Learning Unboxed

Josh Bernstein and Mike Schott are responsible for an awesome new program designed to get kids excited about science: Explorer At Large.

Their mission is to engage, inspire, and educate PreK-12 students around the world with standards-driven content that sparks curiosity, playfulness, and wonder. XAL is now placing its educational content in school systems around the country, with help from partners like the Schott Foundation for Public Education, and we can’t wait to share what they’re doing with all of you.

To learn more, visit: pastfoundation.org

Resources:

• Learn more at https://www.exploreratlarge.com
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• schottfoundation.org
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• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/exploreratlarge
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• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/exploreratlarge

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

Giving students more experience solving real-world problems is critical to their development as future problem solvers, and that’s why the Ohio Stem Learning Network hosts statewide design challenges. This year, OSLN is asking students to imagine, prototype, and design a solution to food insecurity in their life, community, or world.

Luckily, we have two amazing women joining us to unbox this huge topic: Heather Sherman and Jeanne Gogolski. Heather is the Director of Ohio's STEM Learning Network and Stem Relationship Manager for Battelle Education and Jeanne is the Founding Partner of educationprojects.org, one of the industry partners for this year’s challenge.

Follow @OSLN on Twitter for updates as they visit many of the students and classrooms tackling this challenge. You can also follow the hashtag #STEMFeedsOhio to see what students are coming up with, and if you’re participating, we’d love you to use the hashtag so we can see what you’re working on, too!

To learn more, visit: pastfoundation.org

Resources:

• Learn more & sign up at sign up www.osln.org/design
• Twitter: @OSLN
• EducationProjects.org
• Agriculture resources for teachers: GrowNextGen.org | Feed the World Ohio |  Feed the World Nebraska | ohiocornandwheat.org

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

One of the things that we love here at the PAST Foundation is having the opportunity to watch incredible young adults learn and grow; these amazing students are rock stars in our eyes, and giving them a space to stretch their wings is one of the most rewarding experiences we have.

And today, we want to introduce you to three of the rockstars that lead the Metrobots, Metro Early College High School’s (MECHS) FRC robotics team. Metrobots and several other robotics teams are housed at the PAST Innovation Lab, one of several co-created learning labs hosted at PAST.

We want to introduce you all to: Fatima Bainazar, a senior from Metro Early College and the project manager for the Metrobots; Melissa Olvera, a senior at Metro and the Administrative Project Manager for the Metrobots; and Elizabeth Drake, a junior at Metro who is interested in mechanical integration and engineering.

Collectively, these three ladies represent students from a variety of backgrounds, experiences, opportunities, and passions – just like Metro Early College.

To learn more, visit: pastfoundation.org

Resources:

• Metrobots: https://www.3324metrobots.org
• Start A FIRST Robotics Team: https://www.pastfoundation.org/start-a-first-robotics-team
• Learn more about Metro: https://www.themetroschool.org

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

Today’s guest is an educator, a counselor, a researcher, an author, an advocate, a mentor, a creative thinker, a community changer, an amazing entrepreneur, and a change agent in the lives of girls around the country. Dr. Lisa Hinkelman has spent nearly fifteen years researching girls and educating counselors as both as a professor at The Ohio State University and as the founder and CEO of Ruling Our eXperiences (ROX), and we are so happy to have her on the show.

We know that there won’t be a better future without the practitioners who are on the ground day-to-day, in schools, working with kids, getting folks ready to be the next great citizens in our world – but they need to know about the great case studies that can inform practices and decision-making on the local level. We need people to guide conversations about teaching, learning, and the future of work, and, certainly, Dr. Hinkelman and ROX are part of that.

To learn more, visit: pastfoundation.org

Resources:

• Learn more at https://rulingourexperiences.com/
• The Girls’ Index: New Insights Into the Complex World of Today’s Girls
• Girls Without Limits: Helping Girls Achieve Healthy Relationships, Academic Success, and Interpersonal Strength

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

Stacie Boord and Nick Wilson join us to unbox Shadowbox Live, a non-profit performance troupe whose top managers also operate as the primary creators, producers, and performers for their self-produced shows.

As we think about learning through a new paradigm, Shadowbox Live represents an amazing story mechanism that not only brings the arts alive, but more importantly, takes the ethos of the arts industry and demonstrates what the entire ecosystem can bring to bear, across multiple careers. For over 20 years, this creative force has produced world-class productions, including original rock operas, traditional musicals, fine art exhibits, contemporary dance, and video.

We unbox:

• What was Stacie thinking when she helped start Shadowbox
• Creating diverse art with a rock aesthetic: ballsy, uninhibited, courageous, and bold
• When Shadowbox started giving back to and supporting the community
• Collaborating with Metro Early College High School (which you might recognize from episode two) to bring arts into the STEM school
• Nick first encountered Shadowbox in high school... and then never left!
• How Nick’s experiences at Shadowbox translate back into his educational journey
• STEM Rocks the Box: an opportunity for students to get field experience as a performing artist
• What Stacie and Nick have learned from working with students
• The broad impact this program has had and can have on all types of educational programs
• The next iteration of education: what’s possible and what might it look like?

Resources:

• Learn more at http://www.shadowboxlive.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shadowboxlive/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShadowboxLive
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShadowboxLive
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ShadowboxLiveVideo

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

21st century education is a very different beast than the education of the past because our world is vastly different, and the pace of change just keeps increasing. As as result, we have to take a very different approach to learning if we want to prepare our children to thrive in the digital age.

So today, we talk to Jeff McClellan, the Founding Director of StartSOLE, an organization that is transforming education through SOLE (Self-Organized Learning Environments).

SOLE is a process-based approach to education, as opposed to results-based, that helps prepare students for success in today’s era of technology and information. By providing an early intervention in education, SOLE can level the academic playing field and increase equity among all students, while helping kids develop the skills they they need for a modern digital society.

We unbox:

• What education should be preparing students for and, at the end of the day, what our true purpose is as educators
• Turning the city of Cleveland into the campus for a STEM high school
• Jeff’s uncanny ability to hire exceptional staff and how he makes those decisions
• The difficulty many organizations have had implementing project-based learning, mastery-based grading, and other new approaches to education (and how StartSOLE makes those things easier to implement)
• How you can take small chunks of these newer educational design philosophies and integrate them into more traditional educational environments
• The essence of StartSOLE and its broad applications in the education space
• How StartSOLE allows teachers to do the thing that they’re already doing, but better
• Where resources should be allocated for future education
• Job-ready skills: creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration

Resources:

• Get the free StartSOLE app: https://startsole.org/
• StartSOLE on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StartSOLE
• Jeff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-mcclellan-509b6959/
• Watch: “Kids can teach themselves” by Sugata Mitra

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

Kevin Gadd is a serial entrepreneur (and self-identified serial learner), retired Air Force Chief, and the Ohio Program Manager for Apprenti. In this episode, Kevin helps us unbox the role of entrepreneurship in education and the intersection between teaching, learning, and work.

The problem with entrepreneurship education is that, until very recently, we have been trying to teach entrepreneurship like math or history: we’d get an outdated book and put students in a class, then if we were getting ambitious, we might have them design a business plan using online software. It was nonfunctional, and it didn’t really match what happened in the real world.

Programs like Apprenti, however, serve as a better model for entrepreneurship education. It is the nation’s first registered IT apprenticeship program, and its goal is to train future tech workers, with an emphasis on underrepresented groups including women, minorities, and veterans. Once trained, these new IT workers join a yearlong apprenticeship program to ensure their success in finding the next piece of their journey.

We unbox:

• Launching a program to teach entrepreneurs, at home and abroad
• The outdated ways people have tried to teach entrepreneurship in the past – and how we can more effectively teach entrepreneurship in the future
• The misunderstanding of where entrepreneurship fits in the world
• Mentoring female entrepreneurs in the Middle East
• It’s okay to fail, as long as the outcome is learning
• How reframing what an entrepreneur is – a problem solver, a solution provider, a community organizer, a leader, self-employed – makes it more appealing and approachable
• Diversity is important; you can’t be what you can’t see
• At the same time, you can’t do what you don’t know, so there has to be applied opportunity
• What Apprenti looks like in practice

Resources:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chiefgadd
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/chiefgadd
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiefgadd/
• Learn more about Apprenti: https://apprenticareers.org/

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

Our guests are Angela Hattman, a fabulous Science Teacher at Upper Arlington High School and the fearless teacher who volunteered to help students start a robotics team, and Audrey Strickling, one of the high school students that helped found the UAHS FRC BearBots.

We talked with Andy Bruening and Tyler Hertenstein in episode six about the FIRST robotics program, which provides some context into the broader implications of these programs, but Angela and Audrey help us unbox what it means to not just start a team, but how doing so provides meaningful educational and life experiences for students.

We unbox:

• Why Angela and Audrey decided to start a robotics team
• How starting this team has impacted the entire school’s culture
• The financial implications of starting a robotics program
• The BearBots growing 3x between their first and second years
• How robotics programs help students make decisions, experience the world in new ways, and develop critical career skills
• What robotics students are looking for from their mentors
• Managing parents and parents’ expectations when you are starting a robotics team
• How a new robotics team is like running a new startup business
• What you should do first if you start a robotics team

Resources:

• See the FRC BearBots in action: https://twitter.com/uahsbearbots
• Start a FIRST Robotics Team: https://www.pastfoundation.org/start-a-first-robotics-team

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

Dr. Andy Bruening, Director of Bridge Programs at PAST Foundation, and Tyler Hertenstein, Design Pathway Instructor and Technology Teacher at Metro Early College High School, join us to unbox the role of robotics, design thinking, and engineering in education today.

Both Andy and Tyler have seen first-hand the success of integrating robotics into the classroom and after-school clubs, and what happens when you get really creative with these hands-on opportunities to learn.

We unbox:

• Starting and overseeing the Metrobots, Metro's First Robotics Competition Team
• Why schools should invest in robotics teams
• The difference between being mentor-led and mentor-guided (and why the Metrobots is student-led)
• Why Andy and Tyler view their primary role as coaching soft skills, rather than engineering
• The PAST Foundation’s Center of Robotics Innovation (CORI)
• The time and effort that goes into a robotics team, and why it’s not “just for the nerds”
• Robotics competition is “the sport of the minds”
• Tyler’s college robotics football team would get “smoked” by anything his kids are currently coming up with
• Changing the dynamic of who’s participating in robotics
• How teachers and students who have an interest in robotics can spearhead programs like these in their own schools
• Why these programs needs good mentors that stick around, and those mentors don’t need to be engineers

Resources:

• Check out the Metrobots in action: https://www.3324metrobots.org/
• Learn more about PAST’s Bridge Programs: https://www.pastfoundation.org/bridge-programs
• Start A FIRST Robotics Team: https://www.pastfoundation.org/start-a-first-robotics-team
• Learn more about Metro: https://www.themetroschool.org/
• Connect with Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-bruening-6925049b/
• Connect with Tyler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-hertenstein/

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio

Alex Bandar is the founder and Chief Mischief-Maker at the Columbus Idea Foundry. An engineer by training and serial entrepreneur by practice, Alex is the kind of guy who likes to roll up his sleeves and solve problems – and inspire others do the same.

The Idea Foundry is a multifaceted collaborative environment for exploring, learning, making; a makerspace for anyone with passion and an idea. Whether you want to launch a startup or teach a class, create a podcast or learn a new skill, collaborate on an idea or get into some mischief, it’s the ideal place to make things happen in a 21st century world.

We unbox:

• The next generation of teaching and learning
• What is work in the 21st century?
• Tricking kids to learn tech through hands-on, functional artistic projects
• Becoming a center for creative and techy adults
• What innovation means in a world where sci-fi is becoming reality
• Columbus is a startup town – and a 21st century version of Renaissance Florence Italy
• Why the Columbus Idea Foundry works
• The role of makerspaces in a traditional education setting
• Why does a community need a culture of creation?
• What employers and industries want from today’s young learners

Resources:

• Learn more at https://ideafoundry.com/
• IF on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ideafoundrycolumbus/
• IF on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IdeaFoundryColumbus/
• IF on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/columbus-idea-foundry/
• IF on Twitter: https://twitter.com/IdeaFoundryCbus
• Alex on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexander.bandar
• Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbandar/

Learning Unboxed is produced in part by Crate Media

Recorded by Eric French at WOSU Studios in Columbus, Ohio