IdeaSpark: Big Ideas in Education

Where do principals learn to lead and improve their practice? The answer is rarely a training session, so what should districts and states do about it?

In this new episode, Dr. Carmelita Seitz sits down with Dr. Jason Grissom, the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College and faculty director of the Tennessee Education Research Alliance.

Jason and his co-authors interviewed 63 principals in three states and surveyed nearly 1,000 more for a Wallace Foundation report, Understanding the Landscape of Professional Learning for School Principals. They found that principals learn more from conversations, podcasts, and learning by doing than from formal training, and that they find those moments more useful. They also found that experienced principals get less mentoring and coaching than new ones.

In this conversation, Carmelita and Jason explore the difference between "professional learning" and "professional development," how principals can protect learning time when the fires never stop, and what district and state leaders can do to support learning they didn't plan. They also dig into why coaching shouldn't end after the first year or two, and which topics principals say they need more time to explore.

Carmelita and Jason discuss:

• Why professional learning and professional development are two different things
• How principals learn from text threads, peer networks, and podcasts
• Why making time to learn is just as essential as putting out fires
• How district leaders can curate quality resources and ask principals what they need
• What makes a principal network worth the time

Follow Jason:

• Vanderbilt Peabody College Faculty Page
• Bluesky (@JasonAGrissom)
• Tennessee Education Research Alliance
• The Wallace Foundation Report

Follow Carmalita:

• LinkedIn

Stay in touch with ISTE+ASCD:

• ISTE+ASCD Website
• X
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Instagram

What happens when a middle school class decides to help keep a baseball league for visually impaired athletes in the game? And how can any teacher, even one bound to a strict scope and sequence, bring that kind of purpose into a 45-minute class period?

In this new episode, Richard Culatta sits down with Dr. Diana Cornejo-Sanchez, CEO of High Tech High.

Diana grew up in San Diego’s Barrio Logan and rode a bus every day to a magnet program across town, where she slowly noticed that her neighborhood friends were being steered into different classes than she was. That early experience shaped a career that took her from high school humanities teacher to CEO of High Tech High, a network of 16 public charter schools recognized around the world for project-based learning.

In this conversation, Richard and Diana explore Projects with a Purpose, a new effort to define what makes a project truly transformational for students, teachers, families, and community partners. They also dig into how High Tech High balances required standards with deep learning, why every junior completes a real internship, how students are bringing a critical eye to AI, and what educators in any school can start doing tomorrow.

Richard and Diana discuss:

• How High Tech High is designing transformational projects with students, educators, and community partners
• How Diana’s own experience with tracking as a student shapes her focus on access and family engagement
• How High Tech High balances required standards, depth over breadth, and interdisciplinary learning
• Why High Tech High protects adult learning time, with teachers collaborating at least three times a week
• What visitors notice first inside a High Tech High school, from student work hanging from the ceilings to student-led tours
• How students are pushing back on AI output and learning to value their own critical thinking
• What any school can borrow from High Tech High, starting with schedules and student voice

Follow Diana:

• LinkedIn

Follow Richard:

• LinkedIn
• X

Stay in touch with ISTE+ASCD:

• ISTE+ASCD Website
• X
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Instagram

What if learning is not boring at all, and somebody simply engineered the fun out of it?

In this new episode, Richard Culatta sits down with Joseph Baird, Senior Lecturer at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

Before he became a professor, Joseph ran a mobile game studio whose learning apps topped the App Store education charts, won design awards, and earned him an invitation to a game jam at the White House.

Recorded at ISTELive26 in Orlando, this conversation explores how Joseph brought that game designer's instinct into the business school classroom, where his students build fake sheep to fool their classmates, chase him across campus with GPS data, and learn Excel by solving the strangest problems he can invent. Joseph and Richard dig into why our obsession with measurement has drained the joy from assessment, how educators working inside rigid systems can still find room to experiment, and why the best defense against cheating is an assignment worth doing.

Richard and Joseph discuss:

• Why learning is intrinsically fun, and how assessment design accidentally strips the joy out of it
• How over-optimizing for numbers leads to tests that neglect why we measure learning in the first place
• Why college students should spend class time going places AI can't go, using human judgment and context
• How to find wiggle room to innovate inside standardized courses
• Why constraints fuel creativity, whether at hackathons or in course design
• How relevance, not AI restriction, is the most effective way to reduce cheating
• Why the best path to innovation is to experiment, fail forward, and iterate

Follow Joseph:

• Kelley School of Business faculty profile

Follow Richard:

• X
• LinkedIn

Stay in touch with ISTE+ASCD:

• Website
• X
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Instagram

Why do so many students feel invisible in their own classrooms, and what does belonging actually have to do with how much they learn? Two of the most widely read voices in education answer both questions with research, real school stories, and simple moves any educator can start tomorrow.

In this new episode Richard Culatta, joined by cohost Winston Roberts, sits down with Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, professors of educational leadership at San Diego State University and co-founders of Health Sciences High and Middle College.

Doug and Nancy have written hundreds of books and articles on literacy, instructional design, and school leadership, many of them as longtime ASCD authors. What sets them apart is that they still do the work, teaching and leading at the San Diego charter school they helped build. Recorded on-site at ISTELive26 in Orlando, this conversation unpacks the cycle that links belonging, engagement, and learning. Doug and Nancy explain why belonging for students depends on whether belonging for the adults around them feel a sense of belonging, why it slips away once the school year gets busy, and how real experiences of success keep students coming back.

In this conversation the team covers topics, such as:

• The self-reinforcing cycle of belonging, engagement, and learning
• Why student belonging depends on a feeling of belonging amongfor teachers, principals, and families
• How schools can make families feel needed, not just invited to the bake sale
• The study where 52% of students said their teacher doesn't know their name
• Why belonging fades once the school year gets busy, and how shared classroom ownership helps
• How experiences of success and failure shape whether students choose to engage
• Keeping belonging authentic instead of turning it into a checklist
• What daily life looks like at Health Sciences High and Middle College
• One piece of homework every educator can start on today

Follow Doug:

• Fisher and Frey website
• X (@DFISHERSDSU)
• LinkedIn
• Instagram (@dougfisher.educator)

Follow Nancy:

• LinkedIn
• X (@NancyFrey)

Follow Health Sciences High & Middle College:

• HSHMC website
• Facebook
• X (@HSHMC)
• Instagram (@HSHMC)

Follow Richard:

• X (@rculatta)
• LinkedIn
• Book: Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World

Follow Winston:

• Teacher in a Suit website
• LinkedIn
• X (@teacherinasuit_)
• Instagram (@teacherinasuit)

Stay in touch with ISTE+ASCD:

• Website
• X
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Instagram

Early childhood educators have the responsibility of helping shape a child's brain during its most rapid developmental window. How can we give them the respect and support they deserve, and what would it take to fix the broken economics behind early childhood education?

In this new episode Richard sits down with Michelle Kang, CEO of NAEYC, joined by cohost Joseph South, Chief Innovation Officer at ISTE+ASCD, live from ISTELive in Orlando.

Michelle Kang leads the nation's largest professional organization for early childhood educators, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Before taking the helm at NAEYC, Michelle spent more than 16 years at Bright Horizons building employer child care partnerships. In addition to discussing how the early childhood market actually works and where it is failing, Michelle walks Richard and Joseph through the broken economics behind child care tuition and educator pay, and the many different pathways into the profession of early childhood teaching. She also addresses how screens and digital noise crowd out the human connection young children need most.

Listen in as Richard, Joseph, and Michelle discuss:

• What NAEYC's 100 years of advocacy reveal about the progress still needed
• Why the profession requires more than just loving children
• How CDA credential, Power to the Profession, and other frameworks define the profession
• How technology can support, but never replace, human connection with young children
• What gives Michelle hope for the field's future

Follow Michelle Kang:

• NAEYC: naeyc.org
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michellejkang

Follow Richard:

• X: x.com/rculatta
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rculatta
• Book: Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World

Follow Joseph:

• ISTE+ASCD Staff Page: iste-ascd.org/staff/joseph-south
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/southjoseph

Stay in touch with ISTE+ASCD:

• Website: iste-ascd.org
• X: x.com/ISTE_ASCD
• Facebook: facebook.com/ISTEofficial
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/isteofficial
• YouTube: youtube.com/@iste
• Instagram: instagram.com/isteconnects

Why do fewer than 5% of adults use the math they learned in high school, and what would happen if a state legislator, school board member, or governor had to take the same standardized math tests they use to judge our schools? In this episode, Ted Dintersmith, an education advocate, venture capitalist, filmmaker, and author of Aftermath: The Life-Changing Math That Schools Won't Teach You, joins Richard Culatta to make the case for rethinking what, and why, we teach.

Ted Dintersmith was once ranked the top-performing venture capitalist in the country. He spent two decades at Charles River Ventures before President Obama appointed him to represent the United States at the United Nations General Assembly. He then turned his attention to schools, producing the documentary Most Likely to Succeed. For his more recent documentary, Multiple Choice, he spent an entire school year visiting all 50 states to see what was actually happening in classrooms.

In this conversation, Ted and Richard dig into why standardized math testing rewards what is easy to grade rather than what is useful; why accountability measures built for a pre-computer world are still driving what happens in classrooms today; and why the math that actually shapes people's lives, from reading a jobs report to understanding a school’s ranking, is almost never taught. They also talk about what it looks like when kids are given real, relevant problems to solve, and what Ted believes the rise of AI means for education.

Richard and Ted discuss:

• Why the math and reading scores used to judge schools do not reflect the quality of learning happening inside them
• What standardized math tests actually cover, and why so much of it is leftover from a pre-computer era
• Why fewer than 5% of adults use the math they studied in high school and what that means for how we spend classroom time
• What kinds of math genuinely shape people's lives, from jobs reports to school rankings to personal finance
• Why Ted wants legislators, school board members, and governors to take the same standardized tests their policies are built around
• What a real story from The Wire reveals about making math relevant to students
• Why Ted sees the rise of AI as an urgent, “code red” moment for rethinking what school is for

Follow Ted:

• Ted Dintersmith's Website
• Ted Dintersmith on LinkedIn

Follow Richard:

• Richard Culatta on LinkedIn
• Richard Culatta on X

Stay in touch with ISTE+ASCD:

• Website
• X
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Instagram

What does it actually take to support the adults who shape our youngest learners? Nicol Russell, chief academic officer at Teaching Strategies, argues that early educators deserve the same intentional investment as engineers, not treatment as replaceable hires. Dr. Nneka McGee, founder of Muon Global, brings that same philosophy to how five year olds encounter AI, starting with conversation instead of screens. Both guests land on the same idea from different angles: good tools fail without good follow-through.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• Nicol Russell points to a study out of NIEER at Rutgers that found teacher retention increased 23 percentage points when curriculum, assessment, and coaching functioned as one connected system rather than separate tools.
• Russell draws a line between teacher exhaustion and burnout, and she recommends that program leaders protect a set block of time each week where teachers have complete control over how it is used.
• Dr. Nneka McGee led a session at ISTELive that pairs Play-Doh with generative AI, using the activity to teach young learners about anthropomorphism while building creative thinking and questioning skills.
• McGee recommends introducing AI to young children through conversation rather than devices, citing both her own research on early learner readiness and guardrails like COPPA that already limit generative AI use for this age group.

STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Story 1

We Talk About Whole Children. What About Whole Educators? by Nicol Russell

Story 2

AI for Young Learners (Jump Start Guide) by Nneka McGee

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HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS

Host: Ira Apfel

Featuring:

• Nicol Russell, Chief Academic Officer, Teaching Strategies
• Dr. Nneka McGee, Founder, Muon Global

Helping Students Find Work They'll Love: Career Readiness in the Real World

As industries evolve and the skills gap widens, the question remains: How can we better connect education to employment?

In this episode of The Idea Spark, host Carl Hooker welcomes Jennifer Wilkerson, VP of Innovations and Advancements at NCCER (National Center for Construction Education and Research), and Andy Dunaway, Product Manager, Career Connected Learning at Pearson. Together, they explore how credentialing, industry alignment, and strong partnerships help students move from the classroom to meaningful careers. Using construction as a lens, this conversation highlights scalable strategies for building career-ready pathways across CTE programs and beyond.

This week's episode of The Idea Spark is brought to you by Pearson, NCCER, and the EdSurge Solutions Studio team.

Carl Hooker brings us a live podcast from the ISTE+ASCD conference in San Antonio, Texas. He connects with conference attendees, friends old and new, asking each to share a problem they're working to solve in their corner of the education world — or, as Carl puts it: “Tell me your idea spark."

In this episode, Carl sits down with Heather Brantley, Events and Community Specialist at Curipod. Listen to find out how Curipod replaces an expected AI bot with a human!

This episode of The Idea Spark is brought to you by EdSurge Solutions Studio.

Carl Hooker brings us a live podcast from the ISTE+ASCD conference in San Antonio, Texas. He connects with conference attendees, friends old and new, asking each to share a problem they're working to solve in their corner of the education world — or, as Carl puts it: “Tell me your idea spark."

Carl sits down with Lexi Daly, Learning Innovation Coordinator and Reading Teacher at Trinity Episcopal School in New Orleans. Find out how this self-proclaimed non-coder creates her own mini-games using AI.

This episode of The Idea Spark is brought to you by EdSurge Solutions Studio.