How do we shift the role of teachers from passive curriculum implementers to active classroom architects?

This week on Trending in Ed, host Mike Palmer is joined by K-12 math teacher and author Jim Gaona Ellis on the day his new book drops: Educators as Designers: The Hidden Architecture of Learning. Drawing from his unique background transitioning from an architecture student to a global educator across Phoenix, Madrid, and Vienna, Jim brings a fresh, human-centered lens to Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

We dive deep into the real-world application of design thinking in the classroom, moving past rigid checklists to focus heavily on the actual problems students face.

Key Insights:

Deconstructing "Hostile Design" in Schools: Jim explains how hostile urban architecture (like park benches built to deter the unhoused) mirrors common school punishments—such as stripping away a student's lunch period for missing homework. We discuss how these reactions merely mask symptoms rather than addressing root causes like student confusion or forgetfulness.

High-Tech vs. No-Tech Classroom Tools: We look at how Jim pairs digital platforms like Desmos to illustrate the immense scale of scientific notation with his absolute favorite tool: a massive, double-page whiteboard that fosters democratic, collaborative learning.

AI and the "Illusion of Learning": Recording in 2026, we tackle the double-edged sword of the AI revolution. Jim envisions a massive upside where backend AI instantly identifies learning differences like dyslexia and dynamically adjusts workloads on a slider scale. However, we weigh this against the front-end risk of cognitive offloading, which can rob students of critical thinking and create a false sense of academic progress.

Rejecting "Solution Salesmanship": Rather than treating educators as a passive market for pre-packaged tech tools, we advocate for an industry-wide return to respecting teachers as creative thought partners who co-design learning experiences directly with their students.

Embracing the Constraints: From navigating shifting cultural norms to managing the industrial "cells and bells" physical structure of school buildings, Jim shares how treating systemic limitations as design puzzles is the ultimate key to teacher longevity and instructional growth.

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction and welcoming Jim Gaona Ellis

01:30 - Jim's global journey: Transitioning from architecture to teaching in Phoenix, Madrid, and Vienna

03:30 - What inspired the book and expanding on traditional UDL frameworks

06:30 - Understanding "hostile design" in urban spaces and its parallels in modern classrooms

11:00 - The state of AI in 2026: Automatic backend accommodations vs. the front-end "illusion of learning"

16:30 - Moving past educational "solution salesmanship" to truly respect and empower teachers

20:00 - Classrooms in action: Visualizing data with Desmos vs. the democratic power of whiteboards

22:30 - Overcoming the industrial "cells and bells" model through thoughtful classroom experimentation

30:30 - Final takeaways: How to embrace systemic constraints as a learning designer

In this milestone 750th episode of Trending in Education, host Mike Palmer takes the podcast on the road to the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) for the Next Level Lab Spring Learning Summit. Centered on the future of work, workforce learning, and instructional design, this episode features a dynamic series of conversations with emerging researchers and educational innovators who are reimagining how humans learn, lead, and thrive alongside advancing technology. Mike kicks off the celebration by reflecting on the podcast’s 750-episode journey, giving a nod to the community, and sharing updates on his latest media projects before diving into a packed poster session at the summit. The episode features five insightful interviews that bridge the gap between human capability and technological innovation.

Ruiz Clark from Digital Promise shares his research on the Digital Leadership Convergence Model. He outlines a strategic project working with a large California school district to establish a vision for AI literacy, explaining why educational systems must look past basic technical literacy to completely rethink the purpose of education in an automated world.

Palak Chandak and Archana Chaudhary discuss their framework for Humanics Integrated Business Studies (HIBS). They detail an innovative curriculum designed to cultivate durable skills, like communication and critical thinking, highlighting a real-world pilot project that embedded business students within coastal surf schools in India to solve community-driven challenges.

Chilean entrepreneur Felipe Vergara Iduya introduces Hestia, an AI-supported framework designed to capture unstructured community evidence—such as peer relationships, behavior patterns, and school climate data—to foster system-level wellbeing within school ecosystems.

Beth Sapire examines the intersection of learning and healing. Drawing on adult development theories and constructive developmental psychology, she outlines the systemic conditions necessary for expansive, collective learning within complex organizations.

Finally, Sean Snyder and Bill Wisser from the HGSE Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL) break down their design and development process. They discuss the creation of a university-wide data fluency initiative for Harvard staff and explain how they utilized AI voice generation and animation tools to optimize course assets for the Data-Wise Learning Institute.

Show References:

Running It Back Podcast: Mike's Lessons Learned From Sports podcast with Tarlin Ray.

⁠Palm Court Pod:⁠ Mike's New College of Florida podcast with Grant Balfour and Megan Citron. Here's the John Oliver piece chronicling the challenges faced by Mike's alma mater.

New College Film Project: Learn more about the documentary First They Came For My College directed by Harry Hanbury at newcollegefilm.com.

The Convergence Model: Download the paper and view the poster framework developed by Ruiz Clark at theconvergencemodel.com.

HGSE Teaching and Learning Lab: Explore the resources, course design support, and institutional projects mentioned by Sean and Bill at tll.gse.harvard.edu.

Innovation-ish: Read up on the book by summit host Tessa Forshaw and co-author Rich Braden, a frequent touchstone on the podcast regarding creative confidence.

ElevenLabs: Explore the AI voice generation platform utilized by the TLL team to streamline production logistics for simulated learning environments.

Adobe Character Animator: Discover the performance-based animation software used to bring the TLL team's simulated teaching avatars to life.

Timestamps:

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Big changes are coming to Trending in Ed. Next Tuesday, June 9th, we are hitting a historic milestone: Episode 750. To celebrate our upcoming 10th-anniversary season, we are completely reinventing the show's structure for a massive Summer 2026 Sprint.

We are officially launching four dedicated summer tracks to follow the changing talent and learning landscape:

K-12 Classroom Design

AI & EdTech

The Future of Work

The Future of Higher Ed

We have a powerhouse lineage of global experts, McKinsey-level operators, and national bestselling authors dropping all summer long—including folks like Arun Gupta, Beth Rudden, Jim Gaona Ellis, and Dr. Özgür Bolat.

The sprint officially starts next Tuesday, June 9th, with an immersive, roving-report field documentary straight from the floor of the Harvard Next Level Lab Learning Summit in Cambridge.

Core interviews drop every single Tuesday morning. Make sure you are subscribed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss a single drop.

Trending in Ed dropping like its HOT all Summer long!

Commencement season is here, and while we all love the tradition, let’s be honest: a lot of graduation ceremonies are still operationally stuck in the 18th century. This week, Chase Rigby, CEO of Tassel, joins Mike Palmer to talk about what it actually takes to modernize the final milestone of the student lifecycle. Chase shares his path from teaching seventh-grade math and science with Teach For America to working as a product manager at Google, before ultimately using a search fund model to acquire Marching Order and evolve it into Tassel.

We dig into why forward-thinking colleges are moving away from treating graduation as just a logistical headache and starting to view it as a strategic marketing and recruitment engine. Chase explains how Tassel is trying to upend the traditional business model by moving away from nickel-and-diming students with steep fees for their own achievement, and instead leveraging community gifting platforms that put money back in their pockets for rent or student debt. We also get into the tech side of things, discussing how they train AI models on a 20-year phonetic database to get broadcast-quality name pronunciations on stage, all while navigating the strict landscape of biometric privacy and user consent. It turns out getting that final touchpoint right pays massive dividends for lifelong alumni relations.

Episode Timestamps:

00:00 - Chase's journey from Teach For America to product management at Google.

03:00 - Running a search fund and finding the graduation space with Marching Order.

05:30 - Shifting mindsets: Treating commencement as a strategic marketing and alumni recruitment tool.

09:00 - Turning graduation into a net-positive financial event for students via gifting.

12:30 - Blending digital software with real life to provide free graduation photos.

18:30 - How Tassel uses a 20-year phonetic database and AI to nail name pronunciation on stage.

21:30 - Tackling biometric privacy, user consent, and BIPA compliance.

28:30 - Scaling campus software point solutions and trends in the lower middle market.

32:30 - Final takeaways, looking out for Tassel at upcoming ceremonies, and closing shots.

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In this episode of Trending in Education, host Mike Palmer welcomes Erika Kitzmiller, a research associate professor at the University of Chicago and author of the new book, Unchartered: How One Public High School Transformed First Generation College Success. Drawing on her own background as a former middle school teacher and a proud first-generation college graduate, Kitzmiller shares the insights gained from an intensive, multi-year case study of a public high school pseudonymously named Clayton.

While the school boasted a near-100 percent college acceptance rate, only half of its alumni were successfully graduating from college. To address this gap, Kitzmiller and Clayton’s principal designed a unique practice-to-research partnership that centered student voices, incorporated alumni interviews, and directly empowered youth agency. The conversation explores pragmatic, on-the-ground structural changes implemented at Clayton that did not require massive budgets or flashy technology.

Kitzmiller discusses how the school expanded elective choices, created a dedicated senior college seminar embedded directly into the school day, and shifted student supports from an opt-in model to an opt-out expectation. The duo also notes the tangible benefits of Advanced Placement classes, which allowed students from low-income backgrounds to gain academic confidence and bypass large university introductory courses that frequently act as academic hurdles.

Beyond policy shifts, Kitzmiller highlights the vital role of building trust over long horizons and honoring the human stories of public school educators through detailed teacher portraits. This episode offers a grounded perspective on how K-12 institutions can actively prepare first-generation students for post-secondary endurance.

Timestamps:

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Cheryl Strauss Einhorn joins Mike Palmer to discuss her latest book, The Human Edge: Smarter Decisions in the Age of AI. As the founder of Decisive and a former investigative journalist for Barron's, Cheryl brings a unique perspective to the world of problem solving. Her career shift from reporting on corporate scandals to teaching at Columbia University stems from a desire to move beyond simple awareness of cognitive biases and toward a system that actively counters them.

The conversation centers on the AREA method, a decision making framework designed to manage the mental shortcuts that often lead us astray. Cheryl explains how her method separates research into distinct phases: Absolute, Relative, Exploration, Exploitation, and Analysis. By slowing down to evaluate information from multiple perspectives, decision makers can gain the conviction needed to act in high stakes environments.

The Human Edge focuses specifically on how humans can remain the chief deciders while using AI as a cognitive sidecar. Cheryl notes that while AI provides speed and vast amounts of data, it lacks personal context and an understanding of human consequences. She warns against AI sycophancy, where tools mirror our own preferences back to us and narrow our worldview. To combat this, she introduces the concept of the cheetah pause, a deliberate deceleration that allows for the agility and maneuverability required to navigate complex problems.

Mike and Cheryl also explore the role of AI in education and the workplace. They discuss using AI for perspective taking through role play, conducting pre-mortems to identify potential failures, and the importance of teaching decision science as a core competency in schools. The episode concludes with a reminder that our decisions define our future, and maintaining human agency is essential as we integrate powerful new technologies into our lives.

Time Stamps:

00:00 - Introduction and professional origin story

Links:

The Human Edge: Smarter Decisions in the Age of AI: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Edge-Smarter-Decisions-Age/dp/1119931313

Decisive: https://www.areamethod.com/

Problem-Solver Type Quiz: https://www.areamethod.com/quiz/

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Host Mike Palmer welcomes Kenan Sahin, the Founder and President of CAMX Power and author of American Educational Excellence: The Foundation of Our Values, Democracy, and Market Capitalism, to the podcast. We explore his educational roots as a product of California public schools and early career as an MIT professor, as well as his time leading Bell Labs as a Vice President of Technology. Kenan shares the story of the catalyst for his book, which began when he challenged an expert in the Hague who could not find enough bad words for the American system. He compares US-trained engineers to those from Europe, arguing that our system excels because it prioritizes what students do with their knowledge rather than just the depth of what they know.

The conversation then shifts to examine the fundamental values that define Americans as change-oriented societal rebels who cherish independence and choice. Kenan traces the origins of American educational excellence back to 1636 and the founding of Harvard College, as well as the 1647 law requiring towns to fund schools to protect children from being tempted by Satan. He contrasts our decentralized, coordinated network of thousands of local school districts and private colleges with centralized, state-controlled models like that of France. He also addresses the resilience of the university business model, noting that while major corporations often last only twenty years, many universities endure for centuries.

We then tackle modern challenges like rising tuition costs and look at how technology and AI are shifting the focus of learning away from facts and knowledge toward the art of asking the right questions. Kenan notes new MIT initiatives designed to train thousands of engineers at a lower cost and the role of technology in supporting special education teachers. We end with the insight that excellence requires daily improvement and that despite critiques, our system remains a global leader by preparing students for democracy and market capitalism.

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Timestamps

Kumar Garg, President of Renaissance Philanthropy, rejoins host Mike Palmer for his third appearance on Trending in Ed, earning his highly coveted refrigerator magnet. Kumar discusses RenPhil's growth and its mission to help donors invest effectively in science and technology research areas like AI, climate, and education.

Big If True:

The conversation explores the concept of "Big If True" and the Big If True Science (BITS) accelerator. This framework focuses on transformative ideas that can have a tangible impact on a field within a three to five-year timeline. Rather than funding incremental research, BITS encourages researchers to identify the biggest goals that would make a real difference in the world if achieved.

LEVI Literacy Initiative:

A major focus of the episode is the Learning Engineering Virtual Institute (LEVI) Literacy Initiative. This $100 million program aims to cut the number of struggling early readers in half within the school districts where it operates. Kumar explains how improved AI diagnostics can identify speech impediments and learning disabilities much earlier than current methods, allowing for intervention before students fall behind in the third grade.

A key technical challenge involves improving Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) for children. Current models are significantly less accurate for younger voices and noisy classrooms compared to adult speech. By building better datasets and benchmarks, researchers can create AI tools that serve as screeners to help speech pathologists and educators provide more tailored services early on, to ensure kids are on track by key 3rd grade literacy milestones.

Learning Engineering:

The episode also covers learning engineering, a field that treats the act of instruction as a systems-level challenge. Kumar highlights the dynamic dosing model from Carnegie Mellon, which combines human tutoring with digital AI tools to provide personalized learning. This hybrid approach allows students to advance at their own pace while keeping a human instructor available to manage motivation and technical hurdles.

Time Stamps:

00:00 Welcome back to Kumar Garg and the refrigerator magnet 03:55 The Big If True Science accelerator framework 05:48 Launching the LEVI Literacy Initiative to help early readers 08:18 Fixing the speech recognition gap for young children 14:48 Applying learning engineering to system-level breakthroughs 22:15 Safety as an accelerant for technological innovation 30:23 Dynamic dosing and the future of human and AI tutoring

Subscribe to Trending in Ed on your favorite podcast platform to stay updated on the future of learning. Visit Renaissance Philanthropy at renphil.org to learn more about their newly launched LEVI Literacy Fund and other initiatives.

In this special edition of Trending in Education, former colleagues reunite as Mike Palmer interviews Lorin Thomas-Tavel, the CEO of BrainPOP. We explore the evolution of a major brand in EdTech and discuss how it continues to simplify complex topics for students and teachers alike.

We dive into the 27-year history of BrainPOP, which began when a doctor created animated content to help young patients understand their own bodies. Today, the platform serves as a trusted companion for teachers in K-8 classrooms, focusing on sense-making during complicated times. We discuss the unique parasocial bond children and adults share with iconic characters like Tim and Moby, and why human-led storytelling continues to power the magic of the product.

We also celebrate AI Literacy Day by talking about BrainPOP’s work on AI literacy. Lorin explains how they partnered with Digital Promise to adopt a rigorous framework that focuses on understanding, evaluating, and using AI. We discuss why AI is an additive tool rather than a replacement for the human teacher in the classroom.

The conversation touches on BrainPOP’s partnership with Kirkbi, the private holding and investment arm of LEGO, and how this collaboration energizes their mission of digital play and impact. Lorin also shares leadership insights on "even over" prioritization, the 10x power of cultural fit, and her recognition as an honoree with the Power of Women at the ASU+GSV conference.

Time Stamps:

00:00: Intro and a Kaplan Reunion 03:00: The History and Mission of BrainPOP 04:45: Character Pedagogy and the Power of Moby 08:50: Launching the AI Literacy Collection with Digital Promise 13:45: The Lego Partnership and Digital Play 16:45: Integrating AI While Maximizing the Human Element 19:45: ASU+GSV and the Power of Women Recognition 21:40: Career Advice on Mentorship and the Courage to Ask 23:45: Building Culture and Using Even Overs for Focus 28:30: Final Takeaways on Curiosity and Community

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LIVE! from the Harbor Terrace at ASU+GSV 2026 in San Diego, Mike Palmer sits down with Victoria Weinfeld, Vice President of Enrollment, Marketing, and Sales at Edconic. In this fast-paced environment of "drinking from a fire hose," Victoria shares the evolution of Edconic (formerly known as BrandED) and its unique mission to bridge the gap between traditional education and the future of work.

Edconic specializes in creating industry-immersive programs alongside some of the world’s most recognizable brands, including Vogue, The New York Times, Sotheby’s, Manchester City, and their newest partner, Mayo Clinic. Victoria explains how these partnerships go beyond simple guest lectures; they involve co-designing curriculum with practitioners to ensure students gain the hands-on, practical skills that employers frequently find lacking in early-career workers . Whether it’s high school students touring the New York Times newsroom or master’s students graduating at a Sotheby’s auction house, the focus remains on experiential learning and building a tangible work-product portfolio . 🎓

The conversation also dives into the dominant themes of the 2026 conference, specifically the Power of Fusion and the unavoidable influence of AI. Victoria highlights how Edconic’s partners are now demanding AI exposure in curriculum to prepare students for day-one workplace expectations. We explore the strategic growth of Edconic’s portfolio and the potential for "white labeling" their expertise to help more organizations translate their brands into educational experiences. It’s a visionary look at how education and industry can deeply tie together to foster the next generation of talent 🚀.

Want more? Check out Edconic CEO Brandon Busteed's previous appearance on Trending in Ed.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow, like, and subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts!

Timestamps

00:00 - Introduction live from ASU+GSV in San Diego 01:54 - Victoria Weinfeld’s 10-year journey and the rebranding of Edconic 02:58 - Defining the Edconic model: Industry-immersive learning with iconic brands 03:52 - Highlighting powerhouse partners: Vogue, NYT, Mayo Clinic, and more 04:31 - Serving the learner lifecycle from pre-college to professionals 05:39 - The logistics of in-person, experiential access to industry facilities 06:55 - Bridging the "unprepared worker" gap and integrating AI exposure 08:52 - Strategic growth and deepening the existing brand portfolio 11:37 - The "Special Sauce": Co-designing curriculum with practitioners 14:14 - Advice for K-12 and Higher Ed on building closer industry ties 17:34 - The value of rotational "taster" experiences and portfolio building 19:12 - Alumni success stories: From summer courses to the Washington Post 20:46 - Exploring future models and "white label" educational services 21:55 - Final takeaways: AI, Fusion, and workforce development themes