Impact

New program brings distinguished community education leaders to ��

Olivia Peterkin — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 17:31:05 +0000

New program brings distinguished community education leaders to ��

Olivia Peterkin Fri, 09/12/2025 - 10:31

Bob Hoover (second from right) chats with STEP faculty and other �� community members.

The �� Accelerator for Learning's Equity in Learning Initiative taps local expertise to help students, scholars gain new perspectives on education.

September 12, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

What does it mean to live a life in service to education?

In the example of Robert “Bob” Hoover — the inaugural Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the �� Accelerator for Learning — it’s about tapping into community partnerships, helping to build institutions of learning, and empowering students through knowledge.

“All of our kids are capable and deserve a quality education, so our job as educators is to provide that,” says Hoover, director of the SWAG Program at Live In Peace, a nonprofit that supports young people in East Palo Alto through coaching, counseling, tutoring and mentorship.

The Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, a role within the Equity in Learning Initiative at the Accelerator, was launched in the 2024-2025 academic year to introduce �� students and scholars to exemplars in the field of education outside of the university, recognizing the expertise that comes from the broader community. A cornerstone of the Accelerator is collaborating across sectors to get the best possible learning outcomes. During his time in the role, Hoover met with students across campus sharing his experience and perspectives.

This year, the Accelerator welcomes two new practitioners in residence: Aditi Goel, who has more than 20 years of experience in educational policy and nonprofit work; and Olatunde Sobomehin, CEO and co-founder of StreetCode Academy, a nonprofit that provides free tech classes to communities of color.

“I learned how important it is to have intergenerational conversations about issues in education,” said Maisha Winn, the Excellence in Learning Professor at �� Graduate School of Education and faculty director of the Equity in Learning Initiative.

Education as a collaborative effort

From Air Force veteran and public school board member, to academic program director and college president, Hoover has worn many hats in his 93 years. “I wanted that historical context for ��’s collaboration with the community,” Winn said.

After moving to California 66 years ago with a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Pennsylvania State University, Hoover received his physical therapy certificate from ��, his California teaching credential from San Jose State University, and his master’s degree in education administration from Antioch University.

Bob Hoover (center) meets with STEP students and GSE faculty.

However, Hoover says that his greatest lessons came from the community around him.

“An amazing factor in my development was that the school I went to had an expectation that everyone was prepared to go to college,” said Hoover, who grew up in North Carolina during the Jim Crow era. “The teachers in our school were so highly motivated to make sure the students got a good education that they reached out to my mother in Pennsylvania whenever I wasn’t doing well, to ensure I made it to my classes.”

These experiences drove him to support the advancement of Black and Brown students in the Bay Area as a community organizer, the program director of college readiness at the College of San Mateo, and the first president of Nairobi College, a junior college created to meet the educational needs of people of color. He was also part of a group of 30 people who worked for 20 years to incorporate the City of East Palo Alto in 1983.

“Having gone through that environment as a kid had a huge impact on what I did as an adult,” he said.

As the Distinguished Practitioner in Residence during the past academic year, Hoover met with students, faculty and staff to share about his experiences in education, and encourage younger generations to chart their own course.

One such event was a speaking engagement hosted by �� undergraduate students at Ujamaa House, an African American themed dorm, on organizing for education. Taylor Hall, ‘25, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies and a minor in education, spearheaded the event and said she first learned of Hoover through her own education research.

“Once I embraced the idea that I wanted to pursue education as my pathway, I started taking a lot of classes on the cultural aspects of learning and cultural development in education,” said Hall, who was originally an international studies major. “It was through these classes that I first learned about Mr. Hoover and the Nairobi Day Schools.”

Hall said the purpose of the event was to encourage intergenerational conversations around organizing, give younger organizers hope within the current political climate, and honor Hoover as a veteran, Hall said.

“It was so beautiful to have so many types of people there to come and hear Mr. Hoover speak,” she said.

One of the event’s attendees was Hoover’s granddaughter and �� student Lena Hoover, ‘27.

“I think I’ve always viewed education as a privilege because of the amount of work my grandfather has done with advocacy and education,” said Lena Hoover, who started a program with Hoover during her first year at �� that sends students in Ujamaa to tutor at Live in Peace twice a week.

Bob Hoover (left) speaks to students and �� community members at an event at Ujamaa Hall attended and co-organized by his granddaughter Lena Hoover (center).

“He’s always talked a lot about how as we graduate and move forward, it’s important to remember to give back, whether that’s through money or time, and stay grounded in service and uplifting the community we came from,” she said.

“The biggest thing he’s taught me is the importance of having a village, because working with other people is integral to building a movement.”

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Maisha Winn

Revolutionizing dyslexia screening: Technology to empower teachers

Olivia Peterkin — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 02:23:39 +0000

Revolutionizing dyslexia screening: Technology to empower teachers Olivia Peterkin Thu, 06/12/2025 - 19:23

Brain and Learning Sciences | Impact | Learning Differences

On this episode of School’s In, Associate Professor Jason Yeatman discusses early screening for students with reading challenges.

June 26, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

When it comes to mitigating the effects of dyslexia and other reading challenges in young students, research says that the sooner the difficulty is identified, the better.

In fact, adults can spot certain identifiers of potential challenges even before a child first enters a classroom, according to Jason Yeatman, an associate professor at �� Graduate School of Education (GSE) and director of the Brain Development and Education Lab.

“When you’re thinking about screening for dyslexia, what you’re trying to do is tap into these various mechanisms [that] are developing early on,” Yeatman said. “They’re developing before a kid learns to read. So language skills broadly are one factor that contribute to learning to read.”

Once they enter school, children begin developing written language skills on a foundation of spoken language skills, he said. “But [for] kids that are struggling for a variety of reasons with spoken language, it’s going to be harder learning to read.”

Yeatman joins hosts GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope on School’s In as they discuss early screening for students with reading challenges, and how the Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR) uses gamification to deliver fully automated, highly accurate reading assessments. The tool also enables large-scale data collection to help researchers, educators, and now parents understand children’s learning.

“Our goal is to democratize access to high-quality data" on kids’ reading and other skills, said Yeatman, who is ROAR’s program director.

They also discuss how assessment technology can help free teachers up to focus on supporting student learning.

“Technology should be there to support the teacher, and I think assessment is this perfect place,” Yeatman said.

“If you’re running a school district and you have a limited amount of time for professional development with your teachers, I would prefer that you spend that time working on strategies to intervene and improve kids’ reading skills as opposed to ... hammering away on how [to] deliver this assessment in compliance with the technical manual,” he said.

Transcript

Jason Yeatman (00:00):

Technology should be there to support the teacher, and I think assessment is this perfect place.

Denise Pope (00:08):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations and challenges facing learners of all ages. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at ��'s Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:31):

And I'm Dan Schwartz. I'm the dean of the Graduate School of Education, and the faculty director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:41):

Together we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed.

(00:50):

Hi, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (00:51):

Denise, it's always good to be with you.

Denise Pope (00:54):

How you doing?

Dan Schwartz (00:55):

Well, I'm good. So here's your question of the day. So it seems to me there are certain things with young children that you'd kind of like to know early because it's going to affect their abilities to learn going down the line. So it seems like glasses, do kids need glasses? But I kind of heard all these stories that nobody discovered this kid needs to sit in the front of the room. Is there a history to them sort of finally saying, "Gee, we should measure whether kids can see"?

Denise Pope (01:26):

Yeah, no, I know, a lot of times you don't find out until it's too late. And I know there are things that you want to catch early on because you can do some interventions early on that maybe won't be as effective later. So I think glasses, hearing, yeah.

Dan Schwartz (01:39):

So here's one, reading. So reading's important for everything to keep learning and it's kind of a tough space, because how do you measure reading before they've had a chance to learn to read?

Denise Pope (01:51):

Oh, total catch-22.

Dan Schwartz (01:54):

Yeah. So we have the guest who's going to answer this. So we're really pleased to have Jason Yeatman back. He's a professor in three separate departments at ��. He's very ��. The Graduate School of Education, the Department of Psychology, and he's in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics in the School of Medicine. Jason is very busy. He's a neuroscientist, but he is the neuroscientist of behavior, of how people behave, and one of his areas is reading. It's an important area. And he developed a new tool called ROAR or the Rapid Online Assessment of Reading. And he's going to explain to us how he manages to measure people acquiring a skill before they've acquired it. So welcome, Jason.

Jason Yeatman (02:40):

Good to be here.

Dan Schwartz (02:42):

Is it the case that we used to measure reading at the end of third grade was the first time that we'd actually do some formal assessment of reading?

Jason Yeatman (02:51):

Yeah, and that's something that's changed a lot now. I think either 42 or 43 states have universal screening legislation. This is legislation that mandates screening all students for dyslexia. So dyslexia, which is a developmental challenge in learning to read. And this universal screening legislation usually requires screening a couple of times a year starting in kindergarten through grades one and two. And then now getting to this grade three you're talking about, that's usually when state testing starts. So the idea is that students are screened for reading difficulties right away and for the underlying factors that are going to predict future reading difficulties. This has been a huge legislative achievement in trying to bring more equity to screening.

Dan Schwartz (03:34):

Can I ask a tangential question for a second?

Jason Yeatman (03:36):

Only if I'm allowed to give a tangential answer.

Dan Schwartz (03:40):

If you follow my tangent, yes. So dyslexia is not a thing, right? Dyslexia just means bottom 5% of readers and then there's different types of dyslexia or are all dyslexias the same thing?

Jason Yeatman (03:53):

Yeah, so dyslexia refers to a challenge learning to read. Amongst people with dyslexia, there are a number of different contributing factors. And so when you're thinking about screening, you said this was a tangential question, but actually wasn't, it's core to your first question.

Denise Pope (04:07):

I know. I think it's totally on topic and very important.

Dan Schwartz (04:09):

Yay, yay.

Jason Yeatman (04:10):

Yeah, so when you're thinking about screening for dyslexia, what you're trying to do is tap into these various mechanisms which are developing early on. They're developing before a kid learns to read. So language skills broadly are one factor that contribute to learning to read. First you establish various aspects of spoken language, and then upon that foundation of spoken language, you start layering on written language. And that's the job of school is to start building up written language on top of your spoken language skills. But kids that are struggling for a variety of reasons with spoken language, it's going to be harder learning to read.

(04:47):

But there's more detailed factors as well. So most well-known one, the one that's written into pretty much all of these policies across all the states that have universal screening is measures of phonological awareness. Phonological awareness refers to your ability to hear that speech is composed of constituent sounds. Take the word cat, which is composed of K-æ-T, I can hear those as separate sounds. And if you aren't able to attend to the sound structure spoken language, then the idea of saying, "Well now, Dan, take K-æ-T, and assign a visual symbol to represent each of these sounds," that would just make no sense to you. So phonological awareness is one of these foundations where you can really see the clear connection, right? As I explained that like, oh yeah, of course, if you can't break down speech into its constituent sounds, then how can you learn to represent these sounds with visual symbols?

Denise Pope (05:41):

Okay, so this is super fascinating. If I have a kid in kindergarten and they don't know how to read yet, you're telling me that you can do some kind of measure that will predict that they're going to have a hard time reading, am I understanding that right? Is that right?

Jason Yeatman (06:01):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so phonological awareness, this is one thing you can measure. Actually, I have a five-year-old, just turned five-year-old at home, she doesn't know how to read yet. She's still in preschool, one of the wonderful preschools here on campus. And as someone who studies reading, I'm starting to play these games with her of looking at her ability to attend to the sounds in language and looking informally at these different risk factors that I know are going to predict reading development.

Denise Pope (06:27):

Give an example. Do you say, "K-æ-T, what does that mean?" Give an example of how you do this. Maybe not with your own five-year-old, but in real life.

Jason Yeatman (06:36):

No, I'll be reading her a book and ask her if she can tell which words start with the same sound. She doesn't know all the letters, it's not looking at the text. But I can say, "Today three people were on a podcast together, Jason, Denise, and Dan, which of these names starts with the same sound?" The answer is Denise and Dan, they both start with a 'Duh'.

Denise Pope (06:58):

That's so great. I actually would not have thought about that. And if they can't figure that out yet, how do you know they're just not ready to read? How do you know that it's not like a challenge versus they're just not ready? Because I had a kid who didn't start reading until he was kind of end of first grade.

Jason Yeatman (07:17):

Now you're getting into the measurement question. So now we're going from... I'm going to restate your question, you're saying, "Jason, how do you go from you and your daughter hanging out and playing games to something that works for a system, a school system where we want to not just assess Jason's kid and Denise's kid, but we want to universally screen all the kids that are entering all the California kindergarten classrooms?" And that's where you build measures. So within ROAR, Rapid Online Assessment of Reading, we have a phonological awareness measure that looks at your ability to hear the first sounds in words, hear the last sounds in words, segment the middle sounds and words. So kind of different aspects of phonological awareness, your ability to attend to rhymes. So there's a suite of phonological awareness measures. And we've now had tens of thousands of kids around California, but all around the country, now ROAR is used I think in either 29 or 30 states.

Denise Pope (08:10):

Congrats.

Jason Yeatman (08:11):

So that allows us to collect normative data and make sure that the phenomenon I'm talking about isn't just some unique phenomenon to like, the kids that I see around ��, but really reflects typical development across the incredible diversity of learners around the United States. And then based on that, we start running studies of predictive validity. So we have a scientific hypothesis, this work started in the mid-late '80s, like the idea that phonological awareness is a key foundation. So researchers started developing measures to tap into phonological awareness, started running studies to look at how these measures collected before a kid starts school, predict their reading into the future. And now we've built on that and we've built ROAR to this whole automated platform, which rather depending on me as a researcher going and administering measures to each kid, we can have, for example, all the incoming kindergarteners in California log in, take our ROAR measures, and we can come back a year later and measure the reading skills and look at how these measures predict each other.

Dan Schwartz (09:11):

So pause there for a second. So the way we used to do it was it was a one-hour in-person assessment with third graders with an adult in the room administering it. Now I have a kindergartner in front of a computer, how do you make sure they're actually looking at the screen and that they don't drop off out of boredom?

Denise Pope (09:35):

Right, or they're dogging it.

Dan Schwartz (09:37):

Right. So while that's a great challenge, how do you make an assessment that people want to take?

Jason Yeatman (09:42):

Yeah, that's the challenge. This intersection, the part that's fun and fulfilling is this intersection between design and thinking about gameplay and child-centered design and designing technology for kids is a challenge in its own, right? You have to have something that's engaging, that's fun, that's intuitive. But there's also a science to that too, right? ROAR started off as a pandemic project, but since then it's grown where each aspect of ROAR were- for example, have a hypothesis about how an aspect of gameplay is going to improve the fidelity of the data we get by keeping students more engaged. We can run that now as a randomized control trial and experiment where we randomly give different participants different versions of ROAR and we study how it affects the engagement, how it affects the reliability of the measure. These are all aspects-

Dan Schwartz (10:38):

What's the answer?

Jason Yeatman (10:40):

Yes.

Dan Schwartz (10:40):

Yes?

Denise Pope (10:42):

Some kids... This is my hypothesis, the kids who have the fun version are going to stay more engaged than the kids who have the not fun version. Is that a fair hypothesis, Jason?

Jason Yeatman (10:53):

Yeah, and it turns out to be true. So actually I was joking around a little bit, but yeah, no, this is actually a serious study we did. Because as you start gamifying things, you come to decisions about giving people trial by trial feedback. One of the thing about gameplay that's engaging is that you know when things are going well versus not.

Denise Pope (11:12):

The player knows.

Jason Yeatman (11:14):

Yeah, yeah. Exactly, right?

Denise Pope (11:15):

Yeah.

Jason Yeatman (11:15):

So you're getting feedback, that's part of what keeps you engaged in a game, which is different than a normal assessment where, you know Dan, you were talking about delivering in-person assessments, and when you're trained on these as a teacher, you're trained to not give any feedback, to reward the fact that they're listening to you, but not to give any indication. And so we ran a study looking at how trial by trial feedback affects performance and there's different camps of teachers that had worries different ways. So we work with about a half dozen schools that specifically serve children with dyslexia. And in those schools, some of the teachers were worried that getting feedback that they'd gotten answers incorrect could be just emotionally hard for the kids, or that getting feedback that they're getting them correct would allow them to game the system in some way.

(12:05):

So this is why it's really important to actually study this rather than just sticking with an old approach of saying, "Okay, well rather than, there's all these worries that come when you start gamifying things, let's just not do it," right? That's one way we could. We're going into this, it's studying each step, and Denise is correct, adding in trial by trial feedback increases kids' engagement, they provide more useful data, they stay focused longer, and it doesn't lead to any kind of gaming the system. There are going to be some portion of students where you don't know if their low score was because they really were struggling with it or because they weren't putting in their full effort. And that's an issue whether it's delivered one-on-one or through a platform. And it turns out you engage different kids different ways, and in many ways I spend a lot of time developing technology, but I also think technology should be there to support the teacher.

(12:59):

Technology should be there to support the teacher, and I think assessment is this perfect place. You think about, Dan, if you're running a school district and you have a limited amount of time for professional development with your teachers, I would prefer that you spend that time working on strategies to intervene and improve kids' reading skills as opposed to, you know, hammering away on how do you deliver this assessment in compliance with the technical manual. And that's where technology can lift up teachers, right? Through this automated approach where we can study the different aspects, gamify, get a standardized measure, it allows teachers to spend more time doing what teachers want to do, which is teaching.

Dan Schwartz (13:43):

So Denise, when I taught English or language skills, I often thought kids who weren't doing well the problem was motivation.

Denise Pope (13:53):

What grade are you teaching?

Dan Schwartz (13:53):

Seventh, eighth.

Denise Pope (13:54):

Seventh, eighth grade, okay.

Dan Schwartz (13:56):

Yeah, and I've decided that the problem's motivation. So I do a lot of work to try and create the reading activities be more meaningful, more interesting. But I had no way to know that kids were having trouble sounding out letters. I never had kids read aloud in class. I didn't like to do that. Did you have this kind of problem when you taught?

Denise Pope (14:18):

Yeah, I mean, I don't think you should have kids read aloud in class in some sense exactly for that reason, right? Well, I'll tell you here, this is how my husband was taught history. I'm not making this up. Okay? You would come in and you would start with the first person at the front of the row and you would read the first paragraph of the history book, and then the second person would read the second paragraph and the third person would read the third paragraph and he would count ahead to know what paragraph that he was going to read to see if there were any big words or hard words or whatever, and get kind of practice. And if anyone was out of line or whatever, he was totally, totally toast, right? He'd practiced the wrong paragraph. And if you got lost or you didn't know where you were, you had to stand up, you had to stand up for the rest of the class. So it was very much this very scary... Imagine if you had dyslexia-

Dan Schwartz (15:10):

You had to stand up for rest of the class, what theory is that?

Denise Pope (15:14):

This is punishment for not paying attention because, same thing, the teacher did not understand that it was a reading struggle or you didn't want to read out loud or maybe you were embarrassed by an accent or whatever, right? The teacher was just pissed that you messed up the system and you weren't paying attention.

Dan Schwartz (15:34):

Wow.

Denise Pope (15:35):

I know.

Dan Schwartz (15:35):

Sorry. Just the idea that you would've someone stand up so that they're both physically and socially uncomfortable.

Denise Pope (15:41):

Yeah, talk about a total degradation ceremony, right?

Dan Schwartz (15:44):

That's wrong.

Denise Pope (15:46):

But I agree with you. I would never have students read out loud, and I will tell you this, sometimes it's a play, like Romeo and Juliet, where it is actually kind of important to have someone read out loud or to hear it read out loud. And you have to be careful because you don't know what's going on with those kids. You don't know who's going to be comfortable and not comfortable and stumble over words or whatnot. You really don't want to shame kids, particularly when it comes to anything in the classroom, but reading especially. But yeah, I would have no idea. I would think it was motivation too, right? If you have no idea, and by the way, we weren't trained to assess reading skills, were you? I wasn't.

Dan Schwartz (16:25):

No, no.

Denise Pope (16:27):

Never. Never.

Dan Schwartz (16:31):

So Jason, something I've seen about computerized assessments is they can be a lot more precise than teacher's ability to develop instructional interventions, right. And so isn't there a model where the computer does the assessment and then does the treatment as well and the teacher's out of the loop?

Jason Yeatman (16:53):

You know, I think humans learn best from other humans. Social learning is hugely important, and I think we often think about the goal of school of just filling the brain with more things. And it's important, at some level, if you were to tell me that my kid was going to go to a classroom where the teacher was not going to have the ability to teach them, would I want technology to step in? Most certainly, yes. But I'd much rather be in a classroom that's resourced with a teacher that supported the student's needs holistically more than just filling them with more letters.

Dan Schwartz (17:30):

So there's that second grade teacher you never really like, Jason. On the other hand, there's a computer that has Luke Skywalker praising you for getting all the right answers.

Jason Yeatman (17:40):

I think it has a place, but I think I'm still sticking with that we want to empower teachers, empower the compassionate, caring humans to be the lead here. And technology can be a great supplemental resource, right? And I think we often ask the question in the wrong way. We're often asking, "Can AI do this" or "can technology do this?" But we should be asking, "Do we want technology to do this? Do we want AI to step in here?" And I think often the answer, I don't know, when you think about your kids, do you want them just learning exclusively from the computer? No, you want it to be a supplement where for the individualized parts of it, sure that there's an engaging teacher that's working with students on their skills, practice is a great thing to do through an app. If you're just needing more practice to master skill, a teacher can't spend that much individual one-on-one time. Tutoring is a great option, but if financial resources preclude tutoring, great place for technology to support learning. But not to be the place where all the learning's done.

Dan Schwartz (18:40):

Okay.

Denise Pope (18:42):

I agree 100%. I love having this conversation with Dan in the room, Jason, just come with me every time I have this conversation with Dan. I love it.

Dan Schwartz (18:50):

Hey, just to be clear, I think teachers are really important. My point was simpler, which is our diagnoses may be more precise than the available actions to the teacher.

Jason Yeatman (19:00):

Yeah, that is a good question. And what we think about with ROAR, so ROAR has gone from a research tool to a tool working at the scale of systems, and what we like to think about with school districts is how to build an effective multi-tiered system of support. So that's the goal here is that you're catching problems early and you're finding students that just need a little bit more help. And then as some of those students that just need a little more help are getting the help they need, they're fine. And others continually need to be brought to a more intensive directed, sometimes one-on-one, and this is where there is this interplay where technology can thoughtfully fill a lot of these gaps. But it's not the solution on its own, right? It should be integrated with a thoughtful, multi-tiered system of support.

Denise Pope (19:49):

Okay, building on what you just said, I still want to know how you can tell the difference between a kid who's just having a little bit of a slower role to learn how to read, may need a little bit of one-on-one, versus someone who is going to be diagnosed, have an IEP, which is going to get them special support, can you tell that in kindergarten or is that something you have to give to older students?

Jason Yeatman (20:14):

Now that's something you look at over time, right? So back to this idea of a multi-tiered system of supports. First, everyone should have high quality basic instruction. And you should screen kids and some kids are going to be struggling, those need a little additional support. And then there are those that are going to keep struggling on the screen or struggling on all the assessments and yeah, those are the ones that are going to need a different level of support. Is it important to have a diagnosis? That's really a policy question, not a science question. Because what I would say is assessments provide data on who needs support and what. If you have a system that's resourced to provide students the support in the areas they need, the diagnosis itself is not important. However, for a policy standpoint, the diagnosis gives you access, sometimes, in certain scenarios, gives you access to services you wouldn't otherwise have.

Dan Schwartz (21:05):

Let me switch a little bit. So I taught English in middle school and I don't remember ever giving a straight up reading assessment.

Denise Pope (21:13):

I taught it in high school and I never gave it, ever.

Jason Yeatman (21:16):

Let me give you now the two areas, you guys just asked about the two areas that I'm most excited about with ROAR, and it is upper elementary school into middle school and high school. Let's take this Dan teaching middle school, and there's probably a bunch of students... So students come into your class, you probably don't have a lot of information about them, about their foundational skills, you just have students that are struggling across everything. I would be willing to bet that you take that section of your class that's just struggling with everything, third, half of those students, the issue is really that they never mastered foundational reading skills. They're still stumbling through decoding words. They're still struggling to read fluently enough to read large passages, to digest information, to read the instructions on a math test.

(22:01):

And this is what we find, this is through research partnerships with many dozens of middle schools and high schools, we're finding that of the students that are not meeting standards on the state tests, a huge portion of those are also struggling with the foundations of reading. Now, I find this both sad and concerning, but also a place of hope because it's actionable. We know how to teach reading. When we think about how do we teach the middle school student that is not meeting many of the standards, how do we teach all these standards? That's a very complex problem. But how do we teach them to decode words and read fluently? There's an extensive literature on how to do that.

(22:42):

The challenge though, for you, Dan, as the English teacher, I guess not really within the structure of your day, right? So this requires thinking about structuring middle school differently if we're going to start addressing these challenges. Early screening legislation, the ideal is that these challenges all get addressed early and this fact that I'm telling you is no longer a fact, but in the real world we live in, I think that there's a lot of power to thinking about addressing reading challenges at whatever age they are.

Denise Pope (23:14):

I think it's awesome that ROAR works not just for the young kids then, right? You can use it with an eighth grader, you can use it with a 10th grader, you can use it with an adult. The population in prisons and whatever. A lot of people I've heard in the adult correctional institutions are struggling readers as well. I mean, this is a problem that goes well beyond.

Jason Yeatman (23:34):

It's a huge problem. And this is why we've decided to keep ROAR at �� and run it through a research practice partnership model as opposed to spinning off a company. Because there's so many important research questions and also ways to serve underserved populations of society. You brought up one of prison populations, that's an area where assessments are not common, but as they do make it there, they could play a really important role.

(24:02):

The other thing we're working on now, hopefully when this podcast goes live it'll be right around the time of our launch of ROAR at Home, our parent portal. Our goal is to democratize access to high quality data to any parent that wants to learn more information about their kids' reading skills, their kids' math skills. We have math assessments in ROAR as well. We also, back to the example you gave at the beginning, are building a suite of vision assessments. There's a lot of aspects of way your visual system processes information that we can also measure through tasks we've developed, and this will give parents access to score reports in real time. It'll also allow parents and families to contribute to and participate in research.

Denise Pope (24:43):

Okay, I love that there's this idea of ROAR at Home and there's a part of me that's a little bit afraid because we have some really hyper, uber-

Dan Schwartz (24:53):

I can solve it. I can solve it, Denise.

Denise Pope (24:56):

Wait. But I didn't even say the problem yet.

Dan Schwartz (24:59):

Yes. The answer is, Jason, they're not allowed to use the assessment on their kid more than once every two months.

Denise Pope (25:05):

Okay.

Dan Schwartz (25:05):

Did I get it right, Denise?

Denise Pope (25:07):

Yeah. There's someone who's going to be like, "Do you read yet? Do you read yet? Let's do it again. Wait. Oh my gosh, now I need all these interventions. We're going to pay all... We're going to workbook you to death. We're going to flashcard you to death." That's my fear. What do you think?

Jason Yeatman (25:20):

I think that we are neither going to prevent nor cause that.

Denise Pope (25:25):

That's like you're going to push that off to policy and economics and all that. Someone else is going to solve that problem.

Jason Yeatman (25:32):

You know, if a parent wants to test their kid 1,000 times and buy every single intervention program, whether or not I'm involved. But no, I mean to Dan's point, we can set up guardrails here. And one of our goals is to provide high quality information, right? And we provide instructional recommendations, we don't provide recommendations for a specific curriculum or a specific product to buy. We provide information on approaches to work with students that have different kinds of challenges. So our hope is really to curate the scientific literature. We're always hoping to do better on this. We're a small team. Unfortunately, we don't have enough people to do as comprehensive a job as we'd like. That's the goal, is to curate the scientific literature in a way that a parent could digest and learn about their child's strengths and weaknesses. Not test them every week, maybe test them a couple of times a year. Quarterly, quarterly is pretty good. Can see growth curves then, you can chart growth over time. Monthly would be okay too.

Denise Pope (26:31):

Oh no, no, no, no, no. There's so many other things little kids need to be doing than sitting and testing. But I love the availability of this for people at home, for schools that aren't using it yet or whatever. We want early intervention for sure. Jason, thank you so much for being here. Some final words?

Jason Yeatman (26:51):

For me as a laboratory scientist, as Dan opened with, I'm a neuroscientist, my career started off really examining details of brain development, intersection between brain development and learning, and I find that being in the real world, doing research in the real world, engaging with the world just makes the core research so much richer as well. We discover things we would not discover living in the confines of the lab by working with diverse populations from around the country, from different school districts across different states.

Denise Pope (27:23):

It's such a huge point, and I love that you kept it at �� instead of spinning it out to a company, which a lot of research people do, so that you can continue to improve, so that you can continue to make it better, so that you can continue to study it. So that is just kudos to you, Jason, and your team. Super, super excited.

(27:42):

Dan Schwartz, looks like you were going to say something. Final words here.

Dan Schwartz (27:45):

So summarizing, I think this is an amazing demonstration of what science and smart design can do.

Denise Pope (27:53):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (27:54):

Right? Where you really take what we know about the world and render it in a form that's just so helpful, so useful. It's not guessing all over the place and really, it's very precise. I think this is a testimony to what educational research can do.

Denise Pope (28:10):

Thank you, Jason, for being here, and thank all of you for joining this episode of School's In. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (28:21):

And I'm D-AN.

Podcast

split

GSE area

Faculty and Research

Faculty mentioned in this article: Jason Yeatman

Public service for a new generation, with Tom Ehrlich

Olivia Peterkin — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 22:56:22 +0000

Public service for a new generation, with Tom Ehrlich Olivia Peterkin Tue, 02/18/2025 - 14:56

Faculty and Programs | Impact

In this episode of School’s In, GSE Adjunct Professor Tom Ehrlich discusses what it means to engage in public service in our democracy, and how to create pathways for students to participate.

February 20, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

In a modern world where civic engagement can be anything from signing an online petition to social media activism, the picture of an engaged citizen in democracy has evolved over time.

When it comes to what public service looks like for the next generation, Tom Ehrlich, an adjunct professor at �� Graduate School of Education, believes that it needn’t look much different from how it has in the past.

“For most it is really caring about the people they're serving,” said Ehrlich, who has served the federal government under six United States presidents. “Being a public servant means you're serving and trying to really say what it is that the public you are serving needs.”

Ehrlich was formerly president of Indiana University, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and dean of �� Law School, as well as serving in leadership positions in six presidential administrations. And he still spends his days promoting leadership and service to the next generation.

“These days I'm basically trying to help individuals a little bit, and make their lives a little bit better, which is different than trying to help shape a whole institution,” Ehrlich said. “But all of those are important. And, unfortunately, today I am afraid too often students, particularly, shy away from doing public service.”

Ehrlich joins hosts GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope on School’s In as they discuss how to encourage students to engage in public service, the qualities of a good public servant, and the importance of having mentors.

“The key to life is to have role models. Not that you're going to replicate them, but they set a standard of what you could do,” he said. “And you may not reach that standard, but you're going to try a little harder and you're going to learn a little more.”

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to School’s In on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Tom Ehrlich (00:01):

This is part of being a citizen in a democracy, which is not a spectator sport. You have to be involved and engaged.

Denise Pope (00:12):

Welcome to School’s In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners of all ages. I’m Denise Pope, senior lecturer at ��’s Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:35):

And I’m Dan Schwartz. I’m the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the faculty director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:45):

Together, we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed. Hi, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (00:55):

Hi, Denise. I have a question for you.

Denise Pope (00:58):

You do?

Dan Schwartz (00:59):

I do.

Denise Pope (01:00):

Okay.

Dan Schwartz (01:01):

So I get confused about what counts as public service. So I try to solve this problem by looking at different types of activities and professions, and I think I concluded that my barber does public service.

Denise Pope (01:14):

Really?

Dan Schwartz (01:15):

Well, yeah. I mean, he cuts my hair, which makes me look better to everybody else. Is that like a public service?

Denise Pope (01:21):

So it serves the public, you look better, and so you’re making the public happier because we don’t have to look at your hairy face? or hair?

Dan Schwartz (01:29):

Something like that. But I vote, that seems like civic participation but not public service. So what do you think of when you think of public service?

Denise Pope (01:40):

I think of anybody really serving the public, teachers and people who work in the government and nonprofits and NGOs, and I think there’s a lot of people who do public service.

Dan Schwartz (01:52):

Interesting. So you sort of define it by the sector. Well, we’re lucky because we have the man who knows public service. Our guest today is Tom Ehrlich. So Tom was dean of the law school at ��. He was the provost at University of Pennsylvania. He was the president of Indiana University, and now he is an adjunct professor within the School of Education, so we are very lucky. Along with all those, which you may or may not consider public service, he also served six U.S. presidents, and so I think that’s pretty important. And then another service that he does is he writes books. He writes books faster than most people read, and he has a new one that just came out that I’m going to ask about, Learn, Lead, and Serve: A Civic Life. But Tom, welcome and tell us what counts as public service.

Denise Pope (02:44):

Oh my God. And can we just say we’re bowing down because what a life.

Dan Schwartz (02:50):

It’s amazing.

Denise Pope (02:50):

What a career, what a life. It’s amazing. It’s amazing.

Tom Ehrlich (02:54):

I’ll bottle all that for dark days and look at it when it comes. To me, it obviously depends on why you’re asking the question. What it is that you want to call service. Public service or non-service depends on the circumstances. That said, from my perspective, at the core is service in local, state, national, international government. Around that are a series of nonprofits, as Denise was suggesting, that directly relate to public policy and shaping public policy and helping the public as kind of a next round. Teachers are vital to the country. They’re vital to our democracy. And I do call that public service, particularly if it’s in public institutions where they have a special obligation, as I did at Indiana University, to help promote the well-being of the citizenry of the state. Other times you may want a larger or narrow difference because as Dan said, even his barber has some public service for trying to make him look a little better than he otherwise might.

Denise Pope (04:08):

Wait. Okay. Wait, Tom. Are you really counting that as a yes or are you being facetious?

Tom Ehrlich (04:10):

No, I’m not counting it, but since Dan was and he’s my dean, I thought I better at least give a bow in that direction.

Denise Pope (04:19):

Oh, this is a kiss up. This is a kiss up.

Tom Ehrlich (04:22):

I do that all the time. Of course.

Denise Pope (04:26):

This is how he had such a long, illustrious career, is he’s very good at kissing up to the people who supervise him.

Dan Schwartz (04:33):

Well, so that’s actually a relevant segue. So besides kissing up, what sorts of things make a good public servant? You’ve been around a lot. There’s probably some public servants who aren’t great and some who are. Are there qualities that you can identify?

Tom Ehrlich (04:51):

Sure. Again, it depends on the job, but for most it is really caring about the people they’re serving. Public servant means you’re serving and trying to really say what is it that the public I am serving needs. Listening hard and trying to be sure you’re responding to what you hear in ways that can be positively helpful, and then having the grit to stay with it. I think in leadership positions, at any one time, in my experience at least, you can only really focus on two or three big things that you want to get done and drive to get those done, but in other ways, you can do a lot of little things. These days I’m basically trying to help individuals a little bit, make their lives a little bit better, different than trying to help shape a whole institution. But all of those are important. And unfortunately today I am afraid too often, students particularly, kind of shy away from doing what I’ve called public service.

(06:03):

They see politics as a mess and they don’t want to get engaged in it, and even nonprofits. They’re more interested here at �� in consulting and finance. Not that those aren’t important, but I wish we had more of our students and more students across the country who can say, “I want to help make this democracy stronger and better for those least able to help themselves.”

Dan Schwartz (06:29):

So it’s interesting. We were just having a conversation at the top levels of the university about political service, and the observation was there’s actually quite a few students who want to do that, but there’s no sort of organized structure for them to find a way in. So, for example, companies come and advertise internships, the federal government doesn’t come and advertise pathways into federal service. Does that resonate, Tom, as a possibility?

Tom Ehrlich (07:00):

Somewhat, yes. And the government is often more bureaucratic in terms of getting there. I do think the most important way for students in higher education to get engaged is actually not just to learn about government and to learn how it works, but also to engage in it. And that’s one reason I have been strongly encouraging a summer or quarter of public service, defined, as the Haas Center here at �� does, for all undergraduates in some form. Some can’t because they’re athletes or some other, but I would like to see that happen and the university help publicize them because you’re quite right. If you’re going to work for McKinsey, chances are they’ll be here and take you to lunch and dinner. The government doesn’t do that, but we can use more. But those internships in the government, all the way from local, state, national, international, are there, and I think they don’t reach out the way the corporations do, but I agree, the university can help them. But they need – students need – to have experience in order to make them care.

Dan Schwartz (08:16):

I may challenge that question in a second. But before I do, does that idea get pushed back, that, “I’ve paid for my kid to go to school and now you’re saying he has to go do something for somebody else? That’s not what I paid for.” Or people say, “That’s a great idea, we just don’t have the time to do it.”?

Tom Ehrlich (08:34):

Some of both.

Dan Schwartz (08:34):

What is the reaction to that? Some of both?

Tom Ehrlich (08:36):

It’s mixed. Some say, “Why, I just want my child to have a job and get better,” But a good many, fortunately, say, particularly those who have been in public service in the armed forces or otherwise, “This is part of living a good life. This is part of being a citizen in a democracy, which is not a spectator sport. You have to be involved and engaged.” And the only way really to understand that is to have some experience in doing that. When I was growing up some 90 years ago, students took civics in the fifth grade and they went to school boards, they listened, they wrote letters to their congresspeople. Unfortunately, after the second World War, I think the advent of political science as a science said you really shouldn’t be involved at all, you should be disengaged and just analyze it as abstraction. Well, that may be all right if you’re going to become a professional political scientist, but it’s not good if you want to be a professional citizen.

Dan Schwartz (09:42):

So all you political scientists out there, I know it’s a large proportion of our listenership, Tom has deep respect for political science. He just doesn’t think it’s the pathway to be involved in politics.

Denise Pope (09:55):

Well, there’s lots of ways that you can be of service. So, I think, let’s tease this out a little bit, Tom, because I think there’s the idea that you can go and do an internship and, you know, go to DC or go and do a local internship in your own community. But then there’s also what Dan said about voting, about making yourself heard, about rallying for causes that you believe in, right? So, I do think people will push back and say, “It takes time. I don’t have the time or the money.” It may be, as you say, that they don’t know about it. So I do think bringing them in and helping them to know, “Hey, these are out there.” But I also know it is a reality that a lot of people can’t do a free internship and a lot of nonprofits or government agencies don’t pay for that. So, is there a happy medium somewhere?

Tom Ehrlich (10:43):

We’re fortunate at �� where every person, every undergraduate who wants to do a summer of service gets a stipend. It’s not a fortune, but it’s enough to live on. And my hope is, in the current capital campaign that’s going on, we’ll be able to do that for at least all students who want to. But I’d like to go further and say all students, unless they have a real excuse, they can’t do it. We have programs now at ��, �� and government particularly, where students actually engage in what’s going on in government at the time. This is for government in Washington at the national level, but we have internships in the local and state level too where students really participate, actively. And they also, in their classes that are involved, too, or programs, they’re learning. And so the academic learning strengthens the service learning, and the service learning strengthens the academic learning.

Denise Pope (11:50):

I mean, those programs are amazing. I know. I did not know that you could get a stipend, and that’s a great thing to tell our listeners and they can pass that word on because that’s, uh, that’s amazing.

Dan Schwartz (12:04):

So John F. Kennedy had a very famous line. He said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” And so the image is that you participate in the institutions of the country and you serve. I think this may have changed. I think for a lot of students, public service is trying to change the institutions rather than working through them. And so they, they think they’re, and maybe they’re correct, that they’re participating in society by actively protesting what society is or advocating for different structures, and I think that’s viewed as or felt as participation. What do you think?

Denise Pope (12:43):

I don’t know. It’s kind of an interesting thing. I agree and I’m glad that we are seeing sort of a revitalization of youth activism, right? You see it with the climate change, but I am not sure I agree with the change because when he’s saying ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, I think activism is part of that, I mean, right? I think there’s a whole bunch of ways that you can serve or do for your country, from voting, from being a good neighbor, from, you know, taking a job in the public sector and from making your voice heard when you think that your country or your community is doing something wrong. So, I see them all as ways of doing for your country. Yeah. What do you think?

Dan Schwartz (13:39):

I agree. I think people look at students protesting or advocating, talking about unfairness, as a lack of participation.

Denise Pope (13:47):

Well, I think they’re annoyed by it. Oftentimes they’re just annoyed by it, right? They’re like...

Dan Schwartz (13:51):

Could be.

Denise Pope (13:52):

Those kids and cancel culture.

Dan Schwartz (13:54):

Right. That stupid music they listen to.

Denise Pope (13:57):

We say black and they say white or whatever, right? That’s just normal, you know, old people griping. But no, I think we are in a time of real revitalization of youth activism, and that gives me hope, because what we’re seeing in D.C. does not necessarily give me hope, but what we’re seeing in communities who are rallying and kids who are saying, “You know what? We’re inheriting this earth so we’re going to really make sure that climate change is front and center,” Or, “We understand the importance of respecting everybody’s identities.” Right? And so I appreciate that. The children are the future, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (14:45):

So Tom, this was a little bit of my pushback on how you get people engaged in public service, and it actually comes from your book. I enjoyed Learn, Lead, Serve: A Civic Life. I have to say, Tom, you’re developing a style that I like. You’re very good at sort of describing the setting and the scene and the decision-making. It’s very good.

Tom Ehrlich (15:08):

Thank you.

Dan Schwartz (15:08):

But here’s the thing...

(15:09):

No, it is.

Denise Pope (15:10):

That was Dan kissing up to you, Tom.

Dan Schwartz (15:13):

No, that’s not kissing up. That’s Dan channeling the truth. But the thing that really struck out, not struck out in a bad way, but the thing that really

Denise Pope (15:22):

stood out?

Dan Schwartz (15:22):

-stood out, that’s what I’m looking for, was, I was impressed by the incredible importance of role models and your engagement in public service. And so I was wondering, is this kind of a key to really effective public service experiences that you learn from, is to kind of find the right people to help you, to show you what it looks like, to make it something you aspire to?

Tom Ehrlich (15:48):

Dan, I think that’s the key to life.

Dan Schwartz (15:50):

Oh, wow.

Tom Ehrlich (15:51):

To a life well lived.

Dan Schwartz (15:53):

Drop the mic.

Denise Pope (15:54):

Yeah, this is huge. Okay, Tom, you’re telling us the key to life. We’re listening.

Tom Ehrlich (15:59):

Right, is to have role models. Not that you’re going to replicate them, but they set a standard of what you could do and you may not reach it, but you’re going to try a little harder and you’re going to learn a little more. And I’ve been blessed in my own life, starting with my father and a great judge, uh, Learned Hand, whom I worked for and others in the government who were extraordinary role models and they made me a little better, sometimes a lot better, than I’d might otherwise been. And over and over again, I encourage students to find others whom they admire and would like to work, not only with, but gain some of their knowledge, strengths, and abilities, and then try to do that. Most of us, certainly at my age, like to be asked for advice, but many students are shy about reaching out and asking, “Could you help me with this? I’m wrestling with this issue.” And that makes the difference.

Denise Pope (17:10):

I think – first of all, that’s amazing advice, and you are a role model for so many people – and I also think that there is this sense of Tom has worked for all these presidents and he ran a university and he was a dean. I mean, who am I to go up and say, “Hey, excuse me. Could you help me with my little bitty problem?” I do think people look at people like you, and even you Dan (and now I’m kissing up), but it’s like you guys are busy and you have big roles and it’s hard and scary for someone who’s a student or someone who doesn’t know how to approach that to even think about it. Like, what would be the language, Tom, that you would advise a student to take who wants to get in touch with you and ask for your advice?

Tom Ehrlich (17:55):

No one runs the university, so if I may correct you on that. But to the extent, a leader is there, being a walking around leader, being one who meets with students, being one who says to students, “I’m really open and interested not only in what you’re doing but what questions you have about your own life and how you can live it in a way, how you want to relate to the world around you, and so please come to me.” You can’t, as a university president or a dean, you can’t do that for all students one at a time. But if you say that and say that’s what our faculties are there for – everyone who works at the School of Education or at �� is a teacher. Whether they’re in the classroom or not, they’re teaching, they’re teaching at least by example, and, uh, making it clear that you’re there to help them. And to me, and I know to Dan and you, it’s a great satisfaction.

Denise Pope (18:59):

No, I like how you flip that, that it’s the adults. The adults need to be more out there and open and show that they really mean it and are receptive, and then I think it will make the students feel more comfortable. But I do think as a message to students and listeners, it can’t hurt to ask, right?

Tom Ehrlich (19:16):

Right.

Denise Pope (19:16):

No matter how famous or big or whatever the person is, right? It can’t hurt to ask.

Tom Ehrlich (19:21):

So many times I have heard from students who maybe were students 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, “You probably don’t remember this, but I asked you this and you gave me this piece of advice and it has changed my life.” Well, a little hyperbole there, no doubt, but still, it obviously really made a difference and they remembered it. It’s another reason I ask students over and over again, please thank your teachers. Because too often these things happen, but the teachers never know about it. So it’s good to say thank you to those who made it happen.

Denise Pope (20:02):

I don’t want to bring us down in any way, but I do wish that there were more role model types that we were seeing in Washington, D.C. I do think the reason why people are really hesitant to get into politics is you see this broken system and you see the people who are winning –

Tom Ehrlich (20:21):

Yeah, but how’s it going to get fixed? The way it’s going to get fixed is for people like our students getting in and getting involved and being those role models. Unfortunately, given the media these days, the bad apples get the most publicity. I understand that, because, in my experience at least, there are hundreds and thousands and thousands of public servants who don’t get publicity, don’t get anything other than the satisfaction of knowing they are doing something to make our democracy work better. But that said, having our students, and broadly, that’s why I help start two national organizations that are really aimed at helping students get the knowledge, the skills, the attributes to be engaged in public service in some way.

Dan Schwartz (21:12):

Tell us about one of those organizations. I didn’t know this.

Tom Ehrlich (21:15):

Well, one is called Campus Compact, which was started in the mid-1980s, and I was chair of its board for a while, and it was an organization of presidents. Much of the role of a president is not the most exciting thing. It’s budgets and cutting back on this or building on this.

Denise Pope (21:36):

These are university presidents.

Tom Ehrlich (21:38):

These are university presidents. Sorry. Yes.

Denise Pope (21:38):

University presidents.

Tom Ehrlich (21:39):

So the chance to take the high road and say what we’re really trying to do, some of the time at least, is help our students do what I’ve been talking about, which is make the world a little better. And Campus Compact grew to some state compacts, 36 of them, including here in California, and a large national group, and it’s still going strong. The other is called the American Democracy Project, which has some 300 – the Campus Compact has well over a thousand campuses with their presidents – American Democracy Project has some 300-plus broad-access public institutions like the Cal State system, where students are really focused on the abilities to become engaged in public policy or politics as students and for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t work for all students and it doesn’t certainly happen as evenly as all, but those are two of the organizations. And there’re others. I just haven’t been involved with all of them.

(22:46):

I have some for K–12 schools, too, that I’ve been engaged with that, that help bridge the gap between just watching what seems like a mess going on in Washington and the reality of knowing you can participate and make it better.

Denise Pope (23:04):

That’s like the epitome of Tom. This is how I would describe Tom. You see a problem and you say, “You know what? We could fix this. Let’s get a bunch of people together and talk about it and figure out what they can do. And since you were a university president, Campus Compact, let’s get a bunch of university presidents together and talk about this.” And I know that the Haas Center came out of some of that Campus Compact work, and service centers all over the United States came out of some of that Campus Compact work. Really cool.

Dan Schwartz (23:34):

Nah, it’s phenomenal.

Denise Pope (23:35):

Okay. I have a quick last question for you, Tom, because I know we’re running out of time. And we have you here, so can’t not ask this. As you look back at, sort of, all the stuff you did, right? One piece of advice that you learned or one nugget, what’s one nugget that you want everyone to know? I’ve had this full life, here’s a nugget, everybody.

Dan Schwartz (23:57):

Denise, he just wrote a book with all the nuggets.

Denise Pope (24:00):

I know, but I’m distilling it. I don’t have my copy yet. Is there a distillation?

Tom Ehrlich (24:08):

Can I give a nugget that’s outside of the realm we’ve been talking about?

Denise Pope (24:11):

Of course.

Tom Ehrlich (24:13):

Good. Well, before Ellen, my wife, and I got married 67 years ago, my father-in-law pulled me aside and said, “Tom, if you each go two-thirds of the way, maybe you’ll make it.” And I found that advice, not just in marriage or in other relations, but in many things. If you could try to go two-thirds of the way –

Dan Schwartz (24:38):

So I think I’ve got this. You’re facing each other and you’re each going two-thirds, so you’re going to overlap. That’s the imagery.

Tom Ehrlich (24:46):

That’s right.

Dan Schwartz (24:48):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (24:49):

I love it. I love it. I love that image and I love that advice, and it applies to much more than marriages, but also what an amazing, amazing thing that you’ve done personally, socially, and so much good for the world. So Tom, thank you so much. I’m so excited to read the book. And I definitely want a signed copy. I’m just putting that out there.

Tom Ehrlich (25:07):

Yeah, I’ll do that too. Good! Well, thank you so much for letting me be with you. It was my great pleasure.

Denise Pope (25:16):

And Dan, as you think back to this conversation, what are some of the things that you’re going to really remember?

Dan Schwartz (25:23):

Ahhh. You know, I always take a learning angle, and, um, I think the social model, you know, where you see other people do it, it’s important for you to get in the game. But, you know, he kept emphasizing the importance of the experience, and I think you need that experience of, like, how satisfying it is to actually help someone else. And that’s what keeps you in the game and makes it so that you want to do that more. And so I thought that was really interesting that you –

Denise Pope (25:47):

You have to really feel it.

Dan Schwartz (25:48):

Yep. Yep.

Denise Pope (25:49):

Yeah, so true. Tom, thank you so much. Thank you to all of our listeners for joining on this episode of School’s In. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I’m Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (26:04):

And I am Dan Schwartz. And thank you for joining us.

Podcast

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GSE area

Faculty and Research

Faculty mentioned in this article: Thomas Ehrlich , Denise Pope , Dan Schwartz

Starting a startup: What it takes to innovate in education

Olivia Peterkin — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 18:35:33 +0000

Starting a startup: What it takes to innovate in education Olivia Peterkin Tue, 01/07/2025 - 10:35

Impact | Innovation | Technology

On this episode, Sergio Monsalve, venture capital investor and founder of Roble Ventures, discusses how great entrepreneurial ideas can create lasting educational change.

January 9, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

One of the most common dilemmas entrepreneurs face in the education technology space is navigating the tension between making sure a product is both educationally effective and profitable.

Part of the problem, according to venture capital investor Sergio Monsalve, is that the people who are best equipped to make such products – educators, investors, and businesspeople – rarely interact with one another at the ideation stage.

“I started talking to a lot of [folks] at [�� Graduate School of Education] and said, hey, this would be amazing to bring together the engineers and the businesspeople and the education people because then we would actually minimize failure rates in edtech if we actually had these three types of people talking to each other," said Monsalve, who founded Roble Ventures and co-founded the GSE’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) program.

Although he believes the fix is straightforward, Monsalve says that it’s by no means an easy task — due to the differing perspectives of professionals in those fields.

“That’s the hardest thing, to bring people together that come from different points of view, and it takes a longer time, but it creates a better culture long term,” he said.

Luckily, he also teaches a course at the GSE called Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Education Technology, where he gathers practitioners across industries to learn to collaborate with one another and create successful businesses.

Monsalve joins hosts GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope on School’s In as they discuss what skills and traits make a successful entrepreneur, how entrepreneurship can be taught, academia’s relationship to innovation in the business sector, and how great ideas can be applied to education to benefit learners of all ages.

“At the end of the day, entrepreneurship is almost like you’re hiring David to beat Goliath,” Monsalve said. “(To do that) this person needs to know how to maneuver, be adaptable, reshape the landscape, and make sure they don’t go with an in-the-box way of fighting Goliath, which is via strength. “

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to School’s In on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Sergio Monsalve (00:00):

At the end of the day, entrepreneurship is almost like you're hiring David to beat Goliath.

Denise Pope (00:09):

Today we're diving into the world of entrepreneurship and how it's driving innovation in education. We'll be exploring how business strategies and creative thinking can help make learning more accessible for everyone.

Dan Schwartz (00:21):

And we'll take a look at the skills and dispositions that make great entrepreneurs and how they can be applied to education to create lasting change.

Denise Pope (00:29):

I think it's going to be a good one. Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting edge insights and learning. Each episode we dive into the latest trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at �� Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success. And I'm with my co-host Dan Schwartz, dean of the �� GSE and the faculty director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Dan Schwartz (01:02):

It's my pleasure to introduce Sergio Monsalve. So Sergio co-founded the Entrepreneur in Residence Program at the GSE. Again, the idea was there's a lot of students and maybe some faculty who would like to bring their products to scale and industry as a way to do this. So we brought him in his expertise in 2018, and the program has been going since. It's really good. Sergio teaches a beloved course on this. He has a degree from ��. He has an MBA from the �� of the East Harvard. He started his career working at a venture capital in eBay and PayPal, but then he moved to education and we'll want to find out why he made the switch. And he has his own shop called Roble Ventures. And the quote is, they invest in human enablement with a focus on lifelong learning and human adaptability. So tell us about, before we find out the secret sauce to picking winners, why did you end up in education?

Sergio Monsalve (02:00):

Well, it's accidental, as you mentioned, I did an engineering degree at ��, loved my time there. In fact, Roble, funny fact is the name of my freshman dorm at ��, Roble Hall.

Denise Pope (02:11):

And by the way, I was an RA in Roble Hall. We have a little bond.

Sergio Monsalve (02:17):

Oh, great. I was my freshman dorm there, so loved it. It was my intro to Silicon Valley, and I just loved my time learning. But one thing I realized when I was an investor is that I started in 2010, I started investing in education by accident. So the companies that we looked at that we liked, entrepreneurs that we liked, which we'll talk about, but it was very much about thinking about the lifespan of a student and how it typically formally ends at 21 or in the case of a PhD, maybe a little later than that, but for the most part, 18 to 21, you start at five years old and you end at 21 years old. And so I asked myself, why is there no formal education at 21 years old to a hundred years old?

(03:07):

And so that's my entry into a company that we ended up taking public, I was on the board for seven years called Udemy, which really focuses on making education very accessible to people by pricing it very low. And then allowing teachers to put up their courses online, sell them worldwide. And some of these instructors are making over a million dollars a year on the platform just going beyond the four walls, so the classroom. So to me it was empowering both from the supply side, the teacher side, but empowering for us, educating the world on skills that were very necessary in a world that is moving faster and faster and faster, which may actually require you to have multiple careers in your life, unlike our parents and grandparents that actually got to do one career and perhaps even not even move jobs over their lifetime. So this dynamism of the future of work means that you also need to download new concepts into your brain beyond 21 years old or 18 onto a hundred ideally.

Denise Pope (04:12):

I like how you're just stopping in a hundred there. And after that, that's it, you're done, and no more learning. I'm kidding. Yeah, I'm kidding, Sergio. I do like the idea of selling my courses and getting a million dollars though, so we'll talk about that after.

Dan Schwartz (04:29):

So was it a moral prerogative or you just found it an interesting space that you developed some expertise in or?

Sergio Monsalve (04:37):

Yeah. We invested in Udemy and then we looked at others because success begets success and entrepreneurs come to you in that specific field that they think you know much about. I realized that number one, I didn't know much about it because I came from engineering and business, and I was missing a big part of it, which was learning science pedagogy, and really the meat of how we put things on our brains. And that happened to all of us in the sort of private world of EdTech, there are engineers and businesspeople that would say, hey, I was good at school, I must know learning, so I'm going to start a company with my engineering skills and business skills too. And so they were missing the education piece.

(05:19):

So when I got into education, it was because I got to talking to Paul Kim a CTO at GSE, and he obviously has a pulse on EdTech, but also has a pulse on �� and said, "Hey, it'd be really interesting to think about this entrepreneur in residence program." And from that, I started talking to a lot of you at GSE and said, "Hey, this would be amazing to bring together with the engineers and the businesspeople and the education people because then we would actually minimize failure rates in EdTech if we actually had these three types of people talking to each other." I said, "Well, beyond the one-year entrepreneur residence program, what can I do to create more of an ongoing sort of effort?" And that's how the class came together.

Dan Schwartz (06:07):

So, Sergio, that's a great idea. There's a guy at �� who would run a fellowship and he would get a medical resident, engineering graduate student, and a business student. And their job was to develop a product to start up. And he said the hardest, I asked him how much work was that. And he said, the work's the first five months so that these three very different sort of sensibilities and skill sets learn to talk to each other. And that's where he has to play a really active role-

Sergio Monsalve (06:37):

Absolutely.

Dan Schwartz (06:38):

... to get them so that it's interesting that there are different assumptions and strategies and attitudes.

Sergio Monsalve (06:45):

Yeah. And we see it all the time. That's the hardest thing to bring people together that come from different points of view. And it takes a longer time, but it creates a better culture long term, right?

Denise Pope (06:57):

So when you're teaching these folks, you're teaching them about entrepreneurship, are you also teaching that mean you have so much experience now picking winners, right? That goes back to when I was talking to Dan about choosing talent. What's a good pitch? What do you even look for?

Sergio Monsalve (07:13):

So the entrepreneurs, I mean, first of all, God, entrepreneurs are just very small portion of the population and they're very rare, especially the good ones.

Dan Schwartz (07:23):

Seems like 50% of the people at �� are entrepreneurs. I'm just like, I'm surrounded by, it's not AI all the time. It's entrepreneurship all the time.

Sergio Monsalve (07:33):

Yeah. Well, a lot of them definitely want to be that and some of them make it -a lot of them, ��'s unique, right? I think they have to have a few things. One is a reason to do it. So back to Dan's mention of why are you doing this? Sort of the intent, it has to be real. It has to be authentic. They can't just want to do it because they want to get rich quick. It has to be sort of almost a chip on their shoulders. So I look for that. Usually, and it's actually very proven and documented that a lot of them have had a history in their lives. Over 50% of them, for example, came to this country from a different country. So naturally you're not an insider to the country. So a lot of them are underdogs. A lot of them have a chip on their shoulder.

(08:24):

They have incredible curiosity, hence why �� I think has a much higher hit ratio than others. They have to be experimental, be okay to fail. And so we test that not just by looking at their resume and interviewing them, but by really doing a very strong back channel referencing, front channel referencing, really spending time with them, really trying to get to something beyond the resume. Because at the end of the day, entrepreneurship is almost like you're hiring David to beat Goliath, and how does David beat Goliath has to be a real, real person, knows how to maneuver, be adaptable, reshape the landscape, make sure they don't go with in the box way of fighting Goliath, which is via strength. So you have to kind of reshape the landscape. And so that requires a lot.

Denise Pope (09:16):

Okay, that sounds like almost impossible to me. I was like, wow, that counts me out. Okay.

Dan Schwartz (09:23):

So I was talking to Jorge Paulo Lemann , one of the wealthiest people in Latin America, and I was asking him about people who really super successful, and he said, "They're all insane."

Denise Pope (09:34):

They're insane? Is that what you just said? Are you calling Sergio maniacal and insane?

Dan Schwartz (09:38):

Maniacal? Driven. No, I'm raising the possibility.

Sergio Monsalve (09:44):

I am. I am a little bit.

Dan Schwartz (09:47):

But just sort of echoing the point that you need someone who's quite driven and bounces back from setbacks and-

Sergio Monsalve (09:56):

Being adaptable, resilient. I mean, why would you go into a ring with a giant and try to fight that giant? That's stupid. Insane is probably another way to put it, right? So I 100% agree, Dan. I don't know why people do it.

Denise Pope (10:11):

I just had a little inkling that I should look up the definition of the word entrepreneurship and where it came from. And I have to admit, I don't speak French, but it comes from the French word entreprendre. I don't know. Someone's going to correct my French on that. What do you think that means? And don't cheat. Did you already cheat? Did you already look it up? Are you looking up right now? You are, such a cheater.

Dan Schwartz (10:47):

Let me just think. It is the activity of setting up a business or businesses taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.

Denise Pope (10:55):

Okay. That's the definition of entrepreneurship. But what do you think the French entreprendre, whatever means? Take a guess and don't cheat.

Dan Schwartz (11:05):

Yeah. So my two years of high school French, my one year of college French, preneur, to make lots of money by getting in between people.

Denise Pope (11:15):

It's interesting. So according to this article, I could be wrong, it says undertaker or adventurer. And what I thought was so interesting about that is they probably don't mean undertaker in the way that we use undertaker, but you could understand that if a business totally goes flop, you might be an undertaker in the sort of traditional American way. But I like the concept of adventurer and you're undertaking something, right?

Dan Schwartz (11:44):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (11:44):

Kind of interesting.

(11:50):

Sergio, I have a question for you, because you were talking about qualities that you were looking for. Insanity was one of them, but there was a whole list of qualities. And a part of me is thinking, but wait, you're also offering classes on this. So can you teach someone to be an entrepreneur? Is it a learned skill?

Sergio Monsalve (12:08):

The answer is yes. There's some proclivities that people have when they're sort of young and how they grow up, but I think is very much behavioral. Hence, why I do think that who your parents are and how you grew up and all that does affect it. And we've seen that it does affect it. It runs in the family and runs in the society. ��'s very infectious, and so that society itself breeds more infection around entrepreneurship. And I do think that there's exercises, if it's a training, there's exercises you can do along all this sort of the handful of dimensions that we look for as an entrepreneur to actually exercise those muscles and really get better at it. Because there's very uncomfortable things that you need to do as an entrepreneur, that are not natural for any person, but it's more natural for some than others. But you could also [inaudible 00:13:05].

Dan Schwartz (13:05):

You have to give an example.

Denise Pope (13:06):

Yeah. Give an example, definitely. What is this not natural thing?

Dan Schwartz (13:11):

I want to know if I'm unnatural.

Sergio Monsalve (13:12):

So that's what I was going to get to. I'm glad that you're teased by that. I think, for example, feeling uncomfortable is very unnatural. And so what I try to do for myself and others is to have you done something that feels incredibly uncomfortable in the last week. And what is that? Meaning that is for me, sometimes it's socially uncomfortable. I'm trying other things that are physically uncomfortable, but just get yourself outside of your comfort zone. One great example of that, Dan, is teaching the class at �� in front of 50 super sharp, sharp, sharp students for the first time ever, having never taught was incredibly uncomfortable. But I had to rise up to that. And it was the most incredibly exciting experiences I've had, but it was quite a bit of preparation to get there. And so I just don't think enough people, as they get older, do enough things that are experimental and sort of, hey, I'm going to try this, but I might fail and it feels totally uncomfortable but I'm going to do it.

Dan Schwartz (14:20):

Yeah. So, Denise, does this mean that in my courses, I should make everybody feel uncomfortable?

Denise Pope (14:25):

No. No, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (14:26):

Hey everybody. It's Wednesday morning. It's uncomfort day.

Denise Pope (14:29):

Yeah. Or there's going to be a pop quiz or whatever. No, I think what Sergio is saying is that you in his class, it's a safe place to practice this and think about getting out of your comfort area because you're going to have to do it so much as an entrepreneur.

Sergio Monsalve (14:43):

It has to again be intrinsic. It has to be intrinsic. Because if, Dan, you're telling your students to be uncomfortable, that defeats the purpose [inaudible 00:14:52].

Dan Schwartz (14:52):

No, no, I wouldn't tell them. I would make them.

Denise Pope (14:55):

He does that normally, Sergio. No, no, no, no, no. Just kidding. Just kidding.

Sergio Monsalve (14:58):

That's normal.

Denise Pope (15:01):

No, no, no. But wait. Okay, so I understand that you have to teach them to be comfortable with discomfort, but there's also some basics like, I don't know anything about marketing. I mean, there's some business things that as an educator maybe, I don't know, like you said, there was some pedagogical stuff that you had to learn coming from business. How do you do this?

Sergio Monsalve (15:18):

The one thing is that you have to realize that to be an entrepreneur, you almost have to be a decathlete and you have to do 10 sports, but none of them, you do really, really the best. You're never the best, but you need to know enough. So what I look for is this incredible curiosity that where a lot of the entrepreneurs have a knowledge or curiosity about a lot of things. So that's your sort of very wide but not very deep. And then they have a very deep function that they've gone really deep in. So they may be natural engineers or marketers, and that's been their career, but they have incredible curiosity about other things, legal, marketing, sales, all the things that require you to kind of grow a firm. And so what happens then is because you know enough to be dangerous and you're also need to be incredibly introspective about yourself and really know yourself, which is actually a really, really hard skill.

(16:15):

But if you actually know yourself and you know enough to be dangerous on all these different areas, then you'll know what to hire for or how to pair up with the right person as a co-founder, so that you at least have the basics at the beginning. The basics at the beginning are very simple. You either build the product or you sell the product. That's all there is to it at the beginning, but later on you actually have to count the beans and count the money that's coming in, and so you need finance, you need all these other things, HR, but at the beginning is all about building that product, making sure your customers love it, and then sell it to the customers. And so those skills are at the beginning, the most important things. But if you're introspective and you know enough in other areas, then you're going to be pretty successful. So you don't have to be an expert at everything. You'll be a decathlete.

Dan Schwartz (17:05):

I want to ask a different line of questioning, it's an honest concern. So I am bringing corporate sensibilities into the academy, but the academy is on a very slow timeline. It is deep expertise in one thing. And so meanwhile, in the corporate world it's, go fast, you got to beat other people to market. Are these two cultures, can we get them to work together? Or is it ultimately we're going to get students who aren't interested in the depth of scholarship because they want to be entrepreneurs and so they're going to have trouble in classes or the faculty will become entrepreneurs and stop doing the depth? Am I making a mistake bringing these two cultures together?

Sergio Monsalve (17:54):

I think they cohabit, but there's different, some are very fast twitch muscles. The other ones are more long distance, sort of, again, the athletic analogy here, but Dan, I think they could cohabit. I always think of it as why are entrepreneurs so fast moving is a lot of the decisions, especially in software, I think of it in terms of two-door decisions versus one door decision. If it's a two-door decision, means that you can make the decision and come back to it. And so in software, a lot of times you can do an MVP, take it back and relaunch it.

Denise Pope (18:28):

Wait, can I just say MVP does not stand for most valuable player here. It is minimally viable product. Is that right?

Sergio Monsalve (18:35):

Yes, that's right.

Denise Pope (18:37):

Aren't you excited that I know that? I just learned that two months ago. Minimally viable product, okay MVP. Thank you, Sergio, sorry to interrupt.

Sergio Monsalve (18:46):

You can launch your prototype, your MVP, and you could take it back. But in academia, you can't just put out something that's inaccurate and then take it back. So you're dealing with more of a one door decision sometimes. So again, I'm giving you the academic versus entrepreneur, but in life there's always, always decisions that are irreversible versus reversible. I think it's important to go beyond academics and entrepreneurship when they're oil and water is more like what are the things that we need to think about that are irreversible versus reversible. And then those mentalities, then maybe there's a sort of translation mechanism so that both worlds can live together, but it's all about what kind of decisions are you making, I guess.

Denise Pope (19:36):

There's another tension that we tend to see too, which is, this is going to be best for kids and this is going to make us a lot of money. And sometimes there is a choice where you have to say, wait a minute, that's not necessarily best for kids. So bottom line of an educator might be different from a bottom line of company. What do you make of that, Sergio?

Sergio Monsalve (19:58):

I know that's one of the biggest dilemmas we talk in class, because I always think of it. I show my students this really nice framework where if you're teaching something where you're going to get out of ROI very quickly, those business metrics do work because let's say in the case of adult education where you're just learning one skill and that'll help you accomplish your assignment next day, then that worked. You learned the skill, you created your project, and your boss was happy and the full cycle happened.

(20:32):

What I'm really struggling with, and this is why I brought the class together with educators is how do you in a delayed gratification situation where you're teaching kindergartners something that may not have ROI for a long time, how do put product efficacy and pedagogical value up front rather than economic value versus the lifelong learning approach, which is very close. So I've been struggling, and that's why we have a third in our class that are educators, to really think about, okay, how can you infuse that early on in the product? Because long-term, it'll be a better product if it has the efficacy, but it takes a while to know that, right? So we need a better data to come up front so that we could operate in a much more faster cycle environment and much more accurate, right?

Denise Pope (21:26):

Interesting. And sometimes you don't have that data, sometimes you really won't have that up front data, so it makes it even harder.

Sergio Monsalve (21:32):

Yeah. Exactly. But this is where I think a lot of the work that happens in the GSE is very valuable because there is science on what makes people learn better. And so if you bring it and you build it, codify it into something that's scalable technologically, then it's going to be better for everybody. It has to be all, I call it three disciplines, business, engineering and education. But obviously we have a humanities, we just signed up a medical student, and so I think all seven schools at �� get involved into this problem. And that's why I think we have six out of seven schools usually represented. The lawyers usually don't come, but that's a whole different-

Denise Pope (22:14):

But you definitely need the lawyers too, right?

Sergio Monsalve (22:17):

We do, but I think they have a whole different registration, so I'm going with that.

Dan Schwartz (22:23):

So I have an opposite problem. So faculty have made a very good educational product. Oftentimes it's kind of a test, right? Universities are very good at making measurement, and they refuse to monetize it because they believe it should be a public good, and I appreciate this. At the same time, their code base will become obsolete and they're going to have to keep rewriting the code, things like that. But they don't want to monetize. And so they don't have a plan for how to bring this to scale. They expect people to just come to it or how to provide customer support. They just hope people take it and use it. And so how can I convince them?

Sergio Monsalve (23:06):

Well, the value exchange... So first of all, there are things that shouldn't, I don't invest in. I don't want to invest in a tutoring service that charges $10,000 per student because that's very gap widening. There's things that are very gap closing. And so when you actually make the value exchange very fair and accessible to a lot of people. So like the example of Udemy where the courses are $40 or in Kahoot, the courses, the little games that I play in my class, the Kahoot games are very accessible to any teacher to buy or even free. And so to me, that's a very fair value exchange.

(23:46):

I think you should say that you could raise money two ways, philanthropy or by exchanging value with your customers in a fair way and equitable way. I like that better because then you could hire employees, you could actually do marketing, you could do a lot of things when it's an ongoing concern, rather than you having to spend all your time pitching non-profits to give you money on an ad hoc basis because that's not very sustainable, and that also doesn't attract the best employees because they don't feel like the company's an ongoing concern, an ongoing entity.

(24:21):

So I always say, what is the fair exchange that is equitable and accessible to a lot of people, right?

Denise Pope (24:31):

I think just even in this one little session today, I have learned a lot, and you've given us a lot to think about, Sergio, and we so appreciate all of your metaphors, the decathlon, the one door versus two doors, and the David and Goliath. I mean really, you've really helped us to visualize it.

Dan Schwartz (24:51):

Agreed. It's great stuff to be thinking about, especially when it comes to finding that balance between keeping education accessible and building sustainable models.

Denise Pope (25:01):

Right. And I thought another really important idea was the idea of a fair value exchange, right? Making sure educational tools are not just affordable, but also that they can grow and that they can be sustainable. I think that's important for educators and entrepreneurs to keep in mind.

Dan Schwartz (25:16):

So a key, I thought was the combination of education, business and engineering working together to ensure that we're tackling education solutions from all angles.

Denise Pope (25:26):

Yes, I love that. I love that combo, right? How powerful. Sergio, thank you so much again for joining us today, and thank you all for tuning in to this episode of School's In. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (25:44):

And I'm Dan Schwartz.

Podcast

split

GSE area

Faculty and Research

Faculty mentioned in this article: Dan Schwartz , Denise Pope

�� GSE’s POLS program celebrates 20 years of producing leaders in education

Olivia Peterkin — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 20:13:19 +0000

�� GSE’s POLS program celebrates 20 years of producing leaders in education

Olivia Peterkin Tue, 10/29/2024 - 13:13

Alumni | Education Policy | Impact

The Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies program was started in 2004 to fill a need for leaders in collaboration.

October 29, 2024

By Olivia Peterkin

When former �� Graduate School of Education (GSE) Dean Deborah Stipek worked with faculty to create a new master’s program back in 2004, the goal was to fill gaps in the training needed for emerging roles in education.

“In the olden days, if you wanted to be in education as a practitioner, you were either a teacher, a principal, or a district leader,” said Stipek, who is also the Judy Koch Professor of Education, emerita. “When we looked at the terrain of education at the time, the master’s-level positions were now very varied and diverse.

“You had all kinds of layers in the field of education that hadn’t been there before, at least not in large numbers,” she said. “Suddenly you had school reform organizations, state governments, charter schools, and other programs all looking for leaders with strong educational backgrounds.”

Their answer to supplying this growing demand? The GSE’s Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies (POLS) program, which started as a way to produce leaders who could collaborate across sectors for the betterment of education.

First led by founding faculty director and professor emeritus Debra Meyerson, along with associate professor emeritus Steve Davis, the program has gone on to produce more than 500 professionals working at the intersection of educational policy, organization, and leadership.

“We founded POLS because we thought it was important for there to be explicit programming for students at the GSE to focus not just on individual and organizational leadership, but also the policy efforts required to influence systemic change,” said Meyerson, who is now the co-founder and co-chair of Stroke Onward, a nonprofit that provides resources for stroke survivors and their families.

Ann Jaquith, POLS’ current director and a senior lecturer at the GSE. (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

The program has evolved over the years to include a project that gives students the opportunity to specialize in an interest, and create a community of graduates that network and support one another.

“I see the POLS program as one that’s about teaching students how to lead change in education and become the sorts of leaders the education field needs now,” said Ann Jaquith, POLS’ current director and a senior lecturer at the GSE.

“What’s really powerful about that is that everyone in the program shares this strong passion and commitment to do better for some group of people in the education field.”

This year POLS celebrates 20 years by looking back at the accomplishments of past graduates, and modernizing its vision to equip leaders of the future.

Creating systemic change

When Jodi Anderson, Jr., BA ‘21, MA ‘22, enrolled in the POLS program he was trying to figure out how to effect change that would impact entire organizations and institutions, like the United States education system.

“There’s a lot of discourse around the problems that affect the educational system, and you need that critique, but until you have a more nuanced understanding of how those systems interact with each other — from finance, to how school systems are set up, to how governments interact with those systems, who the key decision makers are — you can’t identify points of entry,” said Anderson, who is the co-founder of Rézme, an edtech platform that supports economic and social mobility for socio-economically disadvantaged citizens.

“POLS puts you into direct contact with the people who can pull levers,” Anderson said. “And our cohort consisted of people who were actual operators, people who had been in the school system.”

Anderson found that the program’s combination of knowledge, theory, and practical skills aided his cohort in discovering their best approaches to being changemakers.

“POLS students are very much about systemic change and are individuals driven to learn how systems work,” said Nereyda Salinas, who was POLS’ first staff program director, and is currently assistant dean for professional development at the GSE.

“It’s a really unique program because students take these history courses from a practical perspective to understand and appreciate the past, and avoid repeating the same mistakes, while being hopeful for the future,” she said.

Jodi Anderson, BA '21, MA '22, is the co-founder of Rézme, an edtech platform that supports economic and social mobility for socio-economically disadvantaged citizens. (Photo: Ryan Zhang)

A spirit of entrepreneurship and problem solving

In addition to the shared purpose of creating positive systemic change, the “L” in POLS often attracts students looking to start new businesses.

For Sean Mendy, MA ‘10, joining POLS meant finding a way to lead in a way that creates educational opportunities for under-resourced students.

“I grew up here in Silicon Valley and saw the amazing things that were happening, and also saw there were a lot of people who weren’t accessing the things that made this place special,” said Mendy, who is the founding partner of Westbound Equity Partners, an investment platform that invests in companies serving underrepresented consumers. “Some of the more talented people I knew floundered because they missed out on certain supports, and I became obsessed with addressing that.”

His firm, which he co-founded in 2019 with three other partners, including two �� Graduate School of Business alumni, commits 50% of net proceeds to causes that support opportunity gaps for underrepresented U.S. talent.

“I went to POLS thinking reform was the only path to addressing social issues, but learned about the role of nonprofits in this work and I zeroed in on addressing the racial wealth gap through venture capital,” Mendy said.

“I think what was special about POLS was the variety of people who want to effect change in education in different ways, whether that be through policymaking, school leadership, finance, or starting a business.”

The multidisciplinary program is focused through the POLS project, a requirement that allows students to work with organizations and nonprofits to address a specific issue in education that connects with what they plan to do after graduation.

“We consider difficult, multi-faceted problems that lack a single, simple answer,” said Jaquith, who’s led the program since 2021. “Using conceptual lenses from multiple disciplines, POLS graduates understand complicated educational challenges more completely and ask important questions.”

Former GSE Dean Deborah Stipek says POLS students have created a "pretty deep and broad network of people in various fields.”

A global network of leaders

Graduates of the program have gone on to fill an array of roles, including those in consulting, business, finance, higher education, government, and policy, among others.

“The POLS graduates take care of each other, because there’s a strong sense of affiliation with the program,” Stipek said. “So many POLS graduates have been hired by previous graduates because they’ve created this pretty deep and broad network of people in various fields.”

Each year POLS students develop strong relationships within their cohort and connections to educational leaders and alumni, a tradition Jaquith plans to develop moving forward.

“Every year I meet some POLS graduates who are cooler than the years before,” Mendy said. “It’s great to know there are people who care about education, but are committed to being leaders across industries and approaching the issue from many different angles.”

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Debra Meyerson , Deborah Stipek , Ann Jaquith

Lifelong learning: �� GSE student collects her master’s degree after 80 years in education

Olivia Peterkin — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 02:38:18 +0000

Lifelong learning: �� GSE student collects her master’s degree after 80 years in education

Olivia Peterkin Sun, 06/16/2024 - 19:38

Virginia Hislop beams at the GSE's 2024 commencement ceremony after accepting her master of arts in education on Sunday, June 16. (Photo: Charles Russo)

Alumni | Campus Life | Impact

Virginia Hislop receives a master’s degree in the 2024 diploma ceremony at the age of 105.

June 16, 2024

By Olivia Peterkin

It’s been a minute since Virginia “Ginger” Hislop was a student at �� Graduate School of Education (GSE).

When she started at the GSE in 1936 — then the �� University School of Education — her plan was to get her bachelor’s of education, which she did in 1940, and obtain her master’s of education so she could teach, which she started directly after.

The goal: to help grow and provide opportunities for young minds by following in the footsteps of her grandmother, who taught in Kansas before the Civil War, and her Aunt Nora, who was the principal of a school in West Los Angeles, and pursue the field of education.

However, just after completing her coursework and just before turning in her final thesis, her then-boyfriend George Hislop AB ’41, a GSE student in Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), got called in to serve during World War II, prompting the pair to get married and Virginia Hislop to leave campus before graduating.

“I thought it was one of the things I could pick up along the way if I needed it and I always enjoyed studying, so that wasn’t really a great concern to me — and getting married was,” said Hislop, who was born in Palo Alto and resides in Yakima, Washington.

Now, 83 years after leaving campus and living in service to learning, Hislop returned to �� to finish what she started and receive her graduate degree.

“A fierce advocate for equity and the opportunity to learn … today we are proud to confer the master of arts in education to our 105 year-old graduate,” GSE Dean Daniel Schwartz said in a speech at the beginning of the GSE’s commencement ceremony on Sunday, June 16.

Virginia Hislop (right) accepts her diploma for her master of arts in education at the GSE’s 2024 commencement ceremony from Dean Dan Schwartz. She collects her degree after more than 80 years doing education work in schools and on school boards in Yakima, Washington. (Photo: Charles Russo)

Family ties to ��

In many ways, Hislop’s work in education after leaving �� began with her children.

When her daughter Anne started first grade in Washington, Hislop advocated on her behalf so that she could take advanced English, rather than a home economics course being suggested by the school.

“I felt that she could learn to cook at home and it was more important that she learn more academic skills at school,” said Hislop, whose daughter Anne Hislop Jensen MA ’68 and son-in-law Doug Jensen, MA ’68, also graduated from the GSE.

After that first encounter, Hislop was moved to join the school board to have more of a say in what children were being taught, to help set them up for success.

“I felt that all the kids should have an opportunity to develop their potential as best they could, and that everybody should have a crack at higher education if they wanted,” said Hislop, who stayed on the school board for 13 years before moving her involvement to the city, county and state level in Washington state.

Some of her roles included chairing the Yakima School Board of Directors; becoming a founding member of the board of directors for Yakima Community College, and helping to start Heritage University in Toppenish, Washington, where she served on the board for 20 years.

“I’ve been doing this work for years and it’s nice to be recognized with this degree,” she said.

Leadership and longevity in learning

Nowadays, Hislop spends most of her time doing community work, reading, socializing and working in her garden — a routine she says has kept her sharp.

“The biggest lesson I’ve taken from her is that you never really stop learning,” said Doug Jensen, “She’s a voracious reader, and at 105 she’s still actively moving and shaking. No moss grows under her feet.”

Looking back on her career, Hislop credits her time at �� and the things she’s learned from community partners along the way for her ability to impact students.

“I think I did good things for our local school system and I helped broaden it out,” she said. “For me, this degree is an appreciation of the many years I’ve put in working for the schools in the Yakima area and on different boards.”

At the GSE Diploma ceremony, Schwartz concurred, saying Hislop “led a life of tremendous educational accomplishment.” Her fellow graduates and their families gave her a standing ovation.

When Hislop rose from her seat, donned in cap and gown, to walk across the stage and receive her master’s hood, the applause roared once again. She greeted Schwartz on stage and was handed her diploma. She smiled for the cameras. Her grandkids and great-grandkids waved and cheered.

“My goodness,” Hislop said. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

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Improving education by design

Carrie Spector — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 22:56:58 +0000

Improving education by design

Carrie Spector Tue, 04/02/2024 - 15:56

Students collaborate with community partners in a �� course cross-listed by the d.school and the Graduate School of Education. (Photo: Andrew Brodhead)

Impact | Innovation | International Education

A new �� course connects students with partners around the globe to innovate novel approaches to educational challenges.

March 26, 2024

by Isabel Sacks

A gong sounded in an upstairs classroom at the �� d.school. Students circled small round tables, perched on stools, with a whiteboard behind each group and sticky notes and markers spread in front of them.

There were undergraduate, master's, doctoral, and Distinguished Career Institute (DCI) students in the room, coming from fields as diverse as education, engineering, business, computer science, and humanities. The students' countries of origin included Barbados, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United States. For the interdisciplinary course, Design to Equip Learners in Under-Resourced Communities, each group of students was matched with a partner organization or school to co-design a solution to an educational challenge.

Isabelle Hau, one of the course’s three instructors, addressed the students, who had recently interviewed their community partners to better understand the challenges they faced. “Let’s reflect on our empathy interviews,” said Hau, executive director of the �� Accelerator for Learning, a university-wide hub housed at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) for researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, and others to collaborate on learning solutions. She put up a slide with prompts: What worked about the interviews? What didn’t work? What surprised you? What lesson did you learn for next time?

Each group shared reflections with the class. One group, working with the Sablayan branch of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), reported that the rural campus had wifi issues and they had to send questions over email when the Zoom connection failed. Another team had been using an AI note-taking app, which they realized only provided 30 minutes for free, so only part of their interview was recorded. A third group interviewed an overworked charter school teacher in Los Angeles who spent most of the conversation venting, and they were struggling to figure out how to advance their project.

By the end of class, the teams were able to cover a poster with sticky notes describing the scope of their partner organization's main challenges, or “problem space.” They walked around the room, sharing their work with classmates.

As class ended, another of the instructors, Laura McBain, managing director of the �� d.school and K12 Lab co-director, asked the students to take a step back. “Take a picture of your poster,” she said. “Where is there empty space on it? Where are there areas of opportunity? Where can design play a role in addressing the problem?”

Isabelle Hau addresses students in the Design to Equip Learners in Under-Resourced Communities course at ��. (Photo: Andrew Brodhead)

Paul Kim, one of the course instructors, gives instructions for a class activity. (Photo: Andrew Brodhead)

Laura McBain explains design principles to students. (Photo: Isabel Sacks)

Alessandra Napoli, Ramon Segismundo, and Carina Fung discuss their collaboration with PUP Sablayan, a rural university campus in the Philippines. (Photo: Andrew Brodhead)

Students working on an educational solution with CIDE Mexico discuss next steps for their project. (Photo: Andrew Brodhead)

A trinity of flashlights

The course emerged after a series of collaborations between the d.school and the �� Accelerator for Learning, including an equity in learning design workshop and convening for teachers about generative AI. Hau and McBain decided to launch the new course to involve students in the work of co-designing education solutions and brought in Paul Kim, associate dean & chief technology officer at the GSE, as a third instructor. Kim had been working with GSE students for years on implementing and researching mobile technology in education in high-poverty areas in Mexico, Jordan, and Ghana, among other countries.

“The three of us got together and there was a spark,” said Hau. “I’m a strong believer that you find people you love working with and take it from there.”

Each instructor brought a different background and perspective as they helped the students develop their projects. McBain’s background in applying design processes to educational settings helped push the students toward novel and innovative solutions and a bias toward action. “She lives and drinks design,” said Kim.

Hau brought knowledge of entrepreneurship and learning science, encouraging students to come up with solutions that were both novel and grounded in research. Her background with entrepreneur and investor communities gave her an eye for the strategic development of new solutions.

Kim’s years of experience on the ground in schools across the world was key as the students navigated community partnerships. “He brings deep content and field expertise, and helps us ensure we aren’t causing harm,” McBain said.

“We got different ideas from different instructors,” said Alessandra Napoli, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering who researches STEM education. “When it felt like my team was in the dark, they each had a different flashlight.” According to McBain, bringing in instructors with diverse areas of expertise and crafting interdisciplinary experiences for students are key elements of the d.school’s problem-solving model.

The instructors drew on existing relationships with organizations around the world to help build partnerships for the students' projects. Hau had worked with Children’s Institute, which provides early childhood services, and Education Development Center, a global education organization with emerging entrepreneurship education projects in Senegal. Kim brought in Edify, an organization developing educational technologies in Ghana, and CIDE, which conducts national-level education research and supports education in rural communities in Mexico. Additional partners were part of ��’s Ed Equity Lab, including Camden Prep in New Jersey and Birmingham Charter in Los Angeles. Ramon Segismundo, a DCI student, brought in PUP Sablayan.

Seeking out the best solutions in context

The ten-week course started with overview sessions on the design process, learning science, and the education innovation landscape, paired with readings on inequities in education. Then the students conducted interviews with stakeholders from their partner organizations and prototyped possible approaches and solutions with their input. In addition to weekly class time, the teams met with the instructors for “studio hours” to further workshop and hone their solutions.

Carina Fung, an undergraduate computer science major and education minor with a focus on human-computer interaction, signed up for the class despite her already heavy course load. “It’s rare to get to work with real-world problems in my course of study,” she said. “I wanted to develop a really meaningful product to use in real-world situations. This class was too cool an opportunity to pass up.”

Fung went into the course expecting to design a solution based on technology. After her senior year of high school and first year at �� coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, she developed a passion for understanding and improving education technology tools. However, she and her team quickly realized that a tech solution wasn’t right for their partner, PUP Sablayan. The rural university campus had ongoing challenges with wifi, bandwidth, and other technological resources.

“Even though I'm a big proponent of edtech, we didn't feel that this was the correct route to go,” said Fung. That was one of her key takeaways from the course. “The concept of humility in design has stuck with me. Even if you think it’s the best solution, it may not be in context.”

In the end, her team designed a community engagement initiative where teacher training candidates from PUP Sablayan serve as teaching assistants in a penal colony located nearby. Other solutions designed by student teams included an information and communication technology (ICT) course using storytelling and local folklore for young children in Ghana, a podcast recorded by and for teachers in rural Mexico, and a gamified English language learning app for Syrian refugee teenagers in Lebanon.

Embarking on a lifelong journey

McBain said she hoped the course helped to build deeper connections between �� and the community partners, laying the groundwork for continued collaboration. “We are in their journey with them and exist in mutuality with them,” she said. “That’s how we make change.”

Hau stressed the importance of involving students in building evidence-based education solutions, which motivated her to teach the course as part of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

“So far, the Accelerator has focused its theory of change on faculty driving change at scale, and this is a beautiful avenue,” she remarked. “What I would like to see more is tapping into the phenomenal students we have here at ��, and we are still just at the beginning of that opportunity.” Several groups in the course are continuing to develop their project as part of the Learning Design Challenge, another student-facing resource of the Accelerator.

“I want our students to understand how serious educational disparities are and work toward making the gap smaller and smaller,” added Kim. “Education doesn’t change just by innovation, which may not be sustainable or scalable. You also need compassion and commitment. I hope our students will embark on this lifelong journey.”

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Fellowship program by �� School of Medicine and the GSE wraps up first year

Carrie Spector — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 22:53:48 +0000

Fellowship program by �� School of Medicine and the GSE wraps up first year

Carrie Spector Tue, 03/26/2024 - 15:53

Albaraa Basfar, a �� postdoc in a pilot fellowship program led by the GSE and the School of Medicine, presents research in progress at a meeting in March. (Photo: Ana Mezynski)

Faculty and Programs | Impact | Teaching

The pilot program advances research to improve medical education.

March 26, 2024

By Rachel Baker

Every public school teacher has passed a rigorous certification process. At �� Graduate School of Education (GSE), they take things one step further, researching pedagogy to “achieve equitable, accessible and effective learning for all.” By comparison, surgery’s old educational mantra — “see one, do one, teach one” — seems woefully out-of-date.

“Much of the research in medical education lags behind that of the global education discipline as a whole,” said James Korndorffer, who serves as vice chair of education in ��’s Department of Surgery. “The advances in medical education research from collaboration will benefit all disciplines involved — the learner, and also through the learner, a lifetime of patients.”

Korndorffer decided to create a fellowship program linking ��’s School of Medicine (SoM) and the GSE after enrolling in the �� Medicine Leadership Academy in 2018. Although the idea was put on hold due to the COVID 19 pandemic, Korndorffer was able to secure funding with the assistance of GSE Dean Daniel Schwartz, SoM Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education Neil Gesundheit, and SoM Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education Laurence Katznelson, and enrolled the first two postdoctoral fellows in 2023. The program is currently wrapping up its first year.

The pilot program included two postdoctoral fellows:

Zihan Zhou, under the mentorship of Radiology’s Kawin Setsompop and Psychology/GSE’s Jason Yeatman
Albaraa Basfar, under the mentorship of the GSE’s Farzana Saleem and S-SPIRE’s Arden Morris

“The fellowship's focus on applying research to real-world applications directly aligned with my passion for improving educational equity for underrepresented minorities (URiM),” said Basfar. “The program provided a unique opportunity to develop and implement relevant research that could have a tangible impact in the field of education.”

Morris said she felt similarly but from the opposite angle.

“I had been searching for a way to improve our pipeline/pathway program for STEM-interested teens from URiM backgrounds. I hoped this post-doc could take over the program and generate new knowledge in terms of measuring success in a pipeline program,” said Morris. “I also wanted to better connect with colleagues in GSE, and this was a nice opportunity to do that with Saleem, who studies aspects of resilience among racial/ethnic minoritized teens.”

So far, Basfar, Morris, and Saleem have completed analyses from a survey of medical students to understand the interplay of formal and informal mentorship, sense of belonging, and peer/social support among medical students across the US. Basfar is also working on a systematic review to assess cumulative evidence on how best to define and measure success of such pipeline or pathway programs.

“This is an important program because it allows students multidisciplinary exposure to both the GSE and the SoM,” said Farzana Saleem, an assistant professor at the GSE. “Students have access to faculty and support across the two schools and have the opportunity to consider how education and medicine intersect.”

Zhou will present research at the annual meeting for the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine in Singapore at the beginning of May, and at the Organization for Human Brain Mapping’s annual meeting in Seoul, Korea, at the end of June.

“The fellowship has solidified my interest in developing and implementing research-based solutions to improve educational equity for underrepresented minorities,” said Basfar. “I've received invaluable training in grant writing and the intricacies of working in academia. This training will be instrumental in my job search.”

This article was originally published by the �� School of Medicine.

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STEP summer learning program receives community partnership award

Olivia Peterkin — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:49:36 +0000

STEP summer learning program receives community partnership award

Olivia Peterkin Mon, 03/25/2024 - 12:49

President Richard Saller (center) with Sunnyvale School District Superintendent Michael Gallagher (third from right); GSE Professor Ira Lit (second from right); and Ruth Ann Costanzo (fourth from right), STEP director of clinical work, K-12; and their teams. (Image credit: Peggy Propp)

Announcements | Awards | Impact

Service to community is the common trait for the four efforts celebrated March 1.

March 25, 2024

A partnership between the �� Teacher Education Program (STEP) and the Sunnyvale School District to fight summer learning loss was one of three campus-community partnerships recognized at a ceremony on March 1.

The 2024 �� Community Partnership Award, organized by the Office of Community Engagement, spotlights people and partnerships that forge meaningful collaboration between �� University and local communities. �� President Richard Saller welcomed more than 100 regional leaders and �� community members at the el PRADO Hotel in downtown Palo Alto to celebrate those at the heart of engagement work.

“Those of you who are receiving a Community Partnership Award today represent people and organizations that have stepped up and come together with the belief that problems have solutions,” said Martin Shell, vice president and chief executive external relations officer.

Celebrating more than a decade of service in Sunnyvale

Since 2010, the Sunnyvale School District has partnered with STEP, a 12-month master's program at the Graduate School of Education, to offer a summer program for 600 to 800 students each year. The partnership is a reciprocal relationship, affording an academically enriching summer for K-8 students that instills confidence and a learning mindset, and the opportunity for �� graduate students to work with teacher-mentors who equip them to hit the ground running in subsequent teaching placements.

The local collaboration has involved more than 9,000 K-8 students, over 1,000 STEP students, and 400 classroom teachers and summer school leaders.

“The STEP-Sunnyvale Summer Explorations program has truly been a sustained, mutual, and impactful partnership effort," said GSE Professor and STEP Faculty Director Ira Lit. "The shared ambitions of STEP and the Sunnyvale School District have been to support the learning, engagement, and growth of Sunnyvale students, while simultaneously offering a rich opportunity for professional learning for STEP teacher candidates and the participating Summer Explorations summer school teachers and mentors."

In addition to the STEP partnership, the awards honored a project of the �� Jail & Prison Education Project and the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office that brings learning opportunities into San Francisco jails, and a partnership between �� Medicine’s Office of Child Health Equity and Second Harvest of Silicon Valley to make food access part of health care delivery.

Assistant Professor Christopher Piech also received the Miriam Aaron Roland Volunteer Service Prize for launching Code in Place during the pandemic, a program where volunteers instruct the free-to-all online introductory programming course.

Launched in 2004 by the Office of Public Affairs, nominations are made by campus and community leaders, and the selection committee awards projects that demonstrate excellence in three criteria: meets a need; creatively connects campus and community; and engages students, staff, and/or faculty in service.

"The award is a meaningful recognition of the impact that such a deep collaborative endeavor can have on a community of learners,” Lit said.

This article is adapted from the original by Lisa Chung and Gabriela Herrera in �� Report.

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Changing the history course

Carrie Spector — Sun, 25 Feb 2024 23:00:18 +0000

Changing the history course

Carrie Spector Sun, 02/25/2024 - 15:00

Students in Salinas, Calif., participate in lessons using the Reading Like a Historian curriculum developed by the �� History Education Group, which recently launched as the Digital Inquiry Group, an independent nonprofit. (Photo: Manol Manolov)

Civics and History | Curriculum and Instruction | Impact

The �� History Education Group revolutionized the way students learn about the past. Now it’s moving into a new era.

February 27, 2024

By Carrie Spector

When Sam Wineburg joined the faculty of �� Graduate School of Education (GSE) in 2002, he knew he wanted to pursue a different approach to the way K-12 schools teach history. Instead of having students memorize names and facts from a textbook, why not equip them to investigate the evidence for themselves, just as historians do?

His own research had shown that with the appropriate guidance, even fifth and sixth graders could work with documents like diaries, speeches, and works of art to explore questions about the past. And as the world’s mode of delivering information was becoming increasingly digital, he knew that teaching students how to scrutinize sources would be critical beyond the history classroom — they were skills for becoming informed citizens in a democratic society.

His groundbreaking approach became the premise of the �� History Education Group (SHEG), an organization that has become renowned for its innovative, research-based approach to teaching history and, more recently, digital literacy. Over the past two decades, the group has created a rich repository of lessons for different grade levels, all freely available on its website, and partnered with school districts around the world to help educators use the materials in their classroom.

To date, SHEG’s resources have been downloaded more than 16 million times by educators from all 50 states and from countries around the world. Forty-one state departments of education in the United States include its materials on recommended lists. UNESCO bestowed the organization with an award for its work communicating best practices in media literacy in 2020, and a California law that went into effect last month requiring media literacy instruction in schools cited SHEG’s research in its rationale for the legislation.

Now SHEG is moving into a new era as the Digital Inquiry Group (DIG), an independent nonprofit that launched this month.

“Our main objective has always been to create materials for the classroom that are easy to use and go beyond the single voice of the textbook,” said Wineburg, the Margaret Jacks Professor Emeritus of Education at ��, who founded both SHEG and its new incarnation, DIG. “We’ve made a few bets, trying to figure out where we’d have the most influence with limited resources. But with all of our research and all of the resources we’ve developed, it’s always been about empowering students to make sense of the past and the present.”

Incubating a new approach at ��

The book Reading Like a Historian, published shortly after the authors developed the curriculum, shows how to apply the approach to middle and high school classrooms.

Back in 2002, before there was a SHEG, Wineburg launched his approach in a course for prospective high school teachers in the �� Teacher Education Program (STEP).

“STEP was really a laboratory for developing these new teaching methods,” said Wineburg, who piloted curriculum materials he developed with his first two teaching assistants, Chauncey Monte-Sano, PhD ’06, and Daisy Martin, PhD ’06. (Monte-Sano is now a professor of education at the University of Michigan, and Martin directs the History & Civics Project at the University of California at Santa Cruz.)

The document-based curriculum his team created, called Reading Like a Historian, introduced students to historical thinking, a set of skills historians use to analyze and understand historical events in context. Using primary sources designed to be accessible at different grade levels, students investigate questions about history: Did enslaved people build the Great Pyramid at Giza? Why did U.S. senators oppose joining the League of Nations in 1919? Was Social Security revolutionary, or a program designed to appease Americans who wanted more profound change?

The first major test of the curriculum came in 2008, when Abby Reisman, PhD ’11 (now an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania), led a large-scale study with the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD).

Students in the test classes showed not only an increased ability to retain historical knowledge and a greater appreciation for history, but also improvements in reading comprehension and critical thinking.

This twofold finding reflects the curriculum’s ability to bridge skills that K-12 history teachers sometimes view in conflict, said Rob McEntarffer, supervisor of assessment and evaluation for Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska, a district that has participated in SHEG research over the years and integrated its resources into the curriculum.

“There’s long been a pendulum swinging back and forth between an emphasis on content knowledge versus critical thinking skills,” McEntarffer said. “Some teachers identify as content experts and emphasize historical content in their classroom, and others think that students are going to forget all the content, so they want to emphasize 21st-century thinking skills. But SHEG’s research [showed] that it’s a false dichotomy.”

After the SFUSD trial, at the district’s request, Wineburg and his team built a website to house the investigational curriculum. “We called ourselves the �� History Education Group and posted our materials online,” said Wineburg. “And to our tremendous surprise, we realized that people were downloading them from all over the country.”

Joel Breakstone (center) leads a group of social studies teachers in discussion during a professional development workshop on materials developed by the �� History Education Group, now the Digital Inquiry Group. (Photo: DosEckes Productions)

“With all of our research and all of the resources we’ve developed, it’s always been about empowering students to make sense of the past and the present.”

<p>Sam Wineburg, Professor Emeritus, �� Graduate School of Education</p>

A ‘clear picture of need’

The curriculum provided just the kind of lessons that Joel Breakstone, then a high school history teacher in rural Vermont, had long sought.

As a history major at Brown University, he’d been taught to work with first-hand accounts of historical events, and he wanted his students to do the same. “But as a high school teacher I found that really challenging,” he said. “Primary documents aren’t written at a grade level that’s appropriate for 15-year-olds, and giving William Lloyd Garrison speeches to students at 7:37 in the morning doesn’t go very well.”

He found SHEG’s materials online and, inspired to explore the methods further, he enrolled in a doctoral program at the GSE, earning his PhD in 2013 and then taking on the role of SHEG’s director.

He was soon joined on staff by fellow alum Mark Smith, PhD ’14, who as director of assessment helped expand the team’s resources with Beyond the Bubble, tools using documents from the Library of Congress’ digital archive to help teachers track students’ progress with the curriculum.

In 2016, after conducting a high-profile study of how students from middle school through college struggled to evaluate the reliability of information on the internet, the organization expanded its work into Civic Online Reasoning, a curriculum focused on ways to detect misinformation based on research observing professional fact-checkers at the nation’s most prestigious news outlets. Wineburg conducted this research with GSE graduate student Sarah McGrew, PhD ’19, now an assistant professor at the University of Maryland.

“Our research painted a very clear picture of need, and we realized we had to develop a better approach to supporting students in becoming discerning consumers of information,” said Breakstone, who served as executive director of SHEG for the past ten years and continues in that role with the Digital Inquiry Group. “Even though our name was the �� History Education Group, we were working more generally to help students understand where information comes from and how to consider the source.”

Far-reaching impact

The team consults with school districts of all sizes to help educators use its materials, including a decade-long partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest district in the country. SHEG has led numerous trainings every year for LAUSD since the district adopted the Reading Like a Historian curriculum in 2014.

“These trainings are one of the most requested, and they fill up immediately,” said Kieley Jackson, history and social science administrator at LAUSD, who estimates that about 1,500 teachers and 250 administrators in the district have now been through the training. “I’ve had veteran teachers quite frankly confess to me that they were in stages of burnout, and SHEG’s professional development sessions reignited the spark.”

Even with a curriculum focused largely on American history, SHEG found fans around the globe. In Australia, Jonathon Dallimore, executive officer of the History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales, praised the organization for showing a generation of teachers that it’s possible to use primary sources with young learners — for providing a model, and showing that it works.

“The great power of the material is that it’s an introduction into some really complicated ways of thinking about the world,” he said. “These are incredibly mature concepts about time and perspective and the way people operate, which hopefully can help students develop confidence and humility at the same time.”

Beginning its new chapter as an independent nonprofit, the group plans to expand its offerings, from additional professional development opportunities (including “on demand” workshops) to new tools to help schools integrate digital literacy into core subjects across the curriculum.

Through a licensing agreement with ��, all of SHEG’s materials will remain freely available on the DIG website.

“As a small group, we’ve always sought to make as much noise as possible,” said Breakstone. “It’s been remarkable to see the reach we’ve had, with a staff of no more than four people at a time — seeing folks in California and Arkansas, Italy and Sweden, Columbia and Taiwan, all taking up these ways of doing history and digital literacy. As DIG, we hope to have an even greater impact.”

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Sam Wineburg

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