Seek Learning: Recent Episodes
BYU Latter-day Saint Educators Society
The Seek Learning podcast brings the best educational research from the McKay School of Education at Brigham Young University into the homes and lives of Latter-day Saints. Each episode features an interview with a different scholar to learn about education and how it can help Latter-day Saints in their professions, homes, and gospel living. The podcast is sponsored by the BYU Latter-day Saint Educators Society.
Heather Leary, PhD
Associate Professor, Instructional Psychology & Technology, Brigham Young University
"They're really growing in their profession, meeting other people, asking good questions of each other, and figuring out how they can just be better teachers overall. And not just with these few lessons that they're creating."
Keith Leatham, PhD
Department Chair, Math Education, Brigham Young University"If a teacher can recognize an opportunity to create a productive whole class discussion… then that class discussion is directly accomplishing some of their learning goals."
Todd R. Pennington, PhD
Associate Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University
"Physical education teachers tend to be isolated because they work down in the gym. And a lot of times some have a planning period, some may not. And so other than faculty meeting they may not, based on proximity, have a lot of interaction....So I tell them, that you've got to be proactive, you've got to make extra efforts to interact with colleagues across content and across the school. "
Tyson G. Harmon, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Communications Disorders, Brigham Young University"If there's a listener who has a loved one with aphasia, who's really struggling to know how to support them, that's okay. And that's normal for this to be hard."
Spencer Weiler, PhD
Associate Professor, Educational Leadership & Foundations, Brigham Young University
"Parents can become consumers of research and, allow that research to really influence their role as advocates for their local schools and and public education in general"
Terisa Gabrielsen, PhD
Associate Professor, Counseling Psychology and Special Education , Brigham Young University"This person in front of you is not a problem. They're a child of God. And their future is in your hands."Dr. Gabrielsen would like to thank and acknowledge her colleagues in the BYU research she discussed, Drs. Rebecca Lundwall, Beth Cutrer, Jonathan Beck and Mikle South. She is also grateful for her co-authors on the book, Drs. Kawena Begay, Kathleen Campbell, Kate Hahn, and Lucas Harrington.
Barbara Culatta, PhD
Professor Emerita, Brigham Young University
Director, Project SEEL
SEEL website: https://education.byu.edu/seel
“Kids who are playing are learning. The positive emotion activates perception, attention, and memory - all cognitive processes that are necessary for learning.”
Russell T. Osguthorpe, PhD - Retired professor, Instructional Psychology and Technology, and administrator, Brigham Young University; former mission president, area seventy, and Sunday School General President for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “The Lord is helping us understand that learning is not a side interest. Learning is not something that we kind of include in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's central. How can we develop as a people if we do not learn? It is right in the middle of everything.”
Associate Dean, “They are more than their disability. They are people who love outer space, who love birds, who love dancing and pretty clothes. They are human beings who happen to have disabilities.”
Ryan Nixon, PhD
Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University
"Before you use Pinterest, think in advance about what it is you want your kids to learn and what you want them to be thinking about...If you don't have a decent idea of what your instructional goal is, there's a ton of stuff on Pinterest, and you can scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll. It's much more likely for you to be sucked into that if you don't really know what you're looking for, if you don't know what your goal is."
Paul Ricks, PhD
Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University
“Books can be mirrors for us where they reflect our own experience. They can be windows, where I can see through them and start to understand somebody else. But they can also be sliding glass doors, where I can walk into this world that is unlike mine, and actually live in it. To me, that’s the great potential of the written word.”
Ellie Young, PhD
Professor, Counseling Psychology and Special Education, Brigham Young University"We may need to move beyond what we traditionally have done and look at how is this working. Could school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists come together in different ways to support administrators and teachers?"
Sarah Clark , PhD
Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University"What I wish I could do is talk to them from their child's birth, instilling the desire to read and to engage with them. Not the skills, not to read a certain amount, but to read with wonder. To show or talk with them about books that you're reading, even though they're not at the level of the child. Get them to see you read."
David Boren, PhD
Assistant Clinical Professor, Education Leadership & Foundations, Brigham Young University"I realized, these are God's children in this class, these 25 to 30 kiddos. And their unique situations and challenges...they were His long before they were mine. And He cares deeply about them. So I will partner with Him, and rely on Him."
Royce Kimmons, PhD
Associate Professor, Instructional Psychology and Technology, Brigham Young University"This idea of continuous improvement means when we create a resource, we don't just publish it once and then walk away. But rather, we view these materials as dynamic and living things that should be constantly updated and constantly improved."
Bryant Jensen, PhD
Associate Professor, Teacher Education and Educational Inquiry, Measurement, and Evaluation, Brigham Young University“Encouraging students to respond to one another’s ideas and allowing unsolicited questions; these are the sorts of things that teachers can do to have conversations that are more connected.”
David Waddell, MA
Director, Office of Experiential Learning, Brigham Young University"That's one of the problems with the way we teach. We teach a subject. We don't teach how to view the world, or to affect the world, or to solve problems in the world, through a subject. And that's the beauty of experiential learning."
Damon L. Bahr, EdD
Associate Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University"The Supreme Court said in 1962, we can't teach about God in America's public schools. But they didn't say we couldn't teach in God's way. When we're teaching in His way, the lives of people change, whether they're a nine-year-old or a five-year-old in kindergarten. It's amazing to watch children's lives change or adults lives change when we teach in His way."
Liz Darger, MS
Senior Associate Athletic Director, Brigham Young University"When I am really having deep dialogue about about important matters, where I may have a different perspective, if there's a bedrock relationship there of trust and respect, then we are able to share more of what we believe."
**Juan Freire, PhD
Assistant Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University**"We value multilingualism, but we need to place the same emphasis for language minority communities. We want everybody to learn to be multilingual, but we don't want the multilingualism to be removed from multilingual communities and be somehow stolen, if you will, by language majority communities."
**David Barney, EdD
Associate Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University**"The research is showing that when kids are physically active, when they get back into the class they're better readers, they're better at math, they're better behaved."
Richard West, PhD
Associate professor, Instructional Psychology & Technology, Brigham Young University
“At the core learning is learning, so whether you get a degree, or whether you get a diploma, or whether you get a micro-credential, I don’t know if that changes—too much—who you are.”
Cally Flox, MEd
**Director BYU Arts Partnership, Brigham Young University
"**Our opportunity is to help children find their own voice. And when they find their own voice through the arts, then we want to give them enough information so they have something meaningful to say. Then we want to give them enough skills so they can say it in a beautiful and effective way."
Timothy Smith, PhD
Professor, Counseling Psychology and Special Education, Brigham Young University
"As much as we'd like to believe that it's all about doing what we can individually, we actually need to look at contexts and relationships. And where faith comes in, is the recognition that we are all interdependent. The very assertion that we can do it ourselves is actually against the notion of faith."
Ryan Kellems, PhD
Associate Professor, Counseling Psychology and Special Education, Brigham Young University“I think it’s just a matter of looking at and knowing the child—whether you’re a parent, whether you’re a grandparent, or an educator—and really taking the time to find out what (that) child’s strengths are. How do we build upon those strengths to give them a meaningful life?”
Gary Seastrand, PhD
Associate Clinical Professor, Center for the Improvement of Teacher Education and Schooling"One of our basic principles is the notion that we prepare young people to become future citizens in our community, and state nation, and...they learn how to share or how to respect each other or how to take responsibility for their own behavior."
Donald Baum, PhD
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership and Foundations, Brigham Young University
“When we're talking about (early childhood) education, it's not just the academic, it's not just the cognitive learning that's taking place….One of the key priorities is that students are developing social skills, they're developing emotionally in ways that we would like them to. That requires a lot of interaction with other students.”
Charles Graham, PhD
Professor, Instructional Psychology & Technology, Brigham Young University
“The new normal is going to be a blended environment where teachers, and schools, and parents, have a toolbox that includes in-person learning options, as well as online learning options, and sometimes a mix of the two. . . .If teachers and parents are not trained, and don't have some understanding of how to make the online learning space effective, it's not going to be as effective.”
Peter Chan, PhD
Adjunct Professor, Instructional Psychology & Technology, Brigham Young University
“Before I joined the Church, I was a very bad student. I didn't study. I wasn't interested in schooling. . . .But then I joined the church, and that totally changed me. . . .From a near school dropout, to today. I have lectured in many places, international conferences, and even some prestigious universities. If I go back to my high school [in China], and tell my teachers what I'm doing now, I don't think they will believe it.”
Rachel Wadham, MA
Education and Juvenile Collections Librarian, Senior Librarian, Brigham Young University
“I truly believe that children's literature, and particularly children's fiction, and all of that type of thing that encompasses story, is really important to an educational experience. . . . If we all think about how we learn and how we learn best, we can connect that to story.”
A. LeGrand “Buddy” Richards, PhD
Associate Professor, Educational Leadership and Foundations, Brigham Young University
“I think he would probably talk to [today’s] teachers and say, ‘Don't be so wrapped up in the world's way of doing things...keep your perspective right. You've got the promises of eternity.”
Jason McDonald, PhD
Associate Teaching Professor, Instructional Psychology and Technology, Brigham Young University
“There are a lot of problems that we can address through creative habits and creative dispositions, but ultimately, we have a heritage, I think, as children of a very creative God. And there is something that unlocks inside of us when we exercise that creativity.”
Corinna Peterken, PhD
Assistant Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University
“As a teacher of young children, I can use the arts to add depth to their inquiries and explorations. And I can also see and assess more fully what they know and learn together.”
Casey Paul Griffiths, PhD
Assistant Teaching Professor, Church History, Brigham Young University
"I would say to any parent out there, the most important gospel teacher in your child's life is going to be you. You can't rely on any seminary or institute teacher…to be the main source of religious education. It’s going to have to come from mom and dad.”
Isaac Calvert, PhD
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership, Brigham Young University
“Just as God came and attended Moses’s attempt to learn from him personally, God will personally attend any and every honest attempt to teach and learn in a sacred way.”
Paul Caldarella, PhD
Professor, Counseling Psychology, Brigham Young University
“Generally what we find is that the more often teachers praise, the better student behavior tends to be….We saw about a 20 to 30 percent improvement in student on-task behavior as praise rates increased.”
Terry Young, Ed.D.
Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University
"So often we feel there are kids who don’t really like to read, but in fact they like to read, they just don’t like what they’re asked to read or what’s available to them."
Richard Osguthorpe, Ph.D.
Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University"The teaching of character and academic knowledge is not an either-or proposition. Since the development of character is unavoidable, in schools, the only real question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we’re going to address this moral work in meaningful ways."
Erin Feinauer Whiting, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Teacher Education, Brigham Young University"Junior high kids are navigating a complex emotional space in school, so it's important to recognize that in addition to academic work, they're doing a lot of emotional work, too.”
Barbara Morgan Gardner, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Church History, Brigham Young University“As we study, regardless of the topic, because of the mission of the Holy Ghost, we will become better prepared and the spirit will compound our ability to teach whatever subject we are teaching, and to study deeply whatever we are studying.”