DisruptED: Recent Episodes
MarketScale
Follow along every month as Ronald Stefanski and Caesar Mickens Jr., Ph.D. discuss the future education and e-learning.
Returning guest Pete Hall, executive director of educationhall.com and author of YA novel Chasing the Show, joins hosts Ron Stefanski and Dr. Ceasar Mickens to talk about his new book and the valuable lessons of communication and empathy between parents, coaches, and kids.
While Hall’s other books focus on lessons of self-reflection, this story takes on a new approach: “How do I navigate what my life is going to be?,” said Hall. To create an audience receptive to learning while also engaged in the story, Hall focused on figuring out what people wanted most, “Part of the motivation beyond writing it was to build connections,” he said.
Schools today are trying to figure out the metric for success and part of that equation needs to be building connections. The human need for interaction was reflected sharply in the pandemic-era remoteness and isolating digital aspect, taking a toll on many people’s mental health. When Hall’s friend returned to the office, one of the reasons he stated was, “‘I miss interacting with human beings,’” said Hall.
The book is reflective of those human connections, “It’s a young adult novel…It follows the rises and falls of that dream [of an athlete],” explained Hall, “As the story unfolds, it also follows the interactions between the kid and his parents, the kid and his classmates and teammates, the kid and one of his teachers in particular, the parents and their friends who are school psychologists.” The book is aimed at explaining the importance of providing and nurturing support for his goals while also communicating effectively and developing a “Plan B” in case Plan A does not pan out.
Not only does Chasing the Show help facilitate conversations between parents and kids, but it’s an important tool for learning how to communicate effectively. A lot of kids “don’t have the skills and knowledge to go and talk to their coach…” said Hall, this book aims to disrupt that.
Life is full of challenges. Often, it can take a while to learn how to overcome and succeed in the challenges presented to us. For Dr. Howard Liebman, CEO of Smart Horizons Career Online Education (SHCOE) and Kari Greenfield, VP - Academic Partnerships, accomplishments coincide with a high GSD index - get stuff done. DisruptED hosts Ron Stefanski and Dr. Caesar Mickens invited Dr. Liebman and Greenfield to share how their mindsets help them overcome stifled progress along the education spectrum.
“I think, you know, passion is important because if you’re going to try mindsets and you’re going to change schemas of thinking you really have to be passionate about what you’re trying to do,” stated Dr. Liebman.
Disruption along the traditional education system can be extremely positive. For Dr. Liebman and Greenfield, this meant building a program that helps to re-engage adults back into the educational system to complete their high school diploma.
Dr. Liebman noted, “There’s 40 million adults in the country who don’t have a high school diploma. If we’re going to reengage that we’ve got to take a very tactical and strategic approach to how we’re going to do that moving forward.”
To do this, SHCOE designs their program around mitigating the traditional flight stimula presented in students' brains, “We want to eliminate that stimula in the brain to activate the flight [response],” Dr. Liebman said, and to do this, “Our students declare a major upon point of enrollment.” In addition to taking just their major over the first four months, SHCOE also provides a relatable academic coach to help students re-engage.
Greenfield noted that many SHCOE students lead busy lives, “Our average age student is mid-30s, 70% are women…63% of our students are parents…these are busy individuals…”
Through SHCOE, students are able to learn occupational skills and obtain their GED to provide a better life for themselves and their families.
Education is about growth. Growth of skills, learning, and communicating. When Pete Hall, founder of educationhall.com was an educational leader, growth was his priority. The problem was, no one else seemed to know where to start. Hosts Ron Stefanski and Ceasar Mickens sit down with Hall to discuss his role in education as a disruptor and what he learned along the way.
Hall was shocked when he transitioned from teaching into an administrative role. Some teachers had brilliant methods of course design and concepts, others were decades behind. To challenge this, Hall recongized the need for growth in educational faculty. A school of great teachers comprises of positive self-reflection, “It’s how we oriente energy towards what we’re doing that makes the greatest impact,” said Hall.
Though, finding the time to implement and reflect as a teacher is hard-pressed, Hall said that it’s pertinent others learn to look at it like a necessary exercise for growth, afterall, you can’t build muscle if you’re not in the gym. He said, “We need to take our teachers to the reflective gym.”
In this, administrators must make it explicitly clear how self-reflection is a great learning tool. Using methods like free-journalling or assigning specific reflective writing prompts helps create strong and empowered teachers.
In utilizing these methods, Hall learned that educators threw away words of doubt like “but” or “should” and replaced them with action, which, in turn, created a positive learning environment for the students.
These methods can be actioned individually, but to really transform an education, schools and districts must work together and make self-reflection a cultural habit.
To learn more about Hall’s work, check out his authored and co-authored educational titles: “Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice” and “Building Teacher’s Capacity for Success” as he continues to disrupt education in a positive way.
Education is top of mind for Jeffrey J Mimms, Jr., Mayor of Dayton, OH, and Dr. David Lawrence, Education Advisor for Dayton, OH. Mimms, a longtime educator himself with over forty years in education, is a pioneer in establishing equitable funding for public schools across Ohio. DisruptED’s Ron Stefanski and Ceasar Mickens spoke to Mimms and Lawrence about an extraordinary concept they’re championing: creating a city of learners in Dayton.
Mimms said the challenge in education today, especially in underserved areas, is getting kids engaged and excited to come to school and learn every day. Mimms listed the four A’s essential for education success: attendance, attitude, activities, and achievement. When schools provide the programs that allow students to hit the four A’s, those lessons carry through beyond school and into life. The City of Learners concept design will make education equitable and expansive throughout Dayton and allow children to achieve their goals.
“The City of Learners rests on five core principles,” Lawrence said. “Every child must attend a high-quality K-12 school. Every child must have expanded access to preschool for all children. We must grow our partnerships with businesses, recruit mentors for young children, and increase the number of high-quality summer and after-school programs.” And Lawrence knows the power of mentorship because Mimms served as his mentor, and the lessons he imparted were invaluable.
Mimms has ambitious goals for education, but they are all connected with the mission to build a better, more sustainable community. “Those communities experiencing a high quality of life have three major pillars,” Mimms said. “One is high-quality education. Two is safety. We are involved in a very strong police reform effort that we started about twelve months ago. The other thing that is a key issue is recreation. We are in the process of how we can improve the quality of recreation.” Local businesses that recognize the benefits when everyone works together for the common good bolster these efforts.
For years now, a lot of discussion surrounding the STEM field has mostly focused on the lack of students pursuing the academic fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Although the shortage remains true, there’s also been a lot of work done to improve the numbers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In an episode of DisruptED, hosts Ron J Stefanski and Dr. Caesar Mickenstalked to two Croatian nationals dedicated to changing the current landscape of what education looks like, the gaps that exist, and how they are emphasizing STEM. Guests Marin Troselj, the CEO of STEMI, and Slobodan Velikic, a Chief Business Officer and Partner with STEMI, talked about their platform’s mission and their thoughts and solutions to what needs reorganizing.
Mickens stated that STEM numbers are concerning and there needs to be some kind of reinvigoration of the field to get the youth more readily interested and involved. While the U.S. once was No. 1 in STEM graduates, they are seeing lower numbers, and they are not alone. Globally, there’s been a drop in STEM graduates and professionals, said Mickens. But getting students to seek out STEM isn’t the only issue; it starts with going up against an increasingly outdated structure and teaching methods.
“In my opinion education around the world is going in the wrong direction,” said Troselj. “We are teaching kids to be experts in tests and not how to build meaningful stuff. We teach kids that the right answer is always in textbooks and don’t prepare them for the real world.”
Troselj stated that much of education was built to support the educational needs to produce a workforce for factories. Despite it evolving since, it still maintained its industrial roots.
With STEMI, Troselj and Slobodan Velikic are reshaping that landscape by making the testing and textbooks schools take a backseat. But more so, by turning education into something students can use outside of schools to solve real-life issues in their communities.
Ron Stefanski and Caesar Mickens Jr talk with David Richards on this episode of DisruptED. The episode focuses on optimizing technology in education requires professional development for teachers. The educators consider the lack of technology infrastructure to factor into 2020’s learning loss. Richards and Michens share insight into how technology and education are vital cycle breakers of social inequality.
Richards started as a tech director in the early nineties. He was motivated by his educators, who showed him that he could break the cycle of poverty. Initially, his school experience was for sports and socialization, but Richards learned that education was a path of opportunity. He believes that every child deserves more. To this day, Richards believes that education is the “most dramatic game-changer” in fighting the growing wealth disparity.
As the tech director, Richard’s principal and mentor focused much of the school development budget on Richards. He traveled all over learning computers and leveraged technology for education in the school curriculum. Richards recognized the opportunity to leverage a resource that would level the playing field.
A huge hurdle is the inequality of resources, especially when computers were first released. That technology was primarily accessible to upper-middle-class families and schools. Richards likens introducing technology to in-person teachers to the process of grief. There’s anger, denial, sometimes bartering, and acceptance. In training, Richard recommends approaching it from a place of empathy - understanding that these teachers have found success in the traditional model and shifting to the digital model is an entirely different science. Start with the reasoning for technology to relieve resistance. Traditional teachers need to understand that technology will provide a lot of ways to enhance the teaching process. The return on investment comes down to improving student achievement. The education system can move the needle significantly by using voice, video, or data. Listen to the entire episode for more recommendations.
Ron Stefanski and Caesar Mickens Jr talk with David Richards on this episode of DisruptED. The episode focuses on optimizing technology in education requires professional development for teachers. The educators consider the lack of technology infrastructure to factor into 2020’s learning loss. Richards and Michens share insight into how technology and education are vital cycle breakers of social inequality.
Taking on a new and relevant topic in the education space, DisruptED, hosted by Dr. Caesar Mickens and Ron J Stefanski, is centered on the disruption seen in the confluence of education today and the agents of change. In this premier episode, Co-hosts Dr. Mickens and Stefanski sit down with Karin Norington-Reaves, CEO of the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership to talk about their game-changing work in education development.
Norington-Reaves emphasized the fact that there will be jobs in the future that do not exist today, “60% of 8-year olds are going to work in jobs that did not exist at the time.” Finding a way to build skills to perform those jobs starts with education.
Public schools must start emphasizing career engagement and exposure early, Norington-Reaves highlighted. Education must begin early to identify talents, aptitude, and interests in order to build, “competent, knowledgeable, capable” adults to help beat down the racial wealth gap that exists.
The Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership has helped bridge the gap in public-private partnership. When talking about workforce development, Norington-Reaves said that flexibility is key, “Removing all of those responsibilities from government and putting them into non-profit which would create nimbleness.” Which then helps to provide, “a central space for policy creation” for people to make informed decisions about the industries they want to pursue.
Norington-Reaves work within education, really in disrupting it in a positive, impactful way, has helped place more than 100k people since inception, “It’s not just about getting people hired, it’s getting them connected to career pathway opportunities that lead to economic self-sufficiency…and really advance in those careers.”
Co-host Stefanski shared in this answer, “Agility is the answer to disruption.” Being adaptive in this space allows flexibility in the long-run.
Norington-Reaves agreed and emphasized that bringing in partners and co-creators helps to create nimbleness and to have shared ownership in the outcomes of the progress, which is how to continue evolving with the times.
Transforming Education is a moral imperative if we believe that a high-quality education is the birthright of every student. We must bring together a coalition of the willing to advance systemic changes in learning. Otherwise, we risk allowing this pandemic to set us back at a time when we have the resources and the means to leap forward and transform learning for every student.
Each month on DisruptED, Hosts Caesar Mickens Jr. and Ron Stefanski, will be exploring what a return to normal means for education.
Education remains one of the true game changers for those financially disadvantaged. Do we embrace new ways we deliver education across this country? Do we leverage new technologies to provide access and equity in ways previously not possible? How do we engage and impact student performance?