Episode 19 - Designing Learning That Works in Modern Classrooms | Jason Kennedy, Author

In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe Sebestyen sits down with Jason Kennedy, a 25-year educator, district curriculum director, instructional coach, and author of Let’s Quit Teaching – Designing Learning for All Classrooms, to explore how instructional design must evolve to meet the needs of today’s students. Jason shares insights from decades of experience across elementary through college education, focusing on what truly drives meaningful learning.

Dr. Joe Sebestyen and Jason Kennedy discuss the limitations of traditional teaching models and why intentional design, not delivery, is the key to student success. From curriculum development to professional learning systems, the conversation highlights how educators can create environments that support deeper understanding, engagement, and long-term retention.

This episode is especially valuable for educators, school leaders, and parents looking to rethink how learning happens. It offers a clear perspective on improving instruction, designing more effective classrooms, and creating systems that support all learners.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's Taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. All right, welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Joe Sebastian, and I am joined by my guest today, Jason Kennedy. Jason, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Thank you, Joe.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Appreciate you being here and your time. So I'm gonna get a little background uh here in a second, but from a decade of teaching the wrong way to literally writing the book on how to fix it and the system he built that's changing how classrooms actually produce learning. That's what we're covering today with Jason Kennedy. Again, welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm Dr. Joe Sebeshin. Families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college prep without wasting thousands of dollars in years of time. The answer usually involves finding the people who have figured out the rules of the game that schools aren't telling you. That's why I'm thrilled to have Jason Kennedy here today. He is a 24-year educator, district curriculum director, instructional coach, and the author of Let's Stop Teaching and Start Designing Learning, published, uh published author. He's also the creator of Let's Quit Teaching movement, a provocative call to transform passive classrooms into active learning environments backed by the science of how people actually learn. We're going to dive into why most classrooms are still built around compliance, something I've mentioned personally a lot of times in my calls. Uh, is instead of learning what design learning actually looks like in practice and what parents should know about what's happening or not happening in their kids' classroom. Again, Jason, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Thank you so much, Joe. Thanks for the opportunity to be here.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Absolutely. So I give them the highlight reel, but I want to hear from you like give us the 60-second snapshot of who you are, what's the specific problem you're trying to solve in education?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Well, um, you know, uh, just reflecting on I got about halfway through my career before I just had that light bulb moment and and was like, you know what? Uh I I'd gone to college, you know, I got my bachelor's degree, right away, a master's degree, then a specialist degree, all this education. And still none of that prepared me and taught me how to make learning happen in the room. You know, I got fed a lot of content, just content, content, content heavy. Um, I'm a secondary English major, so I can tell you all about Shakespeare and and all sorts of you know, poetry and all this other stuff. But no, I got set loose in a classroom just like the majority of all the teachers in America turn loose without knowing exactly how to make learning happen in the room. And what I realized halfway through was that's the actual job, right? Is to produce uh uh learning and and not just teach content.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Right. So, okay, so for a moment, because so many parallels here to my journey, but let's go back to your first years as a as an English teacher. Um, what did your classroom look like in those early years? And what did you think good teaching was?

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Well, you know, I I uh I just I basically went in and did what was done to me, but I tried to make it better and for the lack of any any any uh technical word, was trying to make it more engaging, more uh appealing to to the kids that were in front of me. So and and I'll say this there's nothing wrong with teaching, right? There's nothing wrong with it. If you're a teacher and you show up to work every day and you're not there to intentionally harm children, you've done everything right, right? You it's not about right or wrong, it's about you know what, we've got all this cognitive science and all this research now that came out, you know, early 2000s, uh, and even more so now, that you know, helps us know how learning works better. And so now that we know better, we should do better. And so my early classrooms look like a lot of other classrooms. Uh you know, sage on the stage, you know, kids doing their work, nice compliant classroom, kids mostly engaged, but still, you know, I left a lot of learning on the floor because I didn't know what it took to make learning happen in the room.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

So, what was the moment that you realized like, I've been waiting, I've been doing this all wrong. You actually apologized to your former students in your book. So, like, what what what was where was that moment, that breakthrough moment there?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Well, it was it was just like like I said, about the the early 2000s, we start getting all this uh research, uh like meta-analysis, like Big John Hattie fan, uh Doug Fisher, Nancy Fry, Peter DeWitt, lots of lots of the heavy hitters uh uh around what science says works best for learning. And and some of it we do innately as teachers, uh, but the thing is, you know, we we get taught or give uh are given expectations as teachers for lesson plans. So we make all these plans, and the word plan, whenever I whenever I work with teachers in districts, I tell them, look at that word plan and tell me all the things you think about it. And usually they say sequence, steps, you know, actions, whatever else. And it's and so when we when you think about a plan, we think about okay, I'm gonna do this first, second, third, fourth order of events, right? But then I have them say, okay, well, now what do you think about where that word design? What does that mean? What do you think about that? And they think about creativity and purpose and the word that most most often covered up is the word intentional, right? And that's what a design is about, is we want learning to happen on purpose at high levels for all the learners of the room, and we want to have that happen as effectively and efficiently as possible, and we have to design for that to happen. We just can't, you know, if I can get up here and teach all class period long, but if nobody learned anything, well, I just gave a nice presentation, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Telling is not teaching, right? We're not what uh so um well, we can get it really, really nerd out here in the instructional design, but I guess you know, let's start with the the college preparatory program because I was also I'm also a secondary education social studies background. So, you know, you say you were taught college or content in college, but never taught how learning actually works. So I guess just explain to us how is it possible after years of education courses that we're actually not taught how learning happens and what that actually looks like to teach learning?

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Well, I mean, again, we're we're talking about see, I graduated with my bachelor's degree in 2000. So, I mean, I had educational psychology class where you learn about your Ph and your Dewey and some other, you know, kind of big historical names, but we also didn't have a lot of meta-analysis and huge meta-research, you know, with effect sizes attached. And then along comes John Hattie and some other uh researchers that kind of delved into, okay, here's what's here's what seems to be working best for learning, and here's why it works. Or here's some here's some things that can't come up. And and I've seen a lot, you know, some of the employees that that come in through our district and some other teachers I've I've coached in the past, especially the you know, ones recently graduated, they're getting more of that in college now than I ever did. Uh, but still we probably got a lot, we still got a long way to go because we still got a lot of new, I mean, there's even more research coming out about cognitive science and and you know working memory and and attention and all this stuff that that still is just uh you know new areas, new frontiers that that should affect how what we take to the classroom because it's all about learning.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what we see that like the system really trains teachers to deliver content, especially at the secondary level. Um, so it becomes like not really about producing learning, it's really like a structural impossibility we talk about constantly. They're just the content deliverers, the arbitrator of truth, right? So, like it's the same gap we see in AP students inside of our program. They've been taught to just memorize and comply for like 10 plus years in education, and then they're hit with an AP exam or an IB exam or something advanced, right? Where they actually require them to think, execute under pressure, essentially higher-level bloom skills than just knowledge and understanding. And the foundation is never built. They actually don't know how to think critically, they don't know how to answer those problems. So, um, so you realize the old way was broken. What did you build instead?

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Well, just taking some of what my book mainly was was uh a catalyst moment was when my teachers that I was an instructional coach of a school was, what does this look like? You know, Kennedy, just what is it supposed to look like? What should we be doing, and what would the kids be doing? What does it look like from start to finish? And so that's basically, you know, I kind of built a framework of what a typical lesson would look like in a in a in a any normal classroom, any content area, and just spelled it out. Hey, this amount of time spent on this, this amount of time spent on this, and and also not just what to do, but why it works for learning. And going back to your point about AP and IB, uh just it's it's why kids leave high school and that freshman year is just such a cluster for because you know, you know what I got to do now as a freshman in college, I gotta learn how to learn. Right, right, because all I all I did was regurgitate, you know, regurgitate content. But in college, you know, depending on the professor, it's a lot different than high school. It's that professor might, you know, the test looks nothing like you what you heard the lecture for in class, and you've got to do all the the digging in of the content on your own. And we don't teach kids how to do that, right? And you know, we they have you have to learn how to learn, and so uh, you know, that's why it's such a challenge for some of our kids after they leave us.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah, you say you we need to quit teaching and start designing learning. I guess break that down for any parent listening. What does it actually mean? What's the difference between teaching and designing learning?

unknown 11:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Well, again, it's more about is that here's the outcome I want, and here's the things I'm gonna put in place intentionally to make that happen on purpose, right? I can teach and accidentally have learning happen. And and don't get me wrong, there are there are teachers teaching their hearts out every day, and there's some learning happening. But my my thing is if maybe we s learned more about what it takes for learning to happen and put those things intentionally in place every day, not just when it feels right, or if the assignment calls for it, or the content calls for it. These are the pieces every day to design learning to make learning happen on purpose at the highest levels for every kid in the room, not just those kids, not just these kids, not just some kids. Uh it's it's more of a mind shift than anything. Is hey, my job is not here to teach. My job is here to make learning happen with these group of kids, no matter who walks in the door.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, I mean, it's so it's so interesting, especially hearing it from a another perspective, because it's it's like we're we're challenging, we people who are good in who are good in education are really good at being compliant, at sitting there, like in there, I well, you know, they're used to like the Socratic method, like the like a college lecturer, and that's not actually learning. We learn by doing. And so, you know, what you're getting into is well is like learning design. And so I get it from both ends because I'm still an active administrator in a school, and um I also run this program. And so I'm getting a lot, there's a lot of different teaching going on across the country. We've had a huge teacher exodus from COVID, and and so learning looks different a lot of places, but I mean it was beaten into me in year two of what good instructional design is. It's a learning target or objective and a measurable outcome with some type of assessment. And those two components alone, well, not so much the objective, but literally, did kids learn? How do we know they learned? Because I took some kind of measurement, does not happen consistently in almost any classroom on a daily basis because it is hard to do. So I guess, you know, what what are the key components in a well-designed learning experience that that you either least have seen or that you actually teach teachers to do?

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Uh it all goes back to the the I tell the one I tell the teachers all over the place that I work with, if there's one thing, if I could just say one thing to work on, to get really great at uh about learning is success criteria, right? And here's why. Because if I really work at success criteria, and what I mean by that is okay, the the learning is in the doing, you know, you've said that, uh we learn by doing. And so at some point in the lessons, I've I've got to quote unquote do something, not for compliance, but for learning, right? So so this kid's got this something to do, right? I need to know what successful evidence of learning looks like for this, right? What what is good quality evidence of learning look for this for this? Now that needs to be in the kids' hands before I turn them loose in it. Because they need to say, okay, here's where I am, here's where Mr. K wants me to go, and here's what he's uh told me to go access, work through, try, whatever, to get there. I tell teachers success criteria because when you look at it and you try to spell out what successful learning looks like for this task, sometimes they discover, oh, I can't come up with something for this. And that tells me that's a poor task for learning. Because sometimes we find out that, oh, this task is mainly compliance-based. It's not about learning. But it also forces us to look at okay, does this task produce evidence of learning? Right? If this is the target, if this is where we say the bar is today, if this is the goal, then is this task getting the kids to that goal? And again, I can and and this is another reason why success criteria is the magic magic sauce, is I can't give you feedback unless I can unless you know I know where you are, where you need to go, the learning target, where you are, success criteria, and what the next steps are. Uh that's how feedback works. And so I wrote a I wrote a post a while ago about how we're asking kids the wrong questions as parents when they come home. You know, we ask them, what did you learn at school today? You know, and and when you were asked that, when I was asked that, you ask any kid that, the answer is like, I don't know, nothing. I don't know, right? The real question we should be asking our kids is what feedback did you get about your learning today? Because that is when we know that, hey, they're just not getting fed stuff, right? They are being told constructive things that's gonna move them upward in their learning, and you can't get feedback without a target and success criteria together.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Ballpark for me, how far away are we from not being universally accepted in classes?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Um, I mean, here's the thing about acceptance. We we chase this thing called buy-in, right? But buy-in's all adults. That's adult feelings, adult wants, adult needs, how I feel. You got to get to a point with your staff at a school and say, here's what we believe about learning, here's why we believe it, and here's what we're gonna commit to because this is who we are, and that's what culture is. Culture is what we do, climate's how it feels. This is the culture we're creating at this school because we are committing to, you know, by God, this job's hard. No, no doubt about it. Hard, probably one of the hardest jobs there are. But uh all the more reason why we should come together, because it's not it's so hard, we can't we can't do it alone. All the reason more we should come together and say these are the collective commitments we're making to each other, to our kids, to our community. Whenever we walk in this door, this is what we do because this is who we are. And so it and sometimes it takes them seeing the success. It's like that's what motivates us. We talk about kids being, you know, they complain for teachers. He kids aren't motivated. We're not motivated, right? Uh that's why all of us have already broken our new year's resolutions, is just now marked. I mean, most of them were broken in the second second Friday of the of the new year, but literally we're not motivated as adults. So we have to uh we have to come together and make commitments around some things that we believe in.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

So um you talk about the ratio that you know would probably be shocking the parents that really direct instruction should be happening 25% of the time, and 75% should be filled with I believe probably the kids actually doing something, demonstrating learning. Um, let's talk about learning targets because we mentioned I mentioned that here and the success criteria. So starting with students should walk in class knowing exactly what's expected of them, what they're learning, and what success looks like. I assume that's that you tie that to an assessment or a measurement, right? So we kind of talked about how many classes actually do that, but the distinction between students and learners learning learners, excuse me, what is the difference and why does that shift in language change everything?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Well, it's just like it's going back to let's stop teaching and start designing learning. Who we all want learners to walk in our room, right? Because a student studies, a learner learns. That's the distinction in my mind. Uh and you're like, I don't have a choice in who comes in my room. I'll have students or I'll have learners. No. If I want students to come to my room, then I'll have a task prepared, that will be an agenda on the board, they'll know what to do, they sit down, they do it, they turn it in, they walk out the door, we come back again the next day and do it all over again. That's a student classroom, student-filled classroom, but a learner-filled classroom, they will come in and we'll activate our prior knowledge and curiosity around what the learning is of the day. They're going to know what the target is. They're going to be introduced to the success criteria of what the upcoming task is. And I'm going to know they're going to that we're going to talk about what tools they're going to have to access when they get stuck, or any tools or pathways they want to get through to take their learning to the next level. I'm going to let them loosen that task. And I'm going to monitor and give feedback based on that success criteria and the tools that they're working through the whole time. And then at the end, we're going to summarize the learning of the day and we're going to come together and say, hey, what discoveries were made? Not mistakes. What discoveries were made today in our learning? How do we get past them? Where are we at now? Where are we going next? Um and that's where you have a room full of learners who are collaborating, critically thinking, looking at tools, choosing which ones they they work best for them, you know, digging themselves out of their own pit. Because here's the thing kids' number one favorite tool to use in the classroom is this right here. Right. And some of the biggest successes I've seen, uh, especially in high schools, uh, is showing teachers, hey, give these kids tools to go access besides this. And if your success criteria is clear and they know what to do for the task, 75% of your room will be off and running. So let's say I always had a class of like 32 when I taught. I got a class of 32. 75% of those are off and running. The five or six that really need my focused attention to get them started, there's where I am the first couple minutes of the learning of the work session. Now, once I get them started, I'm up and I'm checking on the others. And I'm gonna circle back to these guys. But if if everybody knows where to access the tools, they know what success looks like, and they know how to move themselves upward, I I'm I I've already given them the gist, the guided information skills and tools that they need to take on the task. I've done my part as the instructor. Now my part is the facilitator. Feedback, feedback, feedback the whole time. And then we come together at the end and summarize it.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

So this episode is brought to you by supported tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exam. Exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focused on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. Well, I hit on this a lot about um, you know, I do a lot of calls with parents looking to come award our programs for APs. And um it's it's so there's a there's a couple different types of parents, but the ones that enroll maybe late October to about February, they're all reacting to a grade. Kids in A, the kid's a straight A student, and this is their first B in an AP class. I'm like, well, it's it's hard, and really really boils down to two things. Um, that either they're being graded by how the actual AP exam looks, like they're and they're and they're struggling because they don't know how to critically think, they know not how to critically write, no one's actually teaching them. So the kid, the teacher is covering content and expecting them to be at a higher level of blooms on the AP exams. Or the other reason, my my kid has an A, I'm fine, but then we actually go into the A, what is the A actually measure? The A is measuring a project, it's A homework, right? So you talk about this and just like having fun without any type of structure, without any kinds of learning activities. What does that essentially look like in practice? Fun without function, kind of break that down in terms of you know, this is something that is typical in classes in that we call them, they're coded as learning activities, but they're just something we get the kid to do during the class, and it's not actually tied to real learning. So, can you give an example of like what that looks like? That fun without the function, that engaged activities aren't actually tied to learning.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Right. So whenever we talk about a task, it's kind of it needs two things. We design a task for two purposes. Number one, to produce evidence of learning, but also number two, to to engage our kids, right? And don't get don't get engagement twisted. Engagement is not entertainment, right? Engagement's there to create the urge to participate, the urge to get involved. So I got and and engagement's necessary. I can't achieve in anything if I don't engage with it first. So we got to have engagement and we got to have evidence of learning. Gotta have both. The fun, if you want to call anything, that's the engagement part. The function, evidence of learning, that's that's the production part. So I'll give you an example. Um, I had to go on an accreditation visit several years ago, and uh it was to a different district in the state, and and we visited a bunch of schools, and and I walked into a middle school seventh grade life science class, and I think they were studying DNA structure.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

So some of the the part they give us questions, and we have to go ask the kids. Um, if you ever perform the Elliott uh instrument for observations, that's what this was. So I ask ask the evaluators to go around and talk to the kids a lot about their learning. So I went around, 28 kids in the room. I probably asked 10 or more kids, hey, you know, what are you learning? And and the activity was they were taking beads and putting them on pipe cleaners to represent a DNA sequence. So I went around and I asked 10 or more different kids, hey, what do you know, what are you doing? You know, what are you learning? How do you know you're learning whatever? All this all these 10 kids were like, I don't know, I'm just putting beads on pipe cleaners. So the fun was, and but they were engaged. It was they were all doing the work, they were all in it. So the fun was there, but the function was not, right? And that's that's called uh glittering details in the research world. It has a negative effect size, negative 0.33, which is almost a negative year's worth of learning lost, uh, because we were making fun activities that don't produce evidence of learning. So you gotta have both. Or we might have a we might have a task that produces evidence learning, but we're not making it clear to the to the kids in the room that hey, this is this is producing learning, this is how they're not making the connection, and and that's what our job is to make these connections with our kids.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

So you say that tier one instruction, which I love this because this follows for those other educators out there, MTSS framework, right? So the basic instruction every student receives is the foundation everything else depends on. So true. But why what happens when tier one is broken? And why is that why is it so hard um to fix when it's in action when it is actually fundamentally broken?

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Right. So my uh my my personal school district, we're going through a uh strategic plan renewal. So we're writing a new district strategic plan, and um what we're talking about is improving tier one instruction, but I don't want to call it tier one instruction because we've been saying tier one instruction too long, and it's kind of lost, it's just become this thing, this uh ethereal thing that nobody knows really what to call it. So I've started calling it a guaranteed and viable learning, right? I don't call it curriculum because we get that twisted too. When I say curriculum, we automatically think what what what came in that box, right? Or this program or whatever else. That is not your curriculum. If you wanted to define what curriculum is, that is what we teach, and what you teach are your state standards, right? That is what we teach. So your state curriculum, your state standard is your curriculum. That thing that came in a box, that's a resource. You know your kids, that company that sent you that box doesn't. So you got to know who's in the room, your kids, what you need to teach the curriculum and how learning works to make this design thing work. So uh tier one, having a framework that all teachers, no matter the grade or the content, can operate inside of, that include all the necessary things that make learning work at the highest levels without taking away autonomy and creativity on the teacher's part. That's what tier one, aka guarantee viable learning. Call it guarantee viable learning because you're guaranteeing it as the designers of learning, or I like to call us, I don't let's don't call our ourselves teachers anymore. We're learning engineers, right? So, as the learning engineers in this building, we guarantee that we are designing the best learning possible and it's viable, viable for every kid that walks in that room, not just these kids from this side of the tracks, not from just this color kid or this sociographic. Every kid who walks in the room, this is going to be viable for, and this and and the priority is learning. So guaranteed viable learning for every kid in the room. You have that, and and having that framework, that tier one framework, is so essential because these are the these are the non-negotiables, these are the boundaries, and I kind of liken it to uh professional basketball. Right? You've got Michael Jordan, you've got the Michael Jordans, LeBron James of the world who do these amazing things and are forever for it, but they still operate within the boundaries of the court and and the restrictions of the rules of the game. Sure. Tier one framework does the same thing for teachers. Here's the rules of the game, here's the boundaries you operate in, but you can still be as create creative as you want, uh, given that you're still focused on what works works best for learning.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

So for parents out there that maybe go to back to school nights or um you know might have a conference with a teacher or something or something in terms of they're they're getting into the school and they have a chance to interact with their students' teachers, um, what are the signs that real learning design is happening or isn't in the classroom? What do they look for to potentially you know figure out if this is happening or not?

SPEAKER_01 30:24

I mean, like I said earlier, ask your kid what feedback did you get today? Because if if there's not really any feedback other than the grade that comes on the paper or good job, with which both of those are the least effective form of feedback, according to research, uh then we're just doing school like we've always done. But if they're giving a real feed and and we should be giving feedback every day, right? Because if we've got this practice of place where we have a target that everybody's shooting for, there's a goal, there's a finish line for the day, here's what success looks like, where are you at in your journey? I ought to be I ought to be talking to kids, you know. The whole thing about this education thing, and this is why we will never be replaced with AI fully if we're doing this education thing the right way, is it is a human experience. Right? It takes connections and it takes emotions and it takes all that stuff, it takes it takes care, and feedback is part of that. So uh if you're seeing feedback, if you're seeing if you happen to be at the school and you physically look around the room, uh if you're seeing like tools that kids can go interact with, and I'm talking when I say kids, K K12, they're all kids. If there's tools up on the wall that that that learners can go access and see and and work through, um that's another sign. Uh just something more than a uh a rolling cart full of Chromebooks and a stack of books.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Well, let's talk grades for a second, you know, um, because I see it a lot in the in the pro in inside the kids who come into the program. But parents' definition of my kid is a good student, they get good grades, they behave well, they're in the top classes, but then they get hit with an AP exam or an SAT and they underperform. Based on your research, why does this happen?

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Well, you know what? If I'm quiet and I do my work and I turn it in and I don't make any waves, I can hide from learning all day long. Right? I can play school as a student all day long, and I could graduate an honor graduate and still be there. There's a news story right now. An honor graduate is uh suing her school system because she graduated functionally illiterate, right? Because of the lack of actual learning happening, right? There's a lot of compliant work happening, and and don't even start about grades. What's in that grade book? Not everything in that grade book is about learning, right? Right. Uh I liken it to when I when I taught to teachers. I remember back in the day when I wanted to stay home from school myself as a kid, one or two things had to happen. I either had to have a fever or I had to be throwing up. Well, nobody liked to throw up. So when mom would bring that thermometer in, she'd walk out of the room, I'd go find a light bulb, right? And I'd get it get up to 104. No, I don't want to go to the emergency room, shake that thing back down to about 100, 100, 101 at the most, because I don't want to go to the doctor, but I just want to stay home from school. That's what's in some of our grade books right now. Inflation. Think about the graduation, uh, graduation rates, especially after COVID happened, because we threw a lot of kids, I mean, threw everybody on a computer and said, do these assignments and you'll get your grade, right? And we've had uh double-digit increases since COVID in graduation rates in some places, because what's in the grade book, I mean, think about it. What does an 86 mean in grade English? What does that mean? What's an 86? If you can't tell me, then you know, which is why I love, especially in the younger grades, you know, a lot of school systems use standards-based report cards.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Standard-based reporting, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah, which they should be, because that's you know, I ought to be able to show mastery of this standard curriculum before I leave this grade. But again, college needs those grades, high school. I mean, we're kind of we're complaining about the weather, but we made the rain when it comes to grades sometimes. So we're conditioned in to for a grade.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Yeah, but do you think we're this? I mean, like, so how do we move forward without fundamentally breaking the entire system and changing it? Because I do believe, especially with the AP program, there needs it's standard based. It's a now, it's the closest thing we got to a national high school curriculum. It's all measuring skills, it's already right there, it's gonna be standard-based. But I mean, like the grades are important if you want to get to a good school, but the grade can be based off of almost nothing. So, like, I and that's where I'm like, I get kids in this program, and sometimes they're not onboarded correctly, or there's there's I don't know what my kid's supposed to do. I'm like, well, okay, there you have a Slack channel, parents are in it. I have a th, it's literally step-by-step directions, three steps, like a sentence each, and then a video walking through those three steps each, and they still need explanation. I'm like, okay, so your kid has a 4.2 GPA and they're gonna be a doctor. And functionally, I've given them a three-step process and they can't think I'm like, I there's something about book smarts and street smarts. It's kind of like the old adage of you know, the business owners are all got C's and A students work for them. So, like, what is gonna have to change for this to happen? Because kids who want to go to college are paper chasing the grade. So, but it's not demonstrating learning. I the grade means nothing to me. Like, I I literally say, I don't care if you got 104. Like, if you don't know how to do this, if you can't write a document-based question response or rhetorical analysis, what does that matter? You're gonna fail the exam.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

I mean it the the only thing I can think of as a solution would be to go to some kind of portfolio system based on actual standards, K-12. And having and and and you're like, well, that's just preposterous. That's the leaves a lot of uh a lot of gray areas. Well, that whole grade book is gray area, right? It's so traditional, you know, it's full of notebook checks, and oh, get this form signed by your parent, you get a hundred. I mean, just all sorts of junk uh that doesn't mean anything about learning. And so, and again, since since college colleges not like this like not like the schools in a in a in a state or in a system, colleges are all over the place with with all different sorts of requirements and everybody's feeding into them, you know, it's hard to bring all that into a consolidated kind of system that's any more complicated than an ABCD system, which again goes back to you know, we're talking about industrial revolution type of grading.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Do you um do you think we should move to more of like like you said, portfolio, like almost in defense of my like why I should graduate, why I should move on from a tenth grade and a portfolio defense, like almost a defense of the learning that took place.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

I mean, we do that with with our doctoral students, right? Right. I I def I defend my dissertation, you know, defend your right to be able to attend this college. And yeah, that would be a laborious process. Right. Quickly in task to evaluate every kid who wants to go to college that way. But you'd have a clearer picture of what kind of learner that was, uh, rather than the you know 4.2 GPA they have, because you have no idea how that was earned. Uh so many hands in that pot of GPA over the years, different teachers. I mean, some of those some of those GPAs were probably earned back in middle school, even even in middle school.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Yeah, you carry over, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

So you know, again, it it would take some revolutionary uh and monumental uh you know reinvention of of what we what we value.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Let me ask you this question before I lightning around here. Um, probably last question. What is the biggest lie the education system tells parents about their child's readiness for college?

SPEAKER_01 39:26

I mean, just the just the fact that when I get that diploma, I'm ready to go to college. Right? Uh again, they f they fly, especially if kids go off to college. It's even even more of a of a world shaking. But but even if they stay home in a community college uh or our state college, they have to learn and teach themselves how to learn that first year or two uh before they really get you know into a rhythm. And some some insist some classes they don't, because some some classes are just like the ones in high school. They as long as I get the content and regurgitate it on test, I'm fine. Well, but then there's some classes where I've got to do some really dig, really heavy lifting and learning and do some critical thinking and some analysis and all this other stuff, on top of not being food sped the content by the instructor. Uh, you know, because we've all had those college instructors. I had one. Uh nothing that happened in class was on the test, it was completely different, you know. And so I had to learn, I had to learn the test after after I bombed the first one. I learned what she tested like, and then the rest of the time I taught myself how to master her type of testing. And that was just one course out of the 120 hours I got for my bachelor's. So uh yeah, just because you don't get a diploma does not, and I'll I'll also say this not every kid needs to go to college. Uh because I got I've got three boys. One not academically inclined at all, but I can put any I can put him in any car or any kind of motor, and he can take it apart and put it back together better than it was before. And uh there are our local marine base uh is having trouble finding diesel mechanics for $50 an hour because everybody else is paying $100 an hour. So, and we're gonna really see this come to fruition with AI, I believe, because AI is gonna uh disrupt the white collar, right? Yeah, but AI is not gonna replace the plumber, electrician, welder, and so we're gonna see tremendous growth in some of these blue-collar jobs that we kind of neglected for so many years because there's no there's not anybody around. Right. You're gonna have these guys making six figures easily because we've got to build the things that the AI is gonna do. So just if I had to tell parents anything, know your kid and and don't just trust what the diploma said about them or what the grade book says about them.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

How old are your kids right now? Because I have three girls.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

I've got a 27-year-old, a 23-year-old, and a 20-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

So mine are mine gonna be mine are 10, 8, and gonna be six. And I honestly, I'm a lifelong educator, been there for six. I don't know sitting here right now with the direction A is like AI is going, if I would recommend any of them go to college at this at this point. I just like unless you're gonna be a specialized doctor, like something that's gonna require a professional degree, like it might be better off learning a trade and then owning one of the business in that trade. Because heck, like you just said, like those that's the the plumbers are gonna be the next millionaires because like no one's gonna want to plumb no, you know, until the robots are sophisticated enough. I think that's for I think AI is gonna disrupt way more entry-level white collar work in the next five years than a robot replacing every piece of human activity. So you definitely won that. So all right, great. Well, I'm gonna move into rapid fire. It does not require an explanation. I do break my own rules. You can do it, but just basically about six rapid fire questions, just the first thing that comes to mind. Got it?

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Sure thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

All right, cool. Most overrated thing happening in classrooms right now.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Um discovery learning. Kids don't know what they don't know. That's why you're there.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying there's a time and a place for it, just like anything else.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

One thing parents overthink about their kids' education.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Uh look, getting into the getting into the right college. Because I can't tell you how many, and I especially as an educator, didn't matter where the piece of paper came from. I'm getting paid just like the next guy. So he might have paid $60,000 for each margin, I paid $20,000. I'm getting paid the same.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Right. One thing parents underthink.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Um they underthink that their kids are actually ready for college. So uh they really think that diploma's gonna do it for them, but no, they're gonna need more than just that piece of paper.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

If you could whisper one piece of advice to every parent dropping their kid off at school tomorrow morning, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Uh again, don't ask them what they learned when you pick them up. Ask them what feedback they got today about their learning and just see what happens. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

One book every educator and every parent should read.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

I mean, it reads like a brain science, you know, almanac, but uh just Visible Learning by John Hattie. You know, I geek out over it, but it's a hard read.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Still, still gold standard, too, of it. Of uh of those that that data-driven responses. So and then where is education headed in the next three to five years with AI and the next?

SPEAKER_01 45:26

My my fear is that we will have more kids from more affluent backgrounds heading to the AI-driven computer-based virtual learning because you know what? They're better, quote unquote, better at learning because they have more resources at home that new learning sticks to easily. And then our lower economically, you know, kids get whatever we give them. So, you know, these other kids got a safety net, they got more resources, they got other stuff. Uh, that's where I see maybe AI playing a role in education. But again, for real true learning to happen, you need a you need a physical person in the room because people people make learning happen, not programs.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Right, right. Okay. And um, I like that we'll bring that to a close then with that. I really appreciate it. Jason, this has been incredibly valuable. I appreciate you coming in late night. I know you gotta travel tomorrow. Um, and I know probably parents and educators are gonna want to go deeper. Um, what is the best place for them to find you and and what should they check out first?

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Well, I've got a website just just mainly for educators, but parents dig into it too. It's called Let's Quit Teaching. Rename the book, Let's Stop Teaching, because it was pandemic time and the publisher was like, Hey, you know, we gotta like teachers, leave an education, we don't need to give them any more reason, and that's not what it was about. Yeah, it was really just to grab attention and say, Let's quit teaching, not the profession, but what we're doing in the classroom. So let'squit teaching.com is my website. Um, there's some content information there, but I do have uh, I have dipped my toes into AI and and took a lot of the learning design concepts that came in the book and transformed them into AI tools because the the what our teachers beg for the most are resources and they don't have enough time. Right, that's why teachers pay teachers is became what it became what it was. Well, now I don't know how it's still in in business because we have AI, but I've trained a lot of custom AI bots and agents and linked them all in one big slide deck on my website, and it will it's not there to do the work for the teacher, it's there to be thought partner and have conversations with and talk things out with. But I think currently there might be 25 tools on there. Okay, I'm adding more every day. They're all free, all chat GPT-based or Google Gemini based, uh, free to use, all over the place for for parents and and teachers alike.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Okay, awesome. And before we wrap, what's the one thing you want parents or people in general, parents, teachers to remember from this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Um, you know, just that schools, the salaries teachers make, the technologies in the school, the food that the uh that's served, everything, everything is bought and paid for to make learning happen. Not for kids to sit and get a grade. And uh we're not in the factory system anymore. This is this is our employers, our future employers want kids who can critically think and choose different tools and analyze things and all this other stuff, and that's not what the education world has been the last hundred years. We just wanted them to be able to do something consistently for eight hours. So I know you can do it when you get out of this school and go work at the factory. Right. Um, so school's about learning, and and if there's no evidence of it, then we find out why.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Well, Jason, thank you. I really appreciate you sharing the playbook with us today, talking about actual learning in classrooms. And for everyone listening, remember you don't have to play the game the way the system is set up. You can find the find the foundation, you can build the skills, and you can get the result without the burnout. So we're gonna put the links to everything we discussed. Uh, we'll have the Amazon link to Jason's book in the show notes as well. And thank you for tuning into the supported learning podcast, and we'll see you next time. Jason, thank you very much. Thank you, Joe. Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.