Silver Lining for Learning

We all want to make changes to education because we all want to have a better education for our children. We all also believe that a better education is not only necessary but also possible. We have different ideas of what education can be and what we can do to bring about the education we want. In this episode of Silver Ling for learning, we bring two of the most influential thought leaders in the world, Tony Wagner, Senior Research Fellow at the Learning Policy Institute and founder and co-director, for more than a decade, of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Ted Dintersmiths, Chairman of WhatSchoolCouldBe.org, and representative of the United States at the United Nations General Assembly, to discuss their visions of education and what can be done to achieve that education. Tony and Ted are co-authors of the book Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era.   Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

This episode of Silver Lining for Learning will focus on the recent blended learning report Planning for a Blended Future: A Research-Driven Guide for Educators. This report evolved from the collaborative efforts between Every Learner Everywhere, The National Research Center for Distance Education and Technological Advancements (DETA), and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC). Nicole Weber and Tanya Joosten discuss different models of blended learning, its evolution, as well as considerations and possibilities of blended learning.   Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

Hosts Chris Dede, Curt Bonk, Punya Mishra & Yong Zhao gather to reflect on the past three episodes (#72-#74) and provide commentary.  We celebrate the birthday of Professor Dede of Harvard University as he explains the three stages of birthday celebrations and has entered the 3rd stage of celebrating life, grateful to be around another birthday.  Episode 74 | The Push for Equitable Learning in Inequitable Learning Spaces: Taking a Journey to Bhutan, Papua New Guinea, and NepalEpisode 73 | In Search of Brighter Days with Night High Schools in Costa RicaEpisode 72 | STEM Education, in and out of schoolConversation topics include mental health in education, young leadership, and direction for future episodes. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

In the Global South, the education of those in rural schools is often characterized by the lack of access to adequate teaching and learning resources, inexperienced teachers challenged with teaching overwhelmingly large class sizes, and aiding learners with the limited support systems at their disposal in their home life. This session will highlight stories of creative and compassionate teachers that Khendum Gyabak has worked with in her research in Bhutan and Papua New Guinea. More recently, she has extended her research to Nepal. The common thread of these stories is appreciating the teacher agency of working within myriad educational constraints. Extending this thread is the deliberate application of cognitive empathy and creative thinking to scaffold understanding and foster meaningful learning for rural students. Khendum discusses the intersection of designerly thinking and teacherly knowing in responding to sustainable ways of doing learning and instruction in highly inequitable environments.  Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

Night schools are a critical and valuable educational option offered to students around the world and yet information asymmetry exists in the role they play in the social, cultural, educational, and emotional development of the students who attend it. Night schools are aimed at adults who did not have the opportunity to attend high school at an earlier age. These adults are from low-income backgrounds including single mothers who often work during the day picking coffee, cleaning houses, selling their wares in fruit stands, or are employed in various factory jobs. During the evening, they attend Nigh School as a means of gaining literacy skills and bettering their lives.Hania Morales Arroyo and Natalia Ramirez-Casalvolone, two experienced teachers from Colegio Nocturno de Naranjo of Costa Rica talk about the particularities of the student population, academics, and her experience teaching English at the school.  Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

Mary Jo Madda is the Growth & Engagement Strategy Lead for several diversity + education initiatives at Google, and a doctoral student at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies. Her work with Code Next, a Code with Google Program provides informal after-school training for high school freshmen of color (Black, Latino/Hispanic, and Native/Indigenous) in the most quickly-growing industries, including cloud computing and data science. Chelsey Roebuck is a mechanical engineer who leads ELITE, a community-based youth development organization that utilizes STEM education as a vehicle to empower low-opportunity students to realize their academic and career potential. He leverages his Columbia degree to create meaningful impact toward addressing STEM education inequality as a means to close the achievement gap and provide opportunities for economic mobility for thousands of youth across the Americas and Africa. Both Mary and Chelsey, recipients of Forbes's “30 Under 30” talk about the importance of social capital and networks to achieve success. The need to model and actively practice diversity equity and inclusion initiatives, creating safe places of belonging, becomes all the more important. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

Hosts Curt Bonk, Punya Mishra & Yong Zhao gather to reflect on the past five episodes (#67-#70) and provide commentary.Episode 70 | Lessons Teacher Educators Should Have Learned from the PandemicEpisode 69 | Untangling Adaptive Learning on the Way to Tangelo Park: Taking a Road Trip to Central FloridaEpisode 68 | There’s a New Horizon for Higher Education: Make that Three HorizonsEpisode 67 | Educational Alchemy: Time to Restore, Adapt, Evolve, or Transform?Conversation topics include the next education workforce, rethinking teacher education, and the importance of putting theory into action. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

In the midst of living through the pandemic, 46 authors from around the world paused, reflected, and wrote chapters for an open access book on lessons that teacher educators should have learned from 2020.  In this episode, Dr. Rick Ferdig, lead editor of “What Teacher Educators Should Have Learned From 2020”  provide an initial discussion of the impetus for the book, some general lessons learned, and how such reflective activities can be continued beyond the pandemic.  Dr. Rebecca Nelson provides an overview of her co-authored chapter titled, “The Four Pillars of Digitally Infused Education: Transcending Modalities in a Post-COVID Learning Environment.”  She will talk specifically about the importance of instructional design, flexibility, building relationships, and a pedagogy of care. Dr. Aimee Barber will then discuss ways to use effective pedagogy to design online learning experiences.  She draws on examples from her co-authored chapter, “Using Knowledge of Effective Pedagogy to Design Online Learning Experiences: Restructuring Teacher Education Coursework to Reflect Virtual Learning Shifts,” pointing to ways she and her team restructured teacher education coursework during the shift to virtual learning. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

In Episode #69, Chuck Dziuban and Patsy Moskal from the University of Central Florida (UCF) have spent decades conducting research on blended and fully online learning, resulting in several edited research volumes on blended learning. Their paper, Adaptive Learning in Psychology: Wayfinding in the Digital Age, was recipient of the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) quality research paper award in 2017.  The episode discusses the history of faculty training programs for blended and online instruction at UCF, case for personalizing learning, as well as their research on a scholarship program for low income communities in Central Florida called the Tangelo Park Program. This program has seen significantly reduced crime and has resulted in 100% high school graduation rates as well as high levels of college attendance. It also unpacks key components of this program as well as its potential sustainability, replicability, and scalability. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

The annual EDUCAUSE Horizon Report on emerging learning technologies and trends is widely anticipated, cherished, and read by thousands worldwide. Topics like AI, blended and hybrid learning, learning analytics, micro credentialing, open educational resources, and quality online learning dominate the most recent 2021 report (PDF). This year’s report offers overviews on technological trends as well as social, economic, environmental, and political ones. In 2020, the report began including short implications essays. In 2021, there were five such essays including ones on higher education in South Africa by Laura Czerniewicz of the University of Cape Town; on Australia by Jon Mason of Charles Darwin University; and Turkey by Aras Bozkurt of Anadolu University. The three authors of those reports are the Silver Lining or Learning guests for Episode #68. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org