Beau Neal is an educator, an administrator, and an entrepreneur seeking to improve the state of education not just in his home state of Oregon, but across the country. In the last four years he has co-founded a revolutionary online charter school, Frontier Charter Academy, and a first-of-its-kind educational consulting company, SYS Education. Beau is an advocate for online education and a believer in giving power to teachers. 

 

Episode Summary: In this final episode of Season 1 we get to the heart of what it means to be an educator, and not just an online educator, in the 2020’s. Learn how you can value and incorporate complexity, not busywork, into your curriculum starting now. 

 

Timestamps:

How Beau has been spending time during the pandemic [1:54]

Natalie’s collection of mantras [4:10]

Beau takes us into the way-back machine [4:57]

The problem that birthed “complexity over busy work” [6:10]

Respect for students and educators [7:34]

Embedding complexity over busywork within teacher training [9:17]

Complexity and backwards design [10:20]

Complex lesson idea - Upon Closer Examination [14:06]

What we can learn from Master P and Beau’s ‘easy A’ class [15:38]

Why we should turn Bloom’s on its head [17:50]

Complex lesson idea - Seven Themes of Geography Documentary [18:42]

Promoting students as innovators is doable and engaging [20:27]

When your lesson ideas don’t go according to plan [21:45]

Creating is iterative, not linear [24:39]

How do I get creative with my district’s curriculum? [27:35]

How students may react to your shift to complexity [29:07]

Sneaking in complexity in small ways [30:35]

 

Resource Links:

Planning

Planning Doc for Increasing Complexity within Curriculum

Open Education Resources

OER List for Elementary Grades

OER List for Middle and High School Grades

Books for Further Learning

 

Creating Innovators by Tony Wagner

Teaching in the Cracksby Brian D. Schultz