TeachLab with Justin Reich MIT Teaching Systems Lab

By spring of 2023, most students with an internet connection had access to a new tool that could do much of their homework. We hear Justin’s keynote at the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education about the arrival of generative AI in schools, from last fall. Then, Justin talks to Jesse Dukes about an ongoing TSL research project to understand teachers’, school leaders’, and students’ experiences of generative AI in schools.

Today we share another great episode from our friends at Upper MiddleBrow. As students, parents, and teachers happily (or wrenchingly) returned to school, Upper MiddleBrow invited TeachLab host Justin Reich to talk about stories with teachers. They identify many examples of bad teachers and bad teaching in fiction, and while film and TV often present sympathetic teacher protagonists, they wonder if the Great American Teacher novel is yet to be written.

Civics 101 is a podcast refresher course on the basics of how the U.S. government works, born from the brain trust at New Hampshire Public Radio and hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice. This is the second part in their series about the state of civic education in the US.

In this episode, TeachLab host Justin Reich joins the Civics 101 team to talk about how teachers choose what to teach, so-called "divisive concepts laws," and how we can approach disagreements without falling prey to "division actors."

Civics 101 is a podcast refresher course on the basics of how the U.S. government works, born from the brain trust at New Hampshire Public Radio and hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice. Today is the first part in their series about the state of civic education in the US.

In this episode, the Civics 101 team gauges how we're doing civics-wise and then delve into the perpetually controversial history of history; have we ever agreed upon a narrative for our nation that we can teach students?
Walking us through the past, present, and future of social studies and civic education are Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Adam Laats, Historian and Professor of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership at Binghamton University.

In our final episode in our Iterate series, we are joined by one of our favorite collaborators here at the Teaching Systems Lab: artist, creative professional and graphic recorder, Haley McDevitt. Haley is a master of listening, synthesizing, and creating visuals that support big ideas. And, Haley is the illustrator of our host Justin Reich’s new book, Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools.

Justin and Haley go behind the scenes to share the creative process for the book’s illustrations. We also hear about Haley’s own experiences with iteration and growth mindset in her creative life, and learn about the amazing resources that she created to support educators who read Iterate.

This week on TeachLab, we continue our series of conversations with innovative educators with Mel Cheng, a lifelong educator and learner. Mel is the Director of Engagement at What School Could Be, and before that worked as a classroom teacher, technology facilitator and coach, and administrator at Hawaiʻi’s first public charter school for 23 years. A maker enthusiast, Mel believes that intentionally designing environments in which learners are free to tinker builds stronger communities and richer connections.

We talk to Mel about her experiences with the Cycle of Experiment and Peer Learning, and the idea that people who can really change the teaching and the learning in schools are the classroom teachers.
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“Intuitively we know that teachers are the driving force of change and administrators need to create the conditions for this to happen but rarely is that articulated, much less given a road map”

Mel Ching’s review of Iterate:The Secret to Innovation in Schools