How are the knowledge and skills that we choose to teach or not teach implicated in the power structures and political histories of the places in which we live?

Professor Jonathan Jansen (⁠https://www.jonathanjansen.org/⁠ ) is Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He is currently President of the South African Academy of Science and the Knight-Hennessey Fellow at Stanford University (2020).

In his work, Professor Jansen explores how we keep radical ideas alive in bureaucratic structures. Is there a destination we arrive at called a decolonised curriculum or is it an ongoing process of meeting power structures and institutionalised biases? What's the role of language in the decolonising process if we can't even communicate with each other? What is the role of education in constructing national identities in ways that are inclusive of the diversity of people in most communities?

A selection of his most recent books:

Decolonisation in Universities: The Politics of Knowledge (2019) - https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Decolonisation_in_Universities/efWADwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 

The Decolonization of Knowledge: Radical Ideas and the Shaping of Institutions in South Africa and Beyond [with Cyrill A. Walters] (2022) - https://www.google.fr/books/edition/The_Decolonization_of_Knowledge/KNduEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 

Corrupted: A study of chronic dysfunction in South African universities (2023) - https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Corrupted/saeUEAAAQBAJ

Social Links

X: @JJ_Stellies - https://twitter.com/JJ_Stellies⁠

LinkedIn: @jonathan-jansen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-jansen-543123b1/  

This week’s episode is a conversation about the importance of play and playfulness with the fantastic Dr. Jane Hession and Ronan Healy. Based on their extensive research and expertise of the Lego Serious Play method, Jane and Ronan are successfully reintroducing play to learning and work environments as an invitation to qualitatively different modes and types of experiences for teams. We also talk about the way in which play using boundary objects such as Lego, can enable inclusive learning environments. 

Ronan and Jane are the Co-founders of How Might We, a Limerick-based design consultancy. Jane is a published author whose book ‘Women In The Modern Workplace’ examines how family, finance, networking and mentoring affect women’s decisions to establish a business. Jane and Ronan are also the hosts of the Seeking Play podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/42Rp28RCD0DmyjjA1vQQIU?si=620ca36a318a413b

Social Links

Web: www.howmightwe.ie

Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-might-we-service-design

X: https://twitter.com/howmightwe

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/howmightwe.ie/

Professor Natalia Kucirkova is Professor of Reading and Early Childhood Development at the University of Stavanger.

She researches children’s use of media and technologies. She is especially interested in children’s use of e-books and literacy apps, particularly in relation to the use of personal data (digital personalization) and evidence-based approach to EdTech. Her latest project "Sensory Books" is about reading that engage children's sense of smell.

She is a passionate advocate for social justice, women leadership and embedded research impact.

Natalia is also CEO and Co-Founder of WiKIT which is a university spin-out based in Norway, with a global network of specially trained researchers, to match scientists with ethical EdTech and enable properly evidence-driven edtech products.

She is also the author of The Future of the Self: Understanding Personalization in Childhood and Beyond’.

Social Links

LinkedIn: @natalia-kucirkova

YouTube: @edtechchildrenliteracy

⁠Yong Zhao⁠ is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the ⁠School of Education at the University of Kansas⁠ and a professor in Educational Leadership at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne in Australia. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the ⁠Confucius Institute⁠, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is an elected member of the ⁠National Academy of Education⁠ and a fellow of the ⁠International Academy of Education⁠.

In this conversation we chat about why the US should abandon PISA - the "nonsensical global academic horse race": https://dianeravitch.net/2024/02/12/yong-zhao-why-doesnt-the-u-s-scrap-pisa/

"If ChatGPT had taken the 2022 PISA, it is highly likely that it would outscore all the students in the world.”

We also discuss why countries generally should stop comparing and borrowing from each other, and why diversity and localisation and personalisation are Yong’s keys to how the educational landscape needs to develop in the future.

Recent books and articles:

Duck and Cover: Confronting and Correcting Dubious Practices in Education with Rick Ginsberg (2023)

'Shifting the Education Paradigm: Why International Borrowing is No Longer Sufficient for Improving Education in China' (2018).

'“Testing treats students as enemies and are often launched against them in an ambush”, wrote Mao in 1964, “It works against the active and lively development of youth morally, intellectually, and physically”'

Learning for Uncertainty: Reach for greatness (2023) 

Social Links

LinkedIn: @yong-zhao

X: @YongZhaoEd

Alicia Juarrero, is Co-Founder and President of VectorAnalytica and Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Prince George’s Community College (MD).

She is the author of Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence, published last year: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5600/Context-Changes-EverythingHow-Constraints-Create⁠

Her other books are Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System (MIT 1999) and co-editor of Reframing Complexity: Perspectives from North and South (ISCE Publishing, 2007), and Emergence, Self-Organization and Complexity: Precursors and Prototypes (ISCE Publishing, 2008).

Alicia was named the 2002 U.S. Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; in 2003 she received the Edward T. Foote Alumnus of Distinction Award of the University of Miami; in 1995 the Distinguished Humanities Educator Award of the Community College Humanities Association. In 1992 Alicia was appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to the Advisory Board of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) where, from 1992-2000 she served as NEH’s Chair of Council Committee on State Programs. In that capacity she was responsible for the oversight of approximately $32 million in NEH funds distributed annually to the States Humanities Councils.

Born in Cuba, Alicia has played a leading role in introducing complexity concepts and theory to that island nation and currently serves as Secretary-Treasurer of Friends of Havana’s January Complexity Seminars, a 501(c)3 not for profit organization which supports the work of complexity scholars in Cuba.

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath is an award-winning cognitive neuroscientist, best-selling author and renowned keynote speaker with an expertise in human learning, memory, and brain stimulation. 

Jared has published 6 books, including most recently with co-author David Bott: 10 THINGS SCHOOLS GET WRONG (and how we can get them right)

Other books include:

⁠Stop Talking, Start Influencing: 12 Insights From Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick⁠

From the Laboratory to the Classroom with Jason Lodge and John Hattie 

Jared is the Director of LME Global, host of the popular Youtube channel, From Theory to Practice, and previously honorary researcher at the University of Melbourne and St. Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne.

Jared’s research has been featured in The New York Times, WIRED, BBC, The Economist, PBS's Nova and ABC’s Catalyst.

Social Links

LinkedIn: @jared-cooney-horvath

Instagram: @jared.cooney.horvath

It is increasingly clear that recruiting, developing and retaining teachers is a very real issue around the world. Dr. Rachel Lofthouse is at the forefront of thinking through how we might be able to address some of these challenges.

Rachel is the Professor of Teacher Education in the Carnegie School of Education at Leeds Beckett University. She has established the Research and Practice hub, CollectivED: Centre for Coaching, Mentoring and Professional Learning.

Rachel’s research interests focuses on the transformation of professional learning through partnerships of scholarship and practice development. She is keen to find out how educational workplaces can both offer, and constrain, professional learning, with a current focus on coaching and lesson study and the inter-relationships between practice, well-being, professional learning and leadership. 

We also talk about Rachel's recent involvement in the Reimagining A Positive Direction for Education (RAPIDE) project designed to understand through narratives underline the enormous energy of educators to adapt to external disruptions.

Social Links

X: @DrRLofthouse

LinkedIn: ⁠@rachel-lofthouse⁠

As an elementary teacher by training, Dr. Gary Stager has taught students from preschool through doctoral studies. In 1990, Gary led professional development in the world’s first laptop schools and played a major role in the early days of online education. Gary is the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute for educators.

Gary is co-author of Invent To Learn – Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, called the “bible of the maker movement in schools,” by Larry Magid of CBS and The San Jose Mercury News. Invent To Learn has been translated into nine languages. Gary’s most recent book is Twenty Things to Do with a Computer Forward 50: Future Visions of Education Inspired by Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon’s Seminal Work.

When Jean Piaget wanted to better understand how children learn mathematics, he hired Seymour Papert. When Dr. Papert wanted to create a high-tech alternative learning environment for incarcerated at-risk teens, he hired Gary Stager. This work was the basis for Gary’s doctoral dissertation and documented Papert’s most-recent institutional research project.

Gary’s work has earned a Ph.D. in Science and Mathematics Education and he collaborated on a project that won a Grammy Award. Recently, Gary was invited by Fondazione Reggio Children to lead public seminars, and even teach children, in Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Gary was also on the advisory board of the NSF-funded project, BJC4NYC: Bringing a Rigorous Computer Science Principles Course to the Largest School System in the US. Gary also maintains the world’s largest archive of text and multimedia by Seymour Papert at The Daily Papert.

X: @garystager

Today’s guest has been doing amazing work in this areas alongside Peter Senge, Daniel Goleman and colleagues at the IB, through the Center for Systems Awareness at MIT. Dr Mette Miriam Böll is the is the Co-founder and Executive Director of the centre, as well as the co-founded of The MIT Systems Awareness Lab with Peter Senge. 

Her academic background is as a biologist specialized in the evolution of complex social systems, mammalian play behavior and philosophy of nature. Mette has a Ph.D. in organizational ethology and holds additional degrees in contemplative leadership and the philosophy and history of science. 

She uses her training in these diverse areas to research how emotions and feelings are transmitted in social relations and how the resulting relational fields in turn shape the larger systems human beings are parts of, with a particular focus on education.

Mette previously held a position as head of research at Metropol University College, a teachers’ college in Copenhagen and before that she taught neuroscience of emotions.

You can find out more about the Compassionate Systems Framework and upcoming trainings here: https://systemsawareness.org/introduction-to-compassionate-systems-framework-in-schools/

Social Links

LinkedIn: @mette-miriam-rakel-böll

Instagram: @centerforsystemsawareness

Professor Barbara Oakley is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University. Barbara’s research has been described as “revolutionary” in the Wall Street Journal. She is New York Times best-selling author who has published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Her book A Mind for Numbers, on effective learning in STEM disciplines, has sold over a million copies worldwide.

Together with Terrence Sejnowski, the Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute, Barbara co-teaches Coursera’s “Learning How to Learn,” one of the world’s most popular massive open online courses with some four million registered students, along with a number of other leading MOOCs.

Barbara has adventured widely through her lifetime. She rose from the ranks of Private to Captain in the U.S. Army, during which time she was recognized as a Distinguished Military Scholar. She also worked as a communications expert at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and has served as a Russian translator on board Soviet trawlers on the Bering Sea.

Barbara's latest books:

Uncommon Sense Teaching: Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn

Learn Like a Pro: Science-Based Tools to Become Better at Anything

Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

You can find others here: https://barbaraoakley.com/books/

Social Links

LinkedIn: @barbaraoakley

Instagram: @barb_oakley