David Gagnon is a researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the director of the learning research lab Field Day at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the course of our conversation, we hammer out a definition of learning, discuss David’s work creating educational video games for elementary school students, and talk about how to create environments that foster experimentation, curiosity, and, ultimately, growth.

During the episode, we touched on:

- Learning—what is it? What isn’t it?

- Dave’s social constructivist approach to learning

- Literacy—what does it mean today? And the New London Group's multiliteracy manifesto

- Using video games for learning (e.g., Jo Wilder and the Capitol Case created by David’s research lab)

- The desire—in business, in education—to be right all the time… even when being “wrong” fosters learning

- The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (2011) by Eric Reis

- The humility that can come from having an understanding of complex, complicated systems

- If it’s possible to go overboard with radical transparency when working with outside partners?

- Deschooling Society (1971) by the radical Catholic priest Ivan Illich

- Attending to participants’ feelings when navigating organizational change… and how artists and storytellers can lead the way