Human Restoration Project

Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing.In this interactive discussion, we will discuss what teaching is like during the COVID-19 crisis.Participants will be posed with these questions, but the conversation will take us on a journey of its own: Commiserate: What’s going on? How has the response to the COVID-19 crisis impacted you and your school? Collaborate: What can we learn from your response to the crisis to do right by our kids and our communities? Community: How are you going to balance connectivity and social isolation?

Today we're covering COVID-19 and how it impacts the education system. Depending on when you're listening to this podcast, you're likely facing your school's physical environment shut down, or soon to be doing so. In Ohio, all schools are now expected to have at least three weeks out starting on Tuesday - and schools are frantically trying to prepare how they'll tackle this shift.Most districts across the United States are continuing the expectation of academic coursework across this disruption - and we have no idea how long it will last. Most teachers do not have formal training in adapting their class to a virtual environment, nor does everyone have even close to a 1:1 environment. This episode will assume that educators are dealing with a virtual shift, and looking for a place to start, further resources will be posted in the show notes concerning paper-based methods.GUESTSJesse Stommel, a leading expert on digital critical pedagogy, hybrid pedagogy, and assessment. He is the Digital Learning Fellow and Senior Lecturer of Digital Studies at University of Mary Washington. Further, Jesse is the co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy, and a documentary filmmaker.RESOURCES Jesse Stommel’s Website Kajeet - an affordable hotspot that uses mobile data (for students lacking access  “Friggin’ Packets” Blog and Podcast from Cult of Pedagogy - for ideas on alternatives to masses of papers UNICEF - Learning Through Play - for ways to introduce play-based learning to the home, primarily aimed at younger studentsFURTHER LISTENING Edsurge: Bonus Episode: Coronavirus Has Led to a Rush of Online Teaching. How Can Professors Manage?

Today we are joined by two fantastic educators. First, I will be speaking with Peter Verdin, who is a "movement engineer" at Future Public School in Garden City, Idaho, which is a tuition free, progressively minded lottery-based school. Essentially, Peter is redoing the way we look at physical education with elementary students, and designing curriculum as these students grow older and the school expands.Then, we have Bruce Mansfield, is an instructional coach in the Bellingham School District in Bellingham, Washington. Bruce has operated a gradeless system in a traditional environment, and showcases the structure of his course, as well as how he has used portfolios and student letters to obtain evidence of learning. It's a great look at how we can spread the practice of gradeless learning to even more educators.GUESTSPeter Verdin, the Movement Engineer at Future Public School in Garden City, Idaho, who incorporates place-based and environmentally-focused learning into physical education; host of The Other Literacies; founder of Movement Engineering Project.Bruce Mansfield, an instructional coach in the Bellingham School District in Bellingham, Washington; former US history teacher of 14 years; a pusher for radical change in assessment via portfolio and student letters.RESOURCES The Other Literacies podcast Bruce Mansfield’s course materialsFURTHER LISTENING S3: E12: Making the Switch to Ungrading (feat. Abigail French, Dr. Susan Blum, and Dr. Laura Gibbs) S3: E4 - Innovation in Progressive Education feat. Bennett Jester, Ted Fujimoto, Deanna Hess, & Sophie Fenton

Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing.Dr. Jennifer Williams, is the co-founder and executive director of Take Action Global, co-founder of TeachSDGs, professor at Saint Leo University in the College of Education and Graduate Education, and author of Teach Boldly.In this interactive discussion, we will discuss connecting the UN Sustainable Development Goals to authentic projects in the classroom.Participants will be posed with these questions, but the conversation will take us on a journey of its own: How does one become inspired to start a SDG-related project? How can we incorporate student inspiration and voice to the planning process? What components work well in SDG-related projects? What tools, websites, or objectives are there? How can we take projects into the community to make meaningful, authentic change for the world?Please see the attached Google Document for all the notes from this conversation, as well as a variety of external links.

In this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Yong Zhao, the Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education. Dr. Zhao and I talk about building a movement that ends standardized testing in the United States and how to build classrooms that invoke a student's innate desire to learn. Perhaps the grueling, “rigorous” standardized testing system is actually harming students, not helping? Most teachers seem to understand this, and a recent analysis by Harvard University seems to confirm it.Dr. Zhao has written and spoken extensively on how testing and test scores harm students. And he’s done the research and work to back up everything he states. It’s up to teachers - those in the field - to actually make change in this endeavor. There’s a lot we’re up against! It makes all the difference.GUESTSDr. Yong Zhao, the Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas. Zhao was the Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education at University of Oregon, and a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Further, he's served as the founding director of the Confucius Institute and US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence.RESOURCES What Works May Hurt by Zhao Reach for Greatness by Zhao Counting What Counts by Zhao The Courage to Be Creative: An Interview with Dr. Yong Zhao HRP’s Primer for Human-Centric (Progressive) EducationFURTHER LISTENING FreshEd #79: What Works (May) Hurt w/ Dr. Yong Zhao ReImagine Schools: Global Competence with Dr. Yong Zhao

In this podcast, we are joined by Seth Coster, the CEO and game programmer at Butterscotch Shenanigans, who have seen incredibly success on their video and mobile games. Best known for titles Crashlands and Levelhead, Butterscotch Shenanigans was founded by three brothers with no explicit academic background in video game creation. Seth studied to become a Certified Financial Analyst, started a law graduate program, but soon realized he enjoyed the games he created in his free time much more. Brothers Sam, Seth, and Adam Coster also host their own podcast, Coffee with Butterscotch.The reason we invited Seth was because we see an inherent connection between video game design and education, as well as his own story connecting to a lot of our work at the Human Restoration Project. (And it was awesome to have a connection through Nick, who he went to college with.) I actually introduce the concept of learning by doing by showcasing a clip from Indie Game: The Movie, where developers of Super Meat Boy explain that teaching a player to run and jump through a pop up that shows them how to do it, is not nearly as effective as just presenting a large gap and having the player keep trying until they ultimately succeed (see the show notes!)Enjoy this array of topics from game design to grading to chaotic science experiments.GUESTSSeth Coster, the CEO and game programmer at Butterscotch Shenanigans, who have seen incredibly success on their video and mobile games Crashlands and Levelhead.Nick Covington, Creative Director of Human Restoration Project, advocate of equitable gradeless learning and realignment of assessment.RESOURCES Indie Game: The Movie Super Meat Boy Clip Coffee with Butterscotch (Podcast) GDC: Design by Chaos Butterscotch Shenanigans Medium (Chris McNutt): Game Design, Classroom Design, and the Faux Use of GamificationFURTHER LISTENING S3: E2: It All Orbits Purpose feat. Kendall Cotton Bronk, John Cagle, Skylar Primm, and Elizabeth Martin S2 Highlight: Adopting Progressive Ed. w/ Alfie Kohn

In this podcast, we are joined by Brooke Tobia and her two students, Olivia and Avery. Together, they've co-developed and written the book How to Teach Us: A Guide for Teachers Written by Students. Working in a PBL environment, roughly 60 6th grade students between Brooke and her co-teacher researched, wrote, and published this work which is available via Amazon. Within, you'll find slews of information, gathered from interviews with students, that explains how different students learn and effective teaching methods.It can’t be stressed enough how authentically this work demonstrates the power of experiential learning. These students are engaged, motivated, curious, and acting purposefully. They see the power in their work and want to share it. They’re working cooperatively to help each other. And ultimately, they’ve built something together that can have a lasting impact. Maybe this podcast will spawn a wave of collaborative book publishing?GUESTSBrooke Tobia, a 6th grade STEM educator at High Tech Middle North County, who masterfully incorporates experiential learning into her courses. She’s joined by two of her 6th grade students, Olivia and Avery.RESOURCES How to Teach Us: A Guide for Teachers Written by Students Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Student Interview QuestionsFURTHER LISTENING S3: E14: Listen to Students (feat. Ayush Chopra, Cody Lees, & Meghan Kestner) S3: E8: The Inventive Design of Learning Spaces feat. Pam Moran, Tim Fawkes, Ryan Hopkins-Wilcox, & Discovery Lab

Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing.Dr. Susan Engel is a professor of developmental psychology at Williams College, with a focus on curiosity, school reform, and educational research. Her many works include The Hungry Mind: The Origins of Curiosity in Childhood and The End of the Rainbow: How Educating for Happiness, Not Money, Would Transform Our Schools. Further, Dr. Engel is co-founder and educational advisor to the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, NY.In this interactive discussion, we’ll talk the importance of research and dissect how to analyze research results as well as revamping teacher professional development models.*Apologies for the relatively low audio quality. First time we’ve recorded on Jitsi!

This episode is all about the Sustainable Development Goals, with some specific questions surrounding their implementation. If you're not familiar, the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015 and consist of 17 major problems the world aims to solve by 2030. Countries are working in partnership to solve issues such as ending world hunger, establishing gender equality, taking climate action, and reducing inequality. Each of these goals has many organizations working with the indicators - or specific tasks - within each goal.During our panel discussion, we talk about motivating students to reach the SDGs in spite of their gigantic nature, as well as how to implement these ideas in our ever politicized world.GUESTSDr. Jennifer Williams, co-founder and executive director of Take Action Global, co-founder of TeachSDGs, professor at Saint Leo University in the College of Education and Graduate Education, and author of Teach Boldly.Julia Fliss, a language arts educator at Evergreen Middle School in Evergreen, CO and TeachSDGs ambassador.Nick Covington, a social studies educator at Ankeny High School in Ankeny, IO (and Creative Director at Human Restoration Project.)RESOURCES Overview of the SDGs TeachSDGs World’s Largest Lesson Teach Boldly: Using EdTech for Social Good by Dr. Jennifer WilliamsFURTHER LISTENING S3: E14: Listen to Students (feat. Ayush Chopra, Cody Lees, & Meghan Kestner) S3: E7: Writing for Purpose and Advocacy feat. Bryn Orum, J.J. Burry, John Warner, Stephanie Hurt, & Dr. Richard Wilkinson

I’ve always been perplexed by school lunch. It’s sort of taken as a part of school: a fairly bland looking, processed, mess that students deal with during the school day. Michael Moore in Where to Invade Next how ridiculous it was that the United States spends, on average, much more than other countries lunch programs, while not even serving fresh food.It’s not uncommon to view any school’s lunch menu and see the same questionable offerings: chicken nuggets, french toast sticks, chicken sandwiches, hamburgers. And when I saw an ad for a new book, The Labor of Lunch by Jennifer E. Gaddis - I was thrilled to see an in-depth discussion on why school lunch is the way it is. It’s a chronicle of the history, social issues, and modern movement toward lunch reform.Gaddis offers an incredibly detailed work. You can read our “book of the month” review here.GUESTJennifer E. Gaddis, an assistant professor of Civil Society and Community Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Gaddis focuses on a feminist perspective of food politics, with a special focus on school lunch programs.RESOURCES Gaddis’ Book: The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools via the University of California Press (use 19V3712 for 30% off.) Jennifer E. Gaddis’ Website The Chef Ann Foundation Food Corps National Farm to School NetworkFURTHER LISTENING E143, Heritage Radio Network - Eating Matters: The Labor of (School) Lunch E93, Bite: There Is Such Thing as a Free (School) Lunch