Learning Unboxed with Dr. Annalies Corbin: Transforming How We Learn and Teach

We’re reimagining the future of education in this episode of the Adventures in Learning podcast with Dr. Annalies Corbin, the chief goddess of the PAST Foundation. Dr. Annalies helps us discover how to bridge the gap between learning and real-world skills while empowering educators and fostering a community of lifelong learners.

Summary:

Drawing from her rich background in anthropology and archaeology, Dr. Annalies addresses the pressing need for an educational overhaul, highlighting the systemic issues that keep students from acquiring essential skills for higher education and the workforce. Her book, Hacking School: Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life, offers a fresh perspective on integrating real-world applications into education, providing listeners with a blueprint to bridge the gap between learning and life.

Empowering educators is key to unlocking student success. This episode explores how teachers can transition from being mere content experts to facilitators of learning, fostering a more rewarding and playful teaching experience. Through co-designing educational experiences with students and emphasizing project-based, hands-on learning, educators can cultivate culturally responsive and meaningful educational environments. We wrap up with a celebration of young learners' creativity, showcasing inspiring projects that highlight the importance of nurturing an environment where students can dream big and face challenges enthusiastically.

Chapters:

(00:02) - Revolutionizing Education for the Future

(10:49) - Transforming Education for the Future

(18:33) - Empowering Educators for Student Success

(25:43) - Inspiring Hope in Young Learners

Resources:

• To learn more, visit: pastfoundation.org
• Read: Hacking School: Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life
• Listen to the Learning Unboxed podcast
• Listen to Dr. Diane and Dr. Annalies talk about the importance of learning and leading through play on Episode 275 of Learning Unboxed
• Connect with Dr. Annalies Corbin on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Keywords: #AdventuresinLearning, #Shownotes, #LearningAndLeadingThroughPlay, #Education, #Hacking School, #STEM, #STEMforteachers, #Students, #Teachers, #TeachingStrategies, #PlayBasedLearning, #STEAMeducation, #LiteracyThroughPlay, #21stCenturySkills

Transcript

00:02 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So welcome to today's Adventures in Learning podcast. We have a very special guest with us today. We have Dr Annalies Corbin, who is the chief goddess of the PAST Foundation. She also hosts Learning Unboxed, which is an amazing podcast. I strongly encourage you to go listen. But we're going to talk today about the things that need to happen in education to change the system from what it's been for hundreds of years into something that's going to help us grow into the future. So, dr Annalies, welcome to the show. I'm so thrilled to have you with us. 

00:35 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
Oh, thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. 

00:38 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So let's talk a little bit. I want to talk about your new book, but before we do that, let's talk a little bit about you For our listeners. Can you talk a little bit about the journey that has taken you to where you are right now? What led to the need to sort of look at how do we change education? 

00:55 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
Sure, that's a great question and it's always a fun question as well. So my background is in anthropology, as an archaeologist, so an applied research scientist, and you know, in my role in post-secondary and academia myself and colleagues from numerous fields, a lot of STEM fields from around the world we spent a lot of time talking about the students that showed up in our undergraduate or our graduate programs Super smart young people, just so much potential, but they oftentimes lacked the basic skills that we had an expectation that they should have by the time they get to us. Right. And we were seeing the exact same thing when we would talk with our colleagues in industry so people who ran labs or you know talk with our colleagues in industry so people who ran labs or you know first jobs, you know after undergraduates or whatnot. And we were hearing the same thing from our industry partners as well. 

01:53
And it's interesting because industry you know industry is going to blame post-secondary. Post-secondary is blaming K-12, k-12 is blaming families and communities, and it's this vicious cycle that nobody's taking ownership of. And so that collective conversation really got us to the point where we started thinking you know this system is broken. You know what kind of band-aids do we throw to it. Instead, the questions really needed about be about the systems of education are currently obsolete. They're not broken. They're functioning exactly as designed 150 years ago. 

02:42
Right yeah, we globally spend trillions upon trillions of dollars trying to fix a global education system that is really resistant to change because it's functioning as engineered. So, instead, what if we imagine something very different? And what if we ask a set of questions that allow us to really, really dissect how innovation in the world of technology and healthcare you name it right so innovations and education could meet right and function together? And then how could these really really innovative opportunities that we know will benefit not only our students but all of humanity, how do we sustain those? And are there some key drivers or levers especially on the K-12 side, because that's the part that I'm most interested in that we can use to ensure that we can be successful? So that's how we got started in this. 

03:48 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I wish people could see how big I'm grinning right now as I'm listening to you talk, because you are saying exactly what I have felt for years that we're trying to put Band-Aids on a system that's not working and what do we need to do to fix it. And I love the idea that you're basically taking the box and we're not thinking outside the box, we're putting the box away and we're really thinking let's start from scratch, what do we need to do to meet the times that we're in? And so I know that you have. You've got a book out that sort of begins to address this, based on the years and years of work that you've got a book out that sort of begins to address this, based on the years and years of work that you've done with educators, with schools, with systems. So talk a little bit about your book and then let's dive into some of the directions that we ought to be looking. Sure. 

04:39 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
So the book is called Hacking School Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life, and it is based on these 25 years of being in the middle of this work, especially around thinking about using STEM education and the foundational sort of skills that are necessary to find your way into a STEM career, whether you want to do that or not. If you love arts and humanities, awesome. We believe that every learner should have the solid foundation and the opportunities then to be able to choose and do anything that they want to do. For example, I know that you are well aware that you know, if a student, for example, through their K-12 experience, can't get through a high enough level of math sequences, they will never, ever be able to pursue an engineering degree, right? And it's not that we need everybody to be an engineer, because we don't. In fact, we need people to take on so many different things. But if you wanted to be that and you couldn't, because you just don't have the foundational knowledge to allow you to even persist to earn the degree, that's a problem and it's not equitable, right? So we want something very, very different. So the premise of the book was really just to take and look at some of the case studies from all the interviews I've done with Learning Unboxed and Learning Unboxed. 

06:00
And that podcast was started because I knew right from my own work that there are amazing things happening in the world of education and yet, from a policy standpoint or from a social media standpoint or just from an exhaustion standpoint, we tend to talk about all the things that are wrong, the things that are going really, really well, or the things that are happening that are so innovative that they provide beautiful lessons for us about how we can fix what we've got going on. So the podcast was all around going out and finding those amazing innovations in the world of education the educators, the programs, the products, you name it and then to be able to marry that then with a reshifting of the way A we think about school and B we think about the way we deliver that content. And if we could do all of those pieces, then could we sustain that work. And what was really interesting for me in the book is, ultimately, what I came to many, many years ago is what we're really talking about is innovation to many, many years ago. 

07:06
Is what we're really talking about is innovation right, because we can do some incredible things in the world of education, in classrooms or in schools or in our communities, but it's really, really difficult to sustain those innovations. So what if we peel back all the layers and say, of the incredible programs that are out there or that we've talked with, that still exist 10 years after they originated? We're what do we find? And what I found is that there are lots of great innovations, but all of those innovations that were sustainable had these five same elements. They might have more, but to be truly sustainable, all five of these elements were in play. 

07:45 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And what were the five elements? 

07:46 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
And so the first one is student agency. The second one is cultural relevancy, or responsiveness from a content standpoint right. The third one is mastery, or mastery based right, so ultimately, competencies in those spaces. The fourth was that they're transdisciplinary, so we've eliminated the silos, if you will right, of content and we've we've put it back into that real world sort of experience. And the fifth, which really the umbrella under which the other four are necessary to make it work, is that, um, the, the experience is problem-based, which can include inquiry and project-based, but problem-based because the premise is that we believe that every child that walks through our doors is capable of solving the world's greatest problems. If we believe that at our foundation and then we provide the opportunity and the supports and the structure necessary for that child to drive their own learning and their curiosity and their exploration and to grow their skills in real time, and we also give them the time necessary to do that, that we are going to have a remarkable educational experience. 

08:58 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So can you walk us through maybe some examples of places you've seen that are doing this and are doing the work that might be really good exemplars for people to take a look at. 

09:18 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
Sure, there are a number of these examples around the world, but a few places in particular. So for families that really love true alternative education, I highly suggest you go take a look at a program called Rock Tree Sky, which is in Ojai, california, and it's a partnership between a non-profit families in the community, both traditional families, homeschool families, alternative education families very progressive and a traditional school district Truly remarkable. Go see Rock Tree Sky. If you want to look at something that was sort of really derived from a traditional school district model, go see the Village in Colorado Springs. Truly, truly remarkable, very work based. 

10:02
Go take a look at the way they're thinking about student autonomy and student driven opportunities for learning. Autonomy and student-driven opportunities for learning. We, you know closer to our own home in Columbus, ohio, the Granville School District has really taken on student agency and are leading with student agency and some really remarkable programs. We also have programs that are doing incredible things from an early college sense, and I'm a huge advocate of early college because it pushes standards down and it gives kids a scaffolded opportunity to explore higher levels of thinking while they still have the support structure of a K-12 with them, and so those are the kinds of things that I encourage people to go look at. 

10:49 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Oh, that's wonderful, and you know we're living in times that are uncertain at best in terms of what's going on on the national scene in terms of education and things like that. But what I'm wondering, as I'm listening to you talk and it's the first time I've been able to look at things in a positive light in quite a while is maybe this is an opportunity for us to take a step back from the way that we've always done things, to look more deeply at what are the possibilities and if things are broken, how do we fix them. So if there are schools or communities that are sort of feeling that sense of frustration or where do we go from here, what would you recommend that they look at doing now? 

11:31 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
The first thing I would say is you know, anytime we have deep, deep disruptions and you know, in the United States, with what's going on within the federal government, there is a lot of uncertainty, right. We can't necessarily predict what's going to happen or when or what it's going to look like. That's a scary thing, but it's also an opportunity. That's very, very true. And so the things that I would tell folks is okay, look, if all of a sudden, we have this major disruption the last time we had a major disruption with COVID-19, there were all these things that you you as a traditional system believed you couldn't do. We can't teach kids online. It's not ideal, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating that we do that all the time, but we proved you could. Wasn't easy, but we proved we could and a number of other things right. And so I would say you know, figure out what is that. You know you feel like you've been compelled to do, right, whether it be federal or state standards that say, hey, you must. What are those things on that must list that if you didn't really have to, would you want to get rid of and why? And think about a way to design around that with that in mind, right, what innovations you know? 

12:52
If money, time, energy and effort were unconstrained, what innovations would you bring into your community from an education standpoint? And I guess the last one that I would advocate for, if folks are really going to start working on some sort of transformative initiative, and that would be to think about education as an ecosystem and not as a school. Right, because when we shift our thinking into an ecosystems approach, we bring in the entire community, we bring in business and industry, and not to show up for show and tell and not to write a check and donate to our soccer program or whatever. But an ecosystems approach says we are all doing this work together, we are all educators, we are all facilitators of knowledge and as soon as we start to think about about it that way, I think the transformative process a is not as constrained and, b, we're not doing it alone and it feels like perhaps when we move to an ecosystems approach as well, that we're able to get past some of the things that are currently dividing us. 

14:09 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
You know you stop seeing each other as the enemy. You realize that librarians are amazing superheroes who are getting books into all children's hands. You know you start seeing that teachers are really working hard to know their individual students and to provide them with the best possible care and love that they can, and then you're willing to roll up your sleeves and pitch in and help, and I like that way of thinking about it. 

14:37 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
Well, you know, it's really interesting because we I have a school district in our local region and it's the large school district, and the number of adults in this district versus the number of kids in this district versus the number of kids in this district have always perplexed me. Because the reality is, every adult that a child encounters has the potential to be a mentor, a facilitator, a teacher, a friend to them, right. And yet we have this idea that only our certified teachers, right, are teaching. Yet we know the ladies in the lunchroom and the amazing custodians and our bus drivers. They're all spending time with our children as well. 

15:19
And why are we not valuing the personal journeys, the life lessons, the experiences that every single one of these adults in these environments can bring to a child? And yet we don't. Because we fail to recognize that all of these adults within the system have the same potential, different set of skills, different experience, different credentials and yet still so valuable as humans to our young, young folks. But we don't think about it that way and the reason I mentioned that is because you know this district, like many, many districts, if you think about places where those student teacher ratios are just so out of whack right these complaints about classrooms that are just too many kids in them, which is a real thing, but it could be so much different if we restructure the way we incorporate adults and students in learning. You have plenty of adults to change those ratios. 

16:20 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That makes sense. You just have to figure out how to use those adults appropriately and to recognize and value stories Right. Right and I think that may be part of it too is recognizing that each of us carries our own unique story. And how do we help uncover that story? How do we use education as a way to bring out the best in people? And I know that we've sort of gotten to that a little bit through asset-based thinking, but that hasn't swept the nation in the way that perhaps it needs to. What are some of the things that, if you could go in and wave a magic wand and sort of help educators level the playing field, redefine education, look at new ways of doing things We've talked about innovation and about bringing in other adults. What are some of the other things that you wish you could go in and help people see and value? 

17:14 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
I think, two things that really bubble up for me top of mind. So the first one is this idea that school doesn't need to be in a traditional building, that learning is happening or can happen, should happen everywhere, all day long, in a child's journey, right? So you know, we send the kids to school for seven hours a day and then we send them to an after-school program or to a sports team, and then maybe we send them off to, you know, to camp or whatever. Right? We need to figure out how to grab every single one of these experiences that a child is having and have them count, officially count towards the attainment of whatever the credential happens to be. And I would argue high school graduation is too low a bar, right, there should be so much more than that. But we need to really figure out how to take the totality of a child's experience and recognize it. Right, it's not about sitting down for a summative test. We need those, we do need to evaluate where we are, but we need to have some mechanism by which we can really really understand the totality of a learner. So that's one that this idea that we don't need the four walls. And then the second one is that we need to honor our learners right. That's where that agency piece comes in and, honestly, as a facilitator of learner, as an educator formal, informal, someplace in between the reality is the minute you co-design with your students and you tap into your own passions as an adult and the skills that you have and you step away as being just a content expert and you become a facilitator of learning. Right. Then your work as an educator is so much more rewarding and the load you carry is so much less. 

19:15
I mean, I can't tell you how many educators you know I encounter is like you know, what did you do last night? Oh, I spent four hours, you know, grading papers. What are you doing? You don't need to grade paper. Stop grading papers, right. Figure out a way for your students to assess or be part of the assessment process with each other, because you're not learning a darn thing during those four hours, except you know all the things that your kids still don't get, and then you're wrestling with trying to figure out well, okay, do I have to teach that again? But if the kids are involved in the assessment process, then that's learning for them too. It's things like that. It's those small things of just getting folks to rethink the process pieces that are getting in our own way, and we are often, I think, our own worst enemies. 

20:07 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And how do we make sure, as we're redesigning, that we don't leave communities and kids behind, that we truly are being equitable and because for me that's something that's super important is making sure that all kids have this potential to find their direction, to figure out what they're good at and to be prepared for an uncertain future. 

20:37 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely have a voice and we advise them and we facilitate them creating their journey and we make it possible for them to then tell their own story of their journey, right, those kids will own it, and the other thing that happens when we function that way is kids are going to tap into the things they know and love, right, so it's going to make sure that it's culturally responsive, that what they're doing and the way they're doing it matters to them as an individual, and the power or empowerment that we give kids when we allow them to co-design with us is an incredible equalizer for kids, and you mentioned earlier the idea of linking to STEM or STEAM. 

21:23 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
How do we sort of build in those hands-on STEM STEAM experiences so that they're meaningful and help accelerate learning? 

21:37 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
 Because at the end of the day, we know that hands-on or applied learning for the majority of learners not all, everybody learns a little bit differently, but many, many students that really resonates the ability to actually learn a thing, read a thing, see a thing, and then do a thing with fidelity, and to do it deeply and to go down the crazy rabbit holes that may or may not seem like they apply, and to allow the kid to pull all those little threads back together at the moment of synthesis and sharing out. It's incredibly powerful for our kids and so all of those, honestly, you know, getting away from rote memorization and shifting to a transdisciplinary problem or a project-based sort of hands-on environment is going to ensure that the kids get all of those activities, that they're working the tactile parts of their brain, the intellectual parts of their brain, that they're using all of their senses, that they're learning to regulate and manage their feelings and their interactions with others. 

22:37 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And when we do those sorts of things, as you were saying, it takes on the one hand it's a little bit harder for the teacher at first because it's a whole different way of doing things than you've been trained. It's not grabbing that rote curriculum that tells you you stand and deliver X, y, z, so you kind of have to break that to be able to move forward. But once you have gotten into that mindset and you take that first baby step towards doing it, it becomes easier to look at the kids and go. You know, I don't know the answer. Let's find out together. How are we going to find this out, and teaching and learning becomes so much more joyful for everybody. 

23:16 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
It does, and most of the educators that I've worked with and have provided professional development, training or workshops with over the years, who've made this transition and to your point and I think it's a really, really important point to make right is it's not easy. We weren't trained for that and it's not instantaneous right for most people. So you have to work at it. Having support makes a big difference. Doing it as a cohort with other educators that you respect and care about, that helps. But the most important piece of that is that you know, you recognize that it will get easier, and the majority of the educators that I've worked with through this transformation to a one will say we will never go back. It's hard at first, but once I understand it and I get in the groove of it, my load is so greatly reduced. 

24:14 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And you've worked with. I think I was reading. There were amazing numbers. It was like 2.3 million students and 20, twenty thousand teachers globally on doing this kind of transformation. So if somebody is listening is going, this resonates. I know that we need to move forward. We need to figure out how to do things differently. How do they contact you? What would be sort of the next steps? 

24:37 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
So next steps, go to the pastfoundationorg and it's pastfoundationorg and just click that contact us button and fill that form out. It's very your name, your email address and what it is you're interested in and that that information will get to the right person at the Past Foundation staff. So that's one way you can reach out directly to me. It's just on a lease at pastfoundationorg, send me an email, drop me a line, ask me your question. I'm happy, happy to do so. We also have a fair number of free, asynchronous virtual training sessions that you can tap into. If you just want a taste of what we do and how we think about it, you're welcome to do that and you know anybody that's interested in reading the book Hacking School Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life. You can get access to that at Amazon and Barnes and Noble lots of different places. 

25:37 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Wonderful, and so this has been such a rejuvenating conversation for me and, I hope, for the listeners as well. I want to finish with a question I ask everybody which is what currently brings you hope? 

25:49 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
What brings me hope, you know, what brings me hope is seeing these amazing learners just think so far, outside the box and to be joyous in the journey that got them there. We have a young man who just competed in a big competition and he's going to the world finals. A high school kid who designed a gyro scope for a rocket engine scope for a rocket engine. That's joyous to me, right, because that is unfettered learning, joy, complexity, storytelling, and when I see these young people so excited to tell you every minutia, detail, I couldn't understand more than five words out of this kid's mouth, right, but this kid was just all about it. 

26:44 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's fabulous and that does bring me hope as well. Dr Annalies Corbin, thank you so much for joining us on the Adventures in Learning. It has been such a delight to have you, and I will drop all the links in the show notes as well, so people can get in contact. 

26:58 - Dr Annalies Corbin (Guest)
Thank, you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation. Thank you.