Dr. Laura Spencer is a leading educator in the area of innovative leadership, teaching, and learning. She has served as a classroom teacher, an edtech director, and most recently as a district administrator who led transformational classroom change through design thinking and industry connections so that all students have learning experiences that value their unique strengths and passions. 

Laura speaks across the United States at various conferences to teachers, administrators, and industry on topics ranging from effective leadership, sustainable edtech integration, and building an innovative culture for transformational learning. She is known for her engaging hands-on design thinking workshops and professional development as well.

Laura has been recognized as an Innovative Educator, Administrator of the Year, and San Diego County’s Top Tech Exec, as well as recently winning a CUE Gold Disk and the Classroom of the Future Innovate Award. She’s been featured on The YouSchool and Innovative Pedagogy podcasts. She’s also the President of SDCUE and a founding board member of EquityEDU. She is a proud US Army veteran.

Laura blogs at laurakspencer.com. 

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Full Text of the Episode:

100:00:00,000 --> 00:00:41,310Scott Schimmel: Quick record, and we are on video. And Hey everybody, this is Scott Schimmel. And this is the first time we've ever had a YouSchool podcast on video and on audio. So for those of you looking at my big giant face in this computer screen: Hello. And my lovely guest today, if you've been listening and following the YouSchool podcast, this is a we've had very few repeat guests, maybe two or three. And so one of them is a very, I don't know what it means, but it's a big deal to me. Laura Spencer, why don't you just kind of give us an update of who you are? what you're doing in the world? How do you like even categorize and explain what you do because you're an educator, but

200:00:42,690 --> 00:00:43,890Laura: I'm still trying to figure that out.

300:00:43,890 --> 00:01:09,750I'm an educator right now doing some consulting work, but really just trying to connect with people and help them understand what learning is about in today's society? How can they transform learning? How can I support them through that work, how can I cheerlead for them. So I look at myself as a and I don't want to say a jack of all trades, but just really getting out there and trying to make a difference. So connected with people who are doing the work and seeing how I can support that.

400:01:10,080 --> 00:01:31,110Scott Schimmel: You've done a lot of work on innovation design thinking, which is, I think, still very new in education. It's not necessarily new in the marketplace and in the business sector. But what is it? Is it accepted now, just your perspective is innovation and design- Is that is that a mainstay? Is it here to stay?

500:01:31,750 --> 00:02:25,480Laura: I wouldn't go that far yet. I think there are more people that are trying to get on board. I think education is such a centuries old bureaucracy, that it's hard to just bring that into school systems are so many things that needed to change. But I think you have a lot of people that are trying to make a difference. So you'll see it interspersed, but you won't see it a lot as the way of things but you know, I think there's a lot of people are trying to make trying to make the move. So you see a lot of things talk about is innovation. And design thinking is starting to make a place it's trying to find it spot, you know, where where does it fit in? Because what people are trying to figure out and they're trying to understand, is it project based learning? Is it something you only do in a maker space? can it work in a core curriculum? So there's a lot of people trying to grapple with: How does it work in education versus how we've seen it work in industry? So people trying to figure that out

600:02:25,540 --> 00:02:27,610Scott Schimmel: What do you Where