Silver Lining for Learning

When COVID-19 forced schools to offer remote learning, access to computing devices and the Internet became a significant issue for many children. Although the digital divide has been talked about before the pandemic, remote learning made it a paramount issue for schools, teachers, and students. Oakland in California took an innovative approach to bring access to devices and Internet connectivity to all students in the city. The story was reported by Javeria Salman of the Hechinger Report in April 2022 (read the story here). In this episode, we have invited the reporter and two guests from the #OaklandUndivided project to reflect on their story. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

Hosts Curt Bonk, Punya Mishra & Yong Zhao gather to reflect on the past five episodes (#108-#111 + Bonus episode) and provide commentary. Tune in to our past episodes!Bonus Episode 05 | Silver Lining for Learning goes to Space Camp!Episode 111 | K-12 Expansion into Higher EducationEpisode 110 | Big Data in Education: The Promise and the PerilEpisode 109 | It’s Time to Scale Up Global Education: A Chat with Laurence PetersEpisode 108 | InnovateHERs: Strategies from Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurial Women  Conversation topics include school closures, George Orwell’s 1984, and types of curiosity. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

K-12 schools, especially those known for their own unique educational philosophies and pedagogies, have been working on preparing their own teachers and spreading their philosophies and pedagogies through their own graduate schools. Recent years have seen a number of K-12 schools developing their own graduate programs that offers masters and doctoral degrees. In this episode, we invited leaders and students from two recently emerged graduate schools to share their experiences. Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education is an expansion from Bridges Academy, a group of K-12 schools that serve twice-exceptional students. High Tech High is a group of schools that have been known for their innovative practices. It has also built a graduate school called High Tech High Graduate School of Education. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

A large amount of learning happens in digital environments that can preserve data about every click, scroll, and touch. These data can support powerful predictions about a learner’s interests, abilities, and actions. What can we do with these data, and what principles should guide our use of data? In this episode, Avriel Epps-Darling, Andrew Ho, and Katina Michael discuss the promise and peril of “big data” in educational contexts. Each will provide examples where these data have helped learners and improved equity, as well as situations where they have caused harm, even with the best of intentions.These ideas have implications for data use in Learning Management Systems, Massive Open Online Courses, and Early Warning Indicator Systems, in contexts including K-12, higher education, and online learning. Panelists will also discuss principles for ethical and equitable use of data in education, including beneficence, transparency, informed consent, privacy, bias detection and bias prevention. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

We have on Laurence Peters (JD, MA), a current teacher at Johns Hopkins, to chat with him about his new book published by Routledge in 2022, Creating the Global Classroom: Approaches to Developing the Next Generation of World Savvy Students. Peters explains how to integrate global education ideas, projects, and perspectives throughout K-12 education and the varied ways in which global education can be understood. He believes global education must be an aspect of everything learners do today; only then can we build up sufficient global awareness in our youth to impact the world in profound and transformative ways. During this session, he provides a roadmap that can be used to overcome the myriad challenges and issues in global education today, including dealing with an already jam-packed curriculum. With this map at the ready, educators will discover a few well marked routes (and some not so well marked) for cultivating global awareness and skills related to perspective taking, empathy, and critical thinking. Whether you are working with primary or secondary students or perhaps in higher education or corporate settings, this session is a must see/view. Given the world conflicts seen during just the past few years, it is evident that thinking globally is no longer a curriculum supplement or “nice to have” feature if time allows; instead, it is an urgent calling because it’s time to act. Think global, act local. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

As a woman, how can you foster an entrepreneurial mindset to succeed in business? How do you take an idea, dream or goal and transform it into a strategy for success in a purpose-driven organization? How can you align your purpose and passion to help you “do well and do good” in your profession? Authors Barbara Kurshan (President at EduCorp, Senior Advisor UPenn) and Kathleen Hurley (ex-IBM, Pearson, ALI Harvard), both experienced and highly regarded business and education leaders, wanted to know how today’s top female leaders might answer these questions. The result is InnovateHERs: Why Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurial Women Rise to the Top.Through 29 personal interviews with today’s top women leading purpose-driven organizations—ranging from startups and nonprofits to large companies across the globe—Kurshan and Hurley have created a unique, insider’s view of what it takes to be a successful female entrepreneurial leader in today’s competitive world. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, corporate leader, or new to business, learning how to leverage your personal entrepreneurial traits and skills and develop an entrepreneurial mindset is key to accelerating your purpose-driven journey. For men, understanding the mindset of entrepreneurial women will help them be better leaders and mentors. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

Hosts Curt Bonk, Punya Mishra & Yong Zhao gather to reflect on the past nine episodes (#98-#106) and provide commentary. Tune in to our past episodes!Episode 106 | Global Eyes on Global Ed: Transforming Learning through Cross Cultural Project-Based LearningEpisode 105 | QualityMatters.org on Quality MattersEpisode 104 | Meaningful and Active Learning through Technology-Expanded Classrooms and Intense Global CollaborationEpisode 103 | Don’t Just be Savvy, be World Savvy!Episode 102 | Strategies for Scaling to Achieve Educational ImpactEpisode 101 | Back to the future – with guests from past 100 episodesEpisode 100 | Special Episode Celebration with surprise guestsEpisode 99 | Mechanisms for Achieving Educational VisionsEpisode 98 | Authentic Project-based Learning in Science (Urban Farms & Tyre Gardens as Mindtools)Conversation topics include a grass-roots bottom-up approach, journey of the podcast thus far, research statistics, and innovation in the education space. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

This episode of Silver Lining for Learning will highlight global education projects and approaches designed and sponsored by the Centre for Global Education (CGE) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In the show, we hear from two teachers in South America as well as Terry Godwaldt, the director of the CGE in Canada, and get their views on how to effectively foster collaborative projects and experiences meant to empower youth around the world to become digitally savvy, caring, and committed global citizens. Using online technology, the goal or mission of those involved in CGE is to connect young people to each other so that they can engage in meaningful projects across Canada and the world that address vital social, cultural, and environmental issues. Started in 2008, the CGE has involved more than 400 different schools from dozens of countries in hundreds of activities and synchronous videoconferencing exchanges. Tune in to learn how to engage students in interdisciplinary, project-based activities in globally significant issues that involve both synchronous and asynchronous exchanges (e.g., discussion boards, writing blogs, global project galleries, project management, etc.). You too can start fostering mutual knowledge and understanding across regions of the world and diverse cultures and languages. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

What are the changes we have noticed, the challenges, and opportunities, globally, for both HE and K-12 education to improve and ensure quality in digital education? When the pandemic arose, the world was impacted, and education delivery for the majority of the world pivoted to online environments – a place where Quality Matters (QM) has worked for the last 15 years to improve the quality of online education and student learning.Our education is undergoing a dramatic shift or transformation. According to a November 2020 study by the World Economic Forum, only 29% of adults globally expect higher education to be delivered primarily in-person, while around half 49% foresee a split between online and in-person, and 23% expect it to be primarily online. In response, educators, parents, politicians, and students yearn for any news about the quality of these “new” online and blended environments. Attend this session and hear sage advice for how institutions and organizations (and individuals too) can improve the quality of online and blended learning. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org 

This session is focused on attracting students’ interest and engagement in inquiry, meaningful learning, global education, and cross-cultural projects. Broadening students’ world vision as well as strengthening their knowledge about different cultures is critical to teaching in the 21st century. Knowing how to break down barriers between students from different learning backgrounds and cultures is of particular importance today. This session of Silver Lining for Learning will highlight how three award winning Fulbright teachers have done just that. Additionally, they have all authored chapters in the recent book of 41 short stories edited by Curt Bonk and Meina Zhu, “Transformative Teaching Around the World: Stories of Cultural Impact, Technology Integration, and Innovative,” published by Routledge. Tune in to hear about their exciting journeys into transformative teaching around the world. Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org