provost and lucky enough to come on board there. Coming up on my 7th anniversary, I guess it would be soon and been part of this thing you just described, which is becoming a very different university. When I joined, new owners had recently purchased the university as well as a number of other companies within that same portfolio, and they sold the other companies off. Some of them were institutions in other countries and they really focused on the University of Phoenix, which had kind of a different model when it was publicly traded. There were not only these other companies within the portfolio, but there was sort of a central service providing really help to the different business units, including the University of Phoenix. And what they sought to do was really divest of all the other things and focus on Phoenix and push all the services back into the university to make it a standalone soup to nu

    28분

  8. 2024. 11. 04.

    Boosting the R&D in ED

    Danny Curtis, producer of the Future of Education podcast, joins me on the “mainstage” to discuss a new bill introduced recently in the Senate that would increase Research and Development in the Department of Education. We discussed the bill’s potential to spur learning innovation, the demand-side challenges to adoption, and systemwide reforms that can support in addressing those. Danny will be making more appearances in the weeks and months ahead, so I’m thrilled to introduce him to you all here by video. Michael Horn: Welcome to the Future of Education. I am Michael Horn, and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to a world where all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And over the past year and a half, it's been really fun because I've had a partner in crime on this. He's been largely behind the scenes, although we have bylined some articles together. So you’ve seen his name pop up in different things, different forums, but he has literally been overseeing all of my digital products, all the digital work that I do. He's helped bring up the quality a ton, but he also happens to know a lot about education as we'll get into it in a moment. He's none other than Danny Curtis. Danny, thanks so much for actually coming on the live stage and showing your face to the audience today. Danny Curtis: Thanks, Michael. It's great to have the chance to step in front of the mic today. Danny’s Journey to the Work Michael Horn: Well, why don't you tell folks about yourself? Because part of this idea is we want you to be in front of the mic a little bit more, either riffing with me, bylining with me, or maybe even interviewing some guests. I know you've done one interview that’s super interesting coming down the pipeline, but why don't you give people a taste of, you know, your background, your experience in education specifically, and workforce issues as well. Before you and I teamed up to start doing some of this work together. Danny Curtis: Well, outside the work that you and I have done, Michael, I have also worked in education workforce policy, as you mentioned, at the state and local level, and a nonprofit, all towards designing systems that do a better job of connecting learners to opportunity. And got my start in this work as a high school English teacher in California, where I met so many inspiring people, teachers, administrators, students, and saw incredible work being done and also noticed the ways that that work was constrained by outdated systems. And that's really what got me into policy to try and create that change. And it's also why the mission of the Future of Education, to unlock the potential of schools and students through innovation, why that resonated so strongly with me. The New Essential Education Discoveries Act Michael Horn: Well, I appreciate everything, obviously, and let's dive in. There's a bill that has come up that you called my attention to has some bipartisan support. It's around research, I think. But why don't you give folks a flavor of what we are talking about and why it caught your eye and worth talking about here in the show? Danny Curtis: Yeah. So I wanted to talk about a bipartisan bill. I know, very rare these days, that has proposed increases to federal education research and development funding. That was introduced in the Senate at the start of August. It's called the New Essential Education Discoveries act, NEED for short. And it was introduced by Senators Michael Bennett, a Democrat from Colorado, and John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas. And it would develop a fifth center in the Institute for Education Sciences that they're calling the National Center for Advanced Development and Education. And it would be dedicated to developing, disseminating, investing in what they're calling high risk, high reward, cutting edge innovations in education. And that includes technologies, innovative learning models. And it also prop

    17분
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Interviews with the top innovators & changemakers so that you can stay on top of the trends transforming transform learning, education, and the development of talent worldwide so that all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose michaelbhorn.substack.com

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    Michael B. Horn
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    2022년 - 2025년
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    © Michael Horn
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    The Future of Education

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