The 5 Strategies Driving Transformative K-12 Education - Dr. Annalies Corbin, Founder of the PAST Foundation

What do all high-impact, disruptive—and sustainable—K-12 programs have in common?

In this episode of The TechEd Podcast, host Matt Kirchner sits down with Dr. Annalies Corbin, founder and CEO of the PAST Foundation and author of Hacking School: Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life. With more than 25 years of experience transforming how students learn, Dr. Corbin offers a bold, research-backed framework for schools to break away from obsolete models and embrace learning that’s applied, relevant, and enduring.

From student agency to transdisciplinary teaching, she unpacks five core strategies that successful, long-lasting innovative programs share. Along the way, she shares lessons from 275 episodes of her own podcast, Learning Unboxed, and reflects on what too many students—and educators—are missing.

If you’ve ever asked, “How do we fix education?” this episode answers: by rebuilding it for the real world.

Listen to learn:

• Why our education system isn’t broken—it’s just built for a world that no longer exists
• What employers say young professionals are missing (and why it’s not technical skills)
• How education research and funding models are holding back real innovation
• The five core strategies every long-lasting, high-impact program has in common
• What 275+ conversations with education disruptors reveal about the future of learning

3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:

1. The education system isn’t broken—it’s outdated: It still functions exactly as it was designed 100 years ago, prioritizing compliance over relevance. Dr. Corbin argues that instead of adding “federal band-aids,” we need a complete redesign from the ground up.

2. Young professionals are graduating without real-world readiness: Employers report that new hires can pass exams but struggle to collaborate, ask questions, or admit what they don’t know. These missing skills are costing companies time, productivity, and mentorship bandwidth.

3. The best programs that last 10+ years all share five traits: Dr. Corbin identified five essentials: student agency, culturally relevant education, mastery learning, transdisciplinary teaching, and problem-based learning. When schools commit to all five, students experience learning that connects directly to real life and future careers.

Resources in this Episode:

• Get the book Hacking School: Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life
• Learn more about the PAST Foundation
• Listen to Learning Unboxed

Connect with Annalies on Social Media:

Instagram  |  LinkedIn

Instagram - Facebook - YouTube - TikTok - Twitter - LinkedIn

Transcript

Matt Kirchner: 0:00

Matt, great to have you back again this week on The TechEd Podcast. My name is Matt Kirchner, and this week, like every week, we are going to be talking about how we disrupt the world of education. Our audience needs no introduction to my past experiences with education and some of the frustrations along the way, but also all of the incredible opportunities we have to change the model of education for the future. That is what this episode is going to be all about. My guest is Dr Anneliese Corbin, and Dr Corbin is the founder of the past Foundation, the podcast host of learning unboxed, and the author of hacking school, five strategies to link learning to life. Who wouldn't want to learn about those so Anneliese, thank you so much for being with us and welcome Thank you, Matt, very much. I'm thrilled to be here. We're thrilled to have you. You've spent your entire career, by the way just helping schools reimagine the world of education and how we engage students, how we teach students, how students learn. I mean, I've got all kinds of opinions about how we can improve education and and a lot of people argue about whether education is broken, at least the way we've educated students in the past. What's your take on that?

Annalies Corbin: 1:19

I would argue that it's not broken, okay? It's actually functioning exactly as it was designed 100 plus years ago. I would argue, what's really going on is that our current education system in the US and other parts of the world is actually obsolete. You know, we have failed repeatedly. We kept thinking that, you know, we could put what I like to call federal band aids. So no matter where you are, right? You know, governmental initiatives come along, we put this band aid on this thing that's not working for us. And so rather than stepping back and saying, hey, it's obsolete, we need a complete redesign of the system itself. Rather than just a reimagining or a re understanding, we toss a band aid on it two or three years later, because the funding cycles go away, that's what happens, right? We rip that band aid off and we toss a new one on, and nothing ever sticks, and it certainly doesn't fix anything. It's interesting.

Matt Kirchner: 2:10

As we recorded this less than 24 hours ago, I was delivering the opening address at the Global Polytechnic summit all the Polytechnic universities, or at least a good portion of them around the globe that get together once a year to share best practices and so on. And this is exactly what I talked about with that group. I told the story of going back through my childhood grade school a few years ago, and it was exactly the way that it looked when I was there 40 years ago. And that building was built in 1929 and I'd be willing to bet that it looked exactly the same as it did in the 20s and 30s, and so to your point, in a lot of cases, we haven't changed education much at all in those past 100 years. And certainly as a new administration comes along, as a new idea comes along, as we've got to gotta try to break something, putting a band aid on education, rather than reimagining the model, is exactly what we've done. So going forward, I mean, what inspired you to start your organization? The past foundation? What do you do? And how are you reimagining education? So

Annalies Corbin: 3:09

the genesis of the organization is that I'm an applied research scientist. I'm an anthropologist and an archeologist, and I was a university professor for many years, and it was really interesting, because in conversations at conferences around the world, you know, that's what academics do. We go to conferences we talk about our research, right? We had a lot of conversations with folks from many, many disciplines, a lot of the tech disciplines, but also a lot of the hard science disciplines. And we were really just talking about what's going on with the students that are showing up in our undergraduate or graduate programs or their first time jobs are recent grads, and they're, they're, they're off into these labs for their first jobs. And the conclusion from everybody that was involved in the conversation was these are super smart kids. They're incredibly capable. They can take the GRE or the LSAT or the MCAT like they can knock those exams out of the park, but they can't navigate their way out of a paper bag with a club light on their foreheads, right? So it's not that they're not capable, but they were lacking some fundamental skills and, quite honestly, some life experiences that really made them ready to progress in their education, or to be meaningful contributors to society in the places where they were going to work. And we started to ask the question around, well, why is this happening? And as you could imagine, industry was blaming post secondary. Post Secondary is blaming K 12k. 12 is blaming community and family and so on and so forth. And nobody was taking ownership of this issue or this problem. And so we started, then to shift our own internal conversations and say, Okay, if we really think the sweet spot to potentially impact what's going. On in our current work at that moment, is k 12. But clearly we can't rely on K 12 to fix what's going on right, because it's been decade upon decade of this getting worse and worse. So what would happen if a different approach, a different group of research scientists started to ask questions of the system. If we were asking different questions of the system, would we come up with a different set of solutions, or at least factors that we could identify that were saying, Hey, this is why this is happening. That was the birth of the past foundation

Matt Kirchner: 5:36

got it coming out of manufacturing. We always say, ask why five times right, ask the right questions, and you're not going to get the answer with the first question you have to ask, why? Five times, eventually you get to the root cause of something, of course, coming from industry. I certainly live that world of industry blaming post secondary. No question about it. What do you think you say the students were graduating it didn't necessarily have this full portfolio of competencies they needed, what was missing? What did you hear from industrial employers? You

Annalies Corbin: 6:03

know, the thing I heard, more than anything else, is these students, these young people, right, these young professionals, right? They don't know how to work collaboratively, and they do not know how to ask questions. They run into whatever it is that they're tasked with, with two assumptions. One assumption is that they know what they're doing. They don't need someone to tell them how to do it or what the thing is. Right? They're not valuing the years and years of experience that their peers and mentors in any given scenario have. So that's one of them. And then the second thing that we were seeing, and industry was telling us is, if they didn't know how to do the thing they had been tasked with, right, they wouldn't admit that and get some help in that moment, right? Because, you know, you're out of industry your experience. Hey, you know you want someone a ask a question, well, I'm not sure how to do this. Is what I think. I would rather have someone say that right then and there, and then you're like, No, we need to do it this way. Spend the time necessary to get somebody up to speed quickly and then deploy them off to do the work.

Matt Kirchner: 7:08

Let me ask you this, if a student, and I like the two, you know the dichotomy of what you presented there, and I guess it's the question, Do they come out of post secondary feeling like they know everything, or that the employer expects them to know any everything, and therefore they have to play this role. And if they are asking questions, maybe they're letting on that they're they're not quite prepared. And are they? Is that part of the reason that they're reticent to ask questions? I

Annalies Corbin: 7:31

think two things are happening there as well, right? I think that one is our post secondary institutions are so they're behemoths, even small institutions, they are so process driven that the ability to keep up with what industry needs in that moment, sometimes it takes numerous years just to change a dang course syllabus, right, right? So how could the students possibly graduate 100% ready to hit the ground running on day one? So you've got that issue that's happening for these young professionals, and then you couple that with the social pressures that they all feel to be an expert, that the only way I can get ahead is to fake it till you make it kind of thing. So there's a lot of that going on too, and that's just social pressures about a particular generation, and it passes from generation to generation as we know, and I think that ultimately, over time, it just builds a false narrative. I mean, most industries will tell me, give me young people who know how to collaborate problem solve, who know how to ask questions. It's this long list of skills that we should be making sure that they have. I don't need them to know the latest software in my industry. I can teach them that when they get here. I need them to know how to approach the use of a software or particular machinery or what whatnot. If I can't count on post secondary to get it to me, I'm going to build into my business model that I've got to get this person up to speed, and I've got six months to do it, to make it profitable. And

Matt Kirchner: 9:02

I think what we hear from industrial employers is it's an and not an or right? I mean, if you can get the skills, and you can get the, what some people call soft skills, I think that's kind of a little bit confusing, but to your point, asking the right questions, being being inquisitive, you know, having kind of a modesty and a humility about you, and you get to the workplace and recognizing, I think, in part, that an industrial employer, if you're putting the time in, if you have the right attitude toward work, if you're hungry for information and you're hungry for learning, people will be incredibly, incredibly patient with you as you pick things up. It's almost like you create more opportunity for yourself by having that humility, as opposed to coming in and pretending to know everything and just frustrating the people around you that you know to your earlier point have been around for so long, and know the business and the organization so well, and have a lot to teach these younger folks. You know, when we talk about the bureaucracy that is post secondary in so many cases, and we agree not all, because we both seen some really, really innovative and progressive ways of. Teaching students and innovating and disrupting education. But how do we get around some of that bureaucracy? Is that a lost cause? Do we have to just find another way, or is there a chance to actually break that up a little bit? Oh, my

Annalies Corbin: 10:11

goodness, that's a really tough question. Matt, you know, I think it's probably somewhere in the middle, right? I mean, I do think that the bureaucracy is a problem, right? And bureaucracy breeds complacency, and so I do think that it's a problem, but I also think I also truly believe that if we are incredibly innovative, and we push incredibly innovative ideas and programs forward, that we fund them appropriately so that they can be researched as part of that sort of innovative idea, that that's going to be one of the the levers that pushes from the ground up back into the bureaucracy and the system that are in play

Matt Kirchner: 10:54

interesting. And you know, when we when we talk about funding, and I mean, we could do a whole episode just on funding, education and so many moving pieces right now, things happening at the at the federal level, with the likelihood that, you know, not only is the Department of Education going to be incredibly disrupted, it already is being but but may not even exist in the, you know, in the coming years. So there's that possibility. There's changing views on, certainly funding research, and kind of picking and choosing, in some cases, which universities are going to get that funding and which aren't by based on criteria, in some cases, that have nothing to do with the research being done, but on, on, pushing in an agenda. And I, you know, I don't, I'm not going to get into the whole discussion around what you know, what needs to change philosophically in higher education and so on, because there, again, that's another episode altogether, but, but let's think about that funding model. You say. We have to think about how we fund research and so on. How are we funding it now, and how would you change it?

Annalies Corbin: 11:46

So the way we tend to fund research now is that we go in and especially in education, right? So we go in and we look at the body of work that's already been done, and we're looking for proven ideas, right? We are looking for proven ideas that just need more time, energy and effort applied to them, ultimately, to validate on the backside, I would argue that's not the way we should be funding research, right? The hard sciences, for example, engineering, don't necessarily function that way, and yet we've applied this really odd paradigm to the world of education. From a research standpoint, that doesn't make any sense to me, honestly, what I would argue is that we should be funding research on cutting edge ideas, things that are not proven, because we need rapid innovation, and we need rapid innovation to show up out in the landscape so that for those actually doing the reimagining, or the true ed reform work, the systems rebuild, if you will, or engineering, they have access To the stuff right now that's out there, that's engaging to students, that matters, that's current. I would argue that a lot of research and education is just like our teaching and learning pedagogical issues that we have, right? They're old, they're old school, they're they're not out there, they're not bleeding edge, and they're not asking really, really hard questions. And we do that because we are trying to maintain the safety and sanctity of an individual student, which I applaud. And I'm not saying let's do things to and with students. I'm saying, let's instead recognize that a lot of students and families, if given the option to try something really, really innovative, they would opt in, because honestly, they're bored to tears. Sure, 100% agree. So I think that's where the research disconnect is, is that we're focusing on the wrong thing

Matt Kirchner: 13:55

interesting. So let's talk, and I want to get into your book and so on. We've got all so many things to talk about, but we were kind of gone down this road of funding. Yeah, it is a good road. So, I mean, if you think, and we engage with a lot of educators and a lot of folks that are doing really impressive research, of course, I know you do as well. Funding is coming from the National Science Foundation. It's coming from the Department of Energy. It's coming from the National Institutes of Health. You know, for all different kinds of reasons, Are we, are we set up federally to make the kind of decisions that we need to be making in terms of making sure that we're funding cutting edge research, as you suggest, or what changes would you make at the federal level? If you

Annalies Corbin: 14:30

could, like, another hard question from you, Matt, you know, it's interesting, right? I would argue, if we could take the scientific process right the level and the rigor that has to happen in cutting edge scientific work, especially scientific work that involves the intersection of scientific understanding and knowledge and technological advancement and technology, right? If you think about the work that's happening, especially in the private sector, where those two things. Intersect. That is really incredible work. That's what federally we need to shift the way we think about what and how, and then fund it appropriately and recognize that not all things we try, we develop or we even test are going to be successful. In fact, the majority of them will not be successful, right? That's the scientific process for sure. We learn more in the the failures than we're going to learn from the successes, and we will learn faster from those failures. But we are not investing, I would argue, in that space across our broad public sectors, and we need that level of work and research across every industry and field you could think of if we want to maintain a competitive edge and opportunity. And our students are desperate for this. You know, there's a reason that so many are learning more from YouTube than they're learning in their classrooms, right? Totally, because on YouTube, they can find anything they want to know about exactly you cannot do that in a current class or most. And I love educators, and they're incredible work that is happening out in the world of K 12 education, but it is not the majority.

Matt Kirchner: 16:19

I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. And in the past, school is where we would go to learn or to gain knowledge, right? Sage on the stage, a professor, a lecturer, delivering their vast amount of knowledge to, you know, a willing group of students. And that was the way, I mean, going back hundreds and hundreds of years, that was really the only way, either writing it down or passing, passing knowledge down through the words and the verbiage that we use. That's how we pass knowledge on. That's how we passed our wisdom on. And so we would, we would go to school to learn or gain knowledge, and then we would go home to practice, right? We would go home to do our homework. We would study for exams. We'd study our notes, we would write essays and so on. And so we go to school to learn or to gain knowledge, and we go home to practice. We called it homework. In fact, that's what we called it, and that in the future, we are going to we're going to stay home to learn, right? I mean it to gain knowledge, YouTube e learning, watching lecture videos. It doesn't mean that the lecture is going to totally die, but I think we're really going to see that style of learning kind of fade. And then school is where we're going to go to practice. And so we'll stay at home to learn, and then we'll go to school to practice, to practice, to do hands on learning, applied learning, all different ways of assessment, methods of assessment, and so on. I think it's really, really exciting, and I get the sense that you and I see to a large degree, eye to eye on that topic, which is why I'm really excited to get into this new book. And I love the name of the book, hacking school, right? And I boy if I had found a way to hack school all those years ago, and some would argue maybe I did, because I managed to get through even though I was never a traditional classroom learner. But you say hacking school is the title of the book, five strategies to link learning to life. If the book is half as good as the title, it's got to be an incredibly, incredibly good book. Let's start with this. In writing this book, what are you hoping to achieve? How you know, what do you want educators to get out of it, and maybe others interested in the future of education? You

Annalies Corbin: 18:05

know, my primary premise with this book was to say, look, there are really great things that are happening out there in the world of education, because there's a lot, a lot of conversation, right you, and I've even had some of it here today that's really talking about how it's just not working, and whether you want to debate that it's broken or it's obsolete or it's even something else, right? Sure, none of that really matters, because at the end of the day, what we know is there are pockets of really incredible things that are happening out there. And I wanted to understand why isn't? Why isn't? All of you know, to use a an American phrase, our K 12 system, but our primary, our secondary systems around the world. Why is that not the everyday norm? And so one of the things that I was looking at was so the really, really innovative programs, are things that are happening that last 10 years or more. What's the magic? Is there magic, or was there something else at play, and I really, really wanted to understand that. And the 25 years that I've been running the past Foundation, and we've been traveling around the world, working with these incredible educators in different settings, and just really trying to understand, you'll go someplace, right? You'll do this huge, massive, multi year project or work, this transformation will happen in this community, and you go back five years after we leave, and it's gone, or it disappeared, or it's been marginalized. And I was really, really frustrated with that. I was like, because there's too much really wonderful stuff happening. And what I found through that work, and this is the reason I'm for the book, is that the amazing programs that are still around 10 years later, they all have these five things. They have other things because there's local context around every single one of these innovative programs and for students to thrive. But they all have these five and if they are missing even one of them, it didn't survive 10 years. And I was really curious, as a researcher about. At that. And so then I spent a lot of time digging in, and I was very familiar with every single one of these, because we trained and taught and did PD and, you know, re redesign work around these. We just never understood the progression of them or the role that they play until I started working on the book to pull it all together. So let

Matt Kirchner: 20:19

me ask you this before we get into these, these five strategies. And I'm really looking forward to doing that. You mentioned innovative programs, innovative programs in K 12 or primary secondary, depending upon what part of the world that you're in, what's an example of an of an innovative approach to learning, or maybe a couple of them that you would highlight before we get into the commonality between those innovative approaches. On

Annalies Corbin: 20:40

the one hand, you've got innovative schools or school initiatives, right? So you've got a bucket with a bunch of those. I'm happy to throw some out. But the other piece of it is this idea around innovative programs that oftentimes were created outside of the traditional K 12 setting are then having broad, deep impact when applied creatively into an existing setting. So I'm going to start with that one. So for example, the one of the ones that I absolutely love lots of folks are familiar with it, is the first robotics program and initiative, right? It's fabulous. One of the reasons it's fabulous is because it's representative K 12, right? So you start with the little, little kids in the FLL Lego robotics element of the first ecosystem, all the way to our Collegiate students who are competing with these with these massive builds. What I love about it is it didn't leave any kids behind, right? Because for those who understand deeply how first works, you know, you've got the kids that are interested in business, you've got the kids that are interested in esthetic and design, you've got the kids that are interested in engineering, you've got the kids that are interested in science, you've got the kids that are interested in community interactions and development. And it requires, the program itself requires that all of those kiddos with those interests come together to make the team. It's not enough to build a great robot that can compete. You will not win with just that. And the other thing is that all kids win just from participating, right? And it's not about everybody getting a ribbon. I don't think that's necessarily good for kids, but what I'm talking about is that all kids, there is a win in that moment. And there's a whole bunch of programs like that. There's best robotics, there's the ROV and the mate competitions, I mean, and there's and across all disciplines and industries, you can find things like that. NASCAR has one. But these programs, and they do tend to last, right? Because kids get engaged, they get deep with them. And when schools grab those and build them into their ecosystems, and not just as an after school club or a sport, but literally build them into their school day, it's transformative across the school system. Do

Matt Kirchner: 23:02

you see a lot of schools now, and I'll reflect on the first robotics in just a moment. Do you see a lot of schools integrating that right into the daily curriculum? Or most, the most of them that I'm familiar with, it's still a club or an after school? Yep. Is that what you're seeing? We are seeing

Annalies Corbin: 23:16

more and more of it, especially as schools are struggling with finally listening to the feedback from students and students saying, I'm bored in my math class. Well, you teach any and all math through first robotics, right? I mean, so what we're starting to see is finally the K 12 administration, educators and curriculum people are finally taking that message in deeply and saying, Okay, what can we use that we're already doing as a system, our own local system, and how can we pull it in to enhance or to completely replace the way we're currently teaching? And will that make a difference? And they're starting to see that it is right. It's the same thing with eSports. It's the same thing with like, you know, elementary and middle school Minecraft, right? You know, taking them out of the after school space, which is fabulous learning happens then I don't want those things to go away, right? Learning from the informal, because informal is where kids are engaged. They can see the meaning, they understand the relevancy to themselves. And the learning is deeply accelerated. So if we can take that and then infuse it with the rigor and the relevance that we're supposed to be delivering in our K 12 time, then it could be a magical experience for everybody involved. So

Matt Kirchner: 24:31

let's talk about that second part, infusing it with the rigor and so on. And I guess I want to make one more point before I pose that question, and that is for audience members who may not be familiar with FIRST Robotics, and it is one of several examples, of course, of the style of learning and activity in secondary education, primarily, but leading up to it in primary with other applications. The first time, I toured a FIRST robotics program, and I was invited by a parent, but it was the students right that led the whole discussion and what I expected to see. Walking in was a bunch of students maybe doing CAD drawing, 3d printing, building a robot, competing with the robot. And then you start to realize that, yeah, that's an integral part of FIRST Robotics so is building the the challenge area where they're actually doing their first robotics work. So is marketing the first robotics program. So is raising funding so that they can compete, so they can acquire equipment and materials they need, or space so that they can travel when they go to different events. They have a whole finance side of it, all of that is student led. And that was just incredible to me to see that this, it's really, it's a small business, and it's not as complex as a typical small business, but nor, nor does it need to be for a high school student. Just that, that incredible exposure to all those different disciplines, certainly the technical ones, but all the other ones. Huge, huge fan of that, also huge believer in running those programs, by the way, alongside or in addition to industrial robotics programs. Every once in a while we see people that say, Well, we haven't we have a first robotics program. We're preparing our kids for careers in manufacturing. Well, you are in a lot of ways, but no student is going into manufacturing and programming a FIRST Robotics robot, right there, correct programming industrial robots. And I was like to make that point, because we spent, we spent a ton of time on the industrial side of people like, why do you sponsor and we do actually sponsor a number of FIRST robotics programs, and it's because they run in parallel, and they're they're inextricably linked in terms of the types of opportunities that we can create for students. So that leads to my question, which is this, you know, when we talk about the rigor of the curriculum, when we talk about the what, you know, what students are learning in these programs, I think one of the challenges a lot of schools, especially in traditional education, have is aligning that to state standards, or aligning that to federal requirements, and saying, how do we ensure that we're delivering to whether we like them or not, the standards we're required to comply with through a program like that? Have you seen innovative ways to

Annalies Corbin: 26:52

do that? Yeah, just crosswalk it. Yeah. I mean, you know, yes. I mean, I don't mean to make light. And I hear this all the time, all the time, I can't tell you. And I'm like, seriously, you need to step back from this, right? So, like, take this incredible program. This is the example that I use. I'm like, here's this thing. And you're like, we really want to use this. We'll go back to our first robotics experience, right? And we're going to use it, and we're going to teach all mathematics, algebra, geometry, calculus, let's say we're gonna, you're gonna use all of those, maybe trig, and we're gonna use our first program as the vehicle through which we're going to teach that all. And they're like, whoa. What? There's so many things we were not going to hit if we're doing that. I'm like, Well, you, you'll, you'll hit them. In fact, you'll probably hit them more than once. The actual standard. And one of the things that I tell them is, I said, do it for a week. My challenge is, set your curriculum aside, run the program for a week, teach the things that you want to teach through the robotics program in this case, right? And let's keep track of every single content element that you touch during that week, sure. And here's what I can almost always guarantee you, you will hit more of your required mathematics, standards, algebra, geometry, whatever it is that you're teaching in that week, doing it that way, then teaching for one week out of your standardized curriculum. I love that. Yeah, and you'll do it every single time, right? And the kids the first time they the other thing, I guess my point is, the other thing that I really love about doing it this way, and that the reason I have this conversation with all these folks is, look, the first time you teach something, right, or the first time, more importantly, our learners are learning something, it's going to be very high level. And even if you spend time trying to go deep in that they won't necessarily have the time or the experience to truly synthesize and they certainly aren't necessarily going to be able to apply it outside of some random homework assignment that you provide to them that has no bearing on who, who they are, what they're thinking about in the world. But if instead, they have exposure to that, and then the next week, you do the exact same thing again, right? And you just keep moving on with the content, but it's always going to come back. And so after two or three times of being exposed to a standard, they're actually going to understand it. We are not doing that in traditional curriculum. We do it once. We test on it, we move on. We may not see it again, right? Absolutely, that is not how an applied teaching and learning environment is going to be structured, nor is it going to be how our learners are going to engage with

Matt Kirchner: 29:30

it, exactly, and especially learners. And there's some of them that learn just fine in a classroom, and we all know them, and they can sit down, and they can listen to a lecture, they can take their notes, they study their notes. It all sticks. That's not, I don't, I don't know what the statistics are, but that it doesn't feel like, certainly, that was never my way of learning, and I don't think that's the way of learning for a lot of folks. We learn by doing, and that's when it really sticks and we understand the application. How many times have we heard students say, Well, what am I going to use the quadratic equation after after high school? In my case, it was never right. I got through life perfectly fine, never being able. To do math with letters, but, but I think the point is that these these opportunities where we actually provide students with that chance to take what they would be learning otherwise, do it in an applied fashion. It's going to stick, and it's probably going to be more useful for them when they go on to whatever comes after their secondary education anyway. So let's, let's get into these five strategies I really want to dig deeper into, into your book and the work that you've done. I'll list them out. You tell me if I got any of them wrong, and then I want to, I want to go through each of them. But your five strategies for linking learning to life in your book, hacking school, are student agency, culturally relevant education, mastery learning, transdisciplinary teaching and problem based learning. So let's start with the first one. What is student agency?

Annalies Corbin: 30:44

So agency is all about giving students the opportunity to have a role in their learning. And the order of these matters like, so I also want to tell folks that the order matters like, if you're not doing doing this type of teaching and learning, that's not the environment that you have and you want to go there, and you're not doing any of these things. Start with agency, right, and work your way through that order. Does, in fact, matter, because agency is really saying, Look, we recognize that the learner, our students, they have interests, they are fully formed individuals. They have, you know, a whole variety of things, and they want to be able to have voice and choice. That's one of the phrases you often hear tied to agency. But I will share it's much more than that, right, because having an environment that honors student agency also means that the educator, right? The educator has also given themselves the opportunity to learn alongside. I no longer have to be the expert in that space. We can honor the ecosystem or the ethos of discovery, and we can do that together with the student. I'm going to spend time getting to know that student, so on and so forth. So agency is all around just recognizing that students have to have an active and meaningful role in designing and developing and progressing through a learning journey for themselves.

Matt Kirchner: 32:08

One of my very best friends was a was an art professor at the Chicago Institute of Art for a number of years, and he talks about agency on the part of artists, right, and the way he defines it, and I think it aligns really well with with what I just heard from you AnneLise, is giving yourself permission, right? Giving yourself permission to break the rules. So giving yourself permission to be yourself. And I hear that I like the fact that you talk about that from the sense of the student, that you're responsible for your own learning journey, that you've got the agency, but also the teacher, and that it's okay not to be perfect, and you have to give yourself permission to maybe spend that week doing FIRST Robotics and figuring out how it aligns to the standards you're required to comply with when you're when you're in the classroom. Give yourself permission to do that. So So it starts with student agency, and then, and then it moves on. And you said the order is important, so we'll be sure and go through these in order culturally relevant education. I think that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. What does it mean to you?

Annalies Corbin: 33:07

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to start with it has nothing to do with politics, right? So let's be really clear. What this is about is recognizing, right, that our students have a background. They they, they come to us right with a whole set of experiences, right? And that we need to make sure that whatever it is that we have students engaging in, from a learning standpoint, is relevant to them. So it has to be culturally relevant. Sometimes that means it has to be relevant to a particular neighborhood, if you will, right? But sometimes it means it has to be relevant to an entire group of diverse students who come from multiple neighborhoods that are coming into my into my school. But what it means and some some folks like to use the word culturally relevant education. Some want to use the word culturally responsive. I've seen a whole host of other words tied to this, but the concept is the same. And basically it says, recognize who your students are, and make sure that everything that you're throwing at them, they can identify with in some way, even if you want them to learn about something way outside their experience or their comfort zone, that's okay, but you have to bring it back to them. And one of the examples that I use all the time is, you know, in physics, right? If we want to teach and understand physics and mathematics, understand slope and trajectory, right, in many textbooks, right, for example, we'll use the example of a downhill skier. But if I grew up in Southern Florida, and I've never seen snow, much less the types of hills or mountains that it takes to actually be a downhill skier, you know, yeah, am I capable of understanding the concepts 100% do I care? No, but if instead, I make it about skateboarding, suddenly it has relevance for me. And that's just an example. You know, the kids in Colorado, they're gonna understand snow skiing. So I just the. That's what that's about. It says, Know who your students are and make sure that you tie everything back to have some meaning or relevancy for them.

Matt Kirchner: 35:09

So let me ask you this. Well, you know, if I'm in Florida, certainly get the idea that if you're you know, if I'm at Big Sky Montana, I know you and I both have an affinity for Montana, and I if I'm skiing there and I'm a skier, that's one one example, if I'm in San Francisco, or I'm in, you know, I'm in Orlando, and the Skateboarding is relevant to me, think about like an urban school district, and we've got, we've got plenty of those, right? In my, you know, hometown of Milwaukee, where, when we talk about the diversity of students, it's a real thing, right? It can be income, it can be cultural. Culture. It can if you're if you immigrated from somewhere else, certainly, that has a huge impact. How does a teacher make learning relevant to a wide variety of students in that example? Well, this goes

Annalies Corbin: 35:54

back to agency. Yeah, right. I mean, if your learners have a role in crafting the journey they're going to go on, right? You can sit down or work with those learners and say, look, here's the next thing we're gonna do, and here are some options, or some examples. How would you design the opportunity to learn this thing? Got it right? That's why these things, they all go together, right? And so agency gives you, the educator, the permission to work with the students directly to figure out how to make it culturally relevant. The educator doesn't have to be the end, all right? And in fact, we know they shouldn't be, because they're not capable. No human is capable of that much very specific crafting, I guess, if you will, right? Of that experience, that individual child, right? That's overwhelming. There's not enough hours in the day. We couldn't possibly do that for 120 learners to take a high school example, right? Sure, in a given day, but those kids, they can help you with that teach them how to do it. If

Matt Kirchner: 36:46

I'm the teacher, what I'm hearing is that, you know, it's not my necessarily my obligation to be able to identify with the background of every single one of my students. In fact, that's probably not even possible, but letting the student be an active participant in not just their learning, but how they're learning it and what might be relevant to them, that's, that's a big part of the answer. Am I getting that right? Yeah,

Annalies Corbin: 37:07

100% right. You know, I do. I want teachers to know every kid, like know every kid they teach a hunt. I do right, right? And there's a lot of educators that do a really good job of honing in on that. But the reality is, you know, you can know a kid and still not truly know a child, right? Because there's so much that they come to the learning environment with. So yeah, absolutely ask them to help craft the way they're going to get there and be open to what that is, because honestly, now you're going to learn something about your student that'll just make you a better educator for them, a better facilitator of their learning journey. Moving forward,

Matt Kirchner: 37:46

ask them to craft how they're going to get their in anticipation and with the goal of the step number three, which is now mastery learning, so we get student agencies step number one, culturally relevant education is number two. The third strategy is mastery learning. Define that for us and tell us about

Annalies Corbin: 38:04

it. Yeah, so mastery learning, or mastery based or competency based learning, says, Look, we're going to let go of this artificial thing called time, and we are going to recognize this students, some students, you know, like we talked about before, you know, they're going to hear a lecture, they're going to study for a little while. They're going to have it, they're going to keep it, they're going to retain to retain it. They can apply it, they can move on. But that's not the case for the majority of learners, right? The majority of people need to try a thing, they need to do a thing, they need to think about a thing, they need to tweak a thing, they need to try a thing again, so on and so forth, right? And that's what mastery based learning or competency. Again. You know, lots of talks to these, right? Exactly, right. But the reality is, what this says is we're going to give you the time and the space necessary for you to explore a topic to truly, truly understand, and we're also going to raise the bar, right? Because honestly, you know, k 12 can't help but assess and assign a grade, right? And so the other thing about mastery is that the bar has been raised. So the idea, for example, a lot of schools will say, you know, our minimal grade, I don't like grades, but the minimal grade, right, or assessment to earn mastery is gonna be 90% sometimes 85% whatever it happens to be, right? But we're going to work towards that, and we're going to ensure that every every learner can achieve that as their minimum. That's a completely different way to think about the obligation of ensuring that students retain and are able to utilize knowledge, because this approach says I'm gonna stick with you until you get it, and I'm also then going to assess you in such a way that allows you, the learner, back to that agency and that relevancy piece right, to demonstrate to me that you've got it. And it may be a test, it may be. An oral conversation, it may be, show me how you do this, build this thing. That's what mastery is about. This

Matt Kirchner: 40:07

is reminiscent to me. We had a guest on the podcast, a very good friend of mine, Mike Bigley, who's the superintendent of the White House School District in western Wisconsin. You should take a look at what they're doing there, because it aligns really well with some of the things that that you talked about with regard to FIRST Robotics and so on. Mike, he just, this is just so stuck with me. I was at an advisory board meeting with him, and he said, if you look at the average freshman class, like you walk into a classroom in a in a high school, and you stand in a group of freshmen in that classroom. He said, I will have people in that classroom reading at a college sophomore level. He said, I will have people reading at a second grade level in the same classroom. And I mean, first of all, I think competency based education would inform us that. Okay, why? Why is that second grade, you know, reader in a in the the freshman classroom? I mean, we gotta, we gotta sort that out. But when you think about just the wide variety of learners, learning styles that we have, it's gonna, you know, depending on the subject matter, that sophomore in college learner is going to get certain concepts probably quicker than the second grade learner. Now there may be other concepts that because the second grade learner learns in other ways that they pick up quicker than the traditional kind of reading, writing and arithmetic learner. I mean, I think there's a whole conversation we can have around that. But you think about the variety of different learning styles and different levels that you have even in one classroom, and it's not like a grade or two one way or the other. It's second grade to, you know, two years out of out of secondary and and then we started thinking about, all right, we have to meet every one of those students where we are. And if that second grade reader needs a little extra time to get there, they should have that time. And if that, if that high flyer can get there quicker, good. Let's move them on to the next thing. And let's not frustrate them or make, you know, let's not make one student feel like they're not smart enough, or another one feel bored because they happen to learn a different way or a different rate. And so it feels to me like this whole idea of mastery learning is all about it's not how you learned it or how much time you took to learn it. It's about whether you've mastered it and whether you know it when you're done. Is that right? 100% Yep. All right. So now we're through three of these. The fourth strategy is transdisciplinary teaching. Transdisciplinary. I have to actually look at that word to pronounce it. That's a big word for me, but yeah, tell us about what that means. So basically,

Annalies Corbin: 42:26

that is trying to D silo content that is a truly the moment where we can link learning to the real world, link that learning to life, right? We, very few of us, very few of us go to work and we do one thing, not connected to anything else, right, right? And so, you know, we step people through transdisciplinary is really hard. That's, that's basically means that we're going to take a minimum of, you know, three or more disciplines, and we're going to merge them all together, and we're going to teach, we're going to teach relevant and student inspired content right from the sort of a theme based sort of approach. It's very difficult to do right, and especially in our K 12 environment, however, right, we can step into it like co teach, and then you can move your way to interdisciplinary. But what I can tell you is the schools that have made this shift, and the educators who've been involved in this, they would never go back, right? Because, you know, why would we teach? For example, science is one of my favorite or even engineering history, take your pick. Every single one of these topics is related to something else, and another discipline informed the way it developed, or its history, or the way it's moving forward. And so the idea that we're going to teach computer science, for example, without teaching mathematics and without teaching science, is insane. And yet, we do it every day. We send kids to, you know, seven classes or eight classes, depending on the school district, for 42 and a half minutes, right? I mean, who thought that was was a novel idea. And then when we ring a bell, because we're not going to treat these young people like humans, we're going to ring a bell like we would for a dog, and we're going to say, Okay, now move on to the next thing that's not connected to anything else you're doing for the day. And then rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse, repeat. We do it all day long, and we wonder why our students are like, just can't wait

Matt Kirchner: 44:27

to get out of here. If I suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, and I don't, but if I did what you just explained to me, would be my version of it, which was my version of education. And the bell going off every in our case, it was every 50 minutes. And you got so much time to get to your next class, and then you're, you know, and then you're diving into the next topic. I cut you off, so go ahead and finish your

Annalies Corbin: 44:46

thought. No, I mean that. So that's really it. So the idea of transdisciplinary says, you know, we're going to a because we've shifted already to mastery, right? We've got these big blocks of time, right? We're going to recraft the way we think about our entire day. We're going to recraft the way. We think about learning has to be at the school. I mean, the other thing is, learning should be everywhere in our community. Think totally all of the resources and opportunities that are out there, right? You know, students who have some ownership of their journey, they can co craft with their with their school and their mentors, the places they're going to go they're going to learn. They should be able to get credit for all those experiences that they're doing out here. And, oh, by the way, when I am back in my school building, I should be able to see how math, science, history, humanities, language, how all of this rolls in, and how they're all related. And, you know, again, we talked about it earlier, where all of it can be standards long. We're not going to miss anything that we are required to teach and students are required to learn, but now it's going to be completely rolled into an experience that the kids love. They're engaged, and educators love it too. So transdisciplinary just says, Stop teaching whatever it is that you teach for the sake of teaching just that thing. My

Matt Kirchner: 45:57

friend Corey Steiner from North Dakota leads he's down to his new school district. Do you know Corey? Yeah, so awesome. So he's been on the podcast, former guest on the podcast, and you know, his whole idea is, look, if I've got somebody in Boy Scouts that earns a merit badge and that aligns to a standard, why wouldn't I give them credit for that? And it's like, that's so obvious, right? Yeah, okay. So no number five in the fifth of five strategies for how we link learning to life is problem based learning. So I've got a good idea of what that's about. But what's your example and definition of problem based learning?

Annalies Corbin: 46:29

So Problem Based Learning says that we are going to work our way, and again, like transdisciplinary, I would say problem based is the top pinnacle of sort of the applied teaching and learning strategies that are out there. So inquiry, expeditionary, place based, project based, all of that sort of stuff falls under this bigger umbrella called problem based. The reason I use problem based is because that's where you want to go, and problem based says that we are going to engage in, quite frankly, recognizing that every student that walks in our doors, right? Are capable of solving the world's greatest problems, right? And if we believe that, then we are going to allow them, and we're going to encourage the tackling of big, hairy, audacious issues, big global issues, and through the struggle of how hard these things are to truly solve. We're going to do lots of projects, we're going to have lots of inquiry. We're going to go lots of places, right? You know, to get the information and the answers that we need. And the best part of problem based learning, as opposed to some of the the others that stack up underneath it is that it recognizes that there's never going to be one solution, right, right? And we talked at the very beginning of our conversation about all those students, right, showing up in their first jobs or or in our undergraduate labs, not prepared. They didn't have the experience necessary to really engage in the learning or the work of that moment. And I think that this is why, because we don't allow students the opportunity to understand that there's not always going to be a singular answer, and that multiple answers can be right, right, and it's really more important, what did you learn along the way, and what are the elements that you pulled together and that you threw at trying to solve that thing? And so that's why problem based learning, because it really, really honors the work of solving

Matt Kirchner: 48:22

Absolutely. I've got so many good friends that, you know that went to Harvard Business School, and one of the things that the one common trait that they all have, or the one common practice they all have, is anytime we're walking into like a new doesn't matter if it's a restaurant, it's a ski lodge, it's a, you know, it's a business they have, like this ongoing case study in their head, they're always trying to figure out how the pieces fit together, how that organization or that business makes money, how it operates. And it's because they are so conditioned by these case studies and problem solving while they're going through graduate school. And it's just fascinating to me that way of thinking and bringing that to K 12 is almost exactly what we're talking about here. It makes the learning come alive. It makes it a lot more applicable. It's going to make it a lot more valuable when we move on to whatever comes next. Speaking of valuable, I know your time is incredibly valuable, and I think we want to squeeze in yet three more questions before our time together is up, honestly. So a little bit of rapid fire, but we haven't talked much about your podcast now, 275 episodes. I think we're around 220 maybe give or take here at The TechEd Podcast. So so you're well ahead of us is learning unboxed, which is your podcast? Give us one surprising insight or a recurring theme that you've picked up, given all the guests on all the topics you've covered in 275 episodes.

Annalies Corbin: 49:38

So one of the one of the themes that I wasn't surprised by is this idea of how scary technology is to lots of educators. But here's what I was surprised about within the theme, yeah. And that is how many, how many, once they finally resolved themselves to, hey, this the. These, these technologies are coming to education, and I'm going to recognize that they are tools. They are simply tools for me to better engage with my students, right? The best way to learn how to use that thing was to allow the students to teach them, oh, cool. And I was thrilled by that, but I bump up against it over and over again when I pull that thread and those conversations, ultimately, the majority of the educators I'm talking to will finally tell you, Oh, I figured it out. You know, Sierra, she knew how to use it, and she taught me after school.

Matt Kirchner: 50:34

So talk about giving yourself permission we talked about before, right? A teacher, an educator, giving themselves permission to admit to the class. I don't know, and eat everything. And you probably know more about this than I do teach me, and that's an awesome opportunity, not just for the educator, but for the student as well, right? Yeah,

Annalies Corbin: 50:49

oh, because the students feel so empowered and they feel valued, it is a massive win, and it can happen in a moment, including bringing something in, some topic in the classroom, and just say right up front, I have no idea how to do this, but let's figure this out together. Does anybody have any suggestions? And then just running, even if it's not a great suggestion, pull with that thread a little bit, see what happens, and it'll be pretty amazing. I'm

Matt Kirchner: 51:14

amazing indeed. I would, I would love to be a fly on the wall watching watching that happen. I would also have loved to be a fly on the wall during your personal education journey, because I think you, like like me, have a lot of opinions about traditional education that were formed over the course of our education journey. What is one thing that you believe about education, or our education system that would surprise others? And I know that's a tall question for someone who's already so deep into disrupting the world of education, What would surprise other people?

Annalies Corbin: 51:42

You know, I think we are all very familiar with the concept, especially when students get into post secondary, whether it's career, tech or traditional. You know, college experience, the idea of how often students change majors, right? And so that's happening, right? Because we don't give them enough scaffolded experiences in K 12 to further refine so that they can get there and know, hey, this is what, what I want to do, right? I don't know about you, I pretty much tried all the majors. Yeah, yeah, right. And so I think that the surprising thing is that that that phenomenon goes away when we transition the K 12 experience to be fully applied, transdisciplinary problem based all those things we talked about that give students the opportunity to try so many different things that it changes the trajectory of the success story, absolutely

Matt Kirchner: 52:37

the number one influencer of a young person's career pathway. We say it seems like almost every episode is their own interest and experiences in middle school and high school, and if you don't have an experience in a specific area, you would never even know that that's a career that you could have. So you and I agree 100% on that one final question for Dr Anneliese Corbin here on The TechEd Podcast, and that is, let's take we ask this of every guest, let's go back in time to your 15 year old self. I know you lived a lot of different places, not sure exactly where you were living when you were 15, but picture that individual. And if you could go back and tell that 15 year old on at least one thing, what piece of advice would you give her?

Annalies Corbin: 53:15

Don't believe what anybody else tells you you're capable of. Just don't beautiful

Matt Kirchner: 53:22

and in a sentence, I love that. Agree 100% it's been a wonderful conversation with Dr Anneliese Corbin, who is capable of plenty, as we have learned, capable of thinking really creatively about how we disrupt technical education and education in general, k 12, education especially, certainly capable of hosting a podcast, 275 episodes in capable of writing a book, and we'll link that up in the show notes. Of course, hacking school, five strategies to link learning to life, and capable of captivating my interest, and I think our audiences as well. So Anneliese, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed it, and thanks to our audience for joining us again this week on The TechEd Podcast. Wonderful conversation with Dr Anneliese Corbin. We mentioned the show notes, we mentioned her book, we mentioned our podcast. You can find links to all of that in this week's show notes. We'll put those at TechEd podcast.com/annalise Dr Anneliese Corbin, TechEd podcast.com/on a lease that would be a n, n, a, l, I, E, S, when you're down there, check us out on social media. We are all over. We are on Facebook, Instagram, tick, tock, LinkedIn. Wherever you go for social media, you will find The TechEd Podcast. Connect to us. Reach out, comment, let us know you're out there. We would love to hear from you, and we'd love to hear you and see you next week on The TechEd Podcast. Until then, I'm Matt Kirkner, thanks for being with us. You.