Alec talks to Jason Nious, founder of the stepping and body percussion crew Molodi, about the journey that brought him here, and about what he’s learned from dance and body percussion about connecting to young people in school.
In this special live episode from the 2025 Deeper Learning Conference, educator Ron Berger talks to two Japanese educators and their two brilliant children, who have experienced education across cultures in Japan, the United States, and Europe.
They talk about the ways in which schools in different countries unleash student potential, and the ways in which they do not—yet.
In this episode, Alec talks to Nichelle Woodson, the Chief of Network Success at RISE Eileen Mezzo, an Assistant Principal at Naugatuck High School in Connecticut. They talk about how the RISE Network has achieved remarkable gains in ninth-grade on track rates (for example, on-track for Black students has risen by 27 percentage points since 2015).
Alec talks to fifth grade teacher Jeff Govoni about a project he and his fifth grade colleagues did last year, in which students designed and built dog houses and cat condos for animals seeking adoption.
Alec talks to Sara DeMartino, an English Language Arts Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Learning (IFL), about how schools in the IFL’s network for school improvement increased 8th grade on track for Black and Latine students by more than 25 percentage points, and improved on-track rates for Emerging Bilingual Students from 35% to 80%, since 2018.
Sofía Tannenhaus talks to Julie Smith, co-founder of Community Design Partners, and Casey Chiofolo, an Assistant Principal at Respect Academy, an Alternative High School in Denver, about how Respect Academy dramatically improved first period attendance by talking to kids about what they wanted from school, and what was keeping them from getting there on time.
Alec talks to Amiee Winchester, director of continuous improvement at Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), and Zack Jaffe, a manager of continuous improvement at BCPS, about their improvement work on middle school and high school literacy, and particularly about the particular challenges and rewards of doing continuous improvement within a large urban school district.
Alec talks to Dr. Simon Breakspear about the book he co-wrote with Michael Rosenbrock, “The Pruning Principle: Mastering the Art of Strategic Subtraction Within Education”
Alec talks to Sean Mortimer, co-author of autobiographies by Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, and Joe Namath, about how to help people figure out how to tell the stories of their achievements—whether they’re pro skaters or educators.
Alec talks to physics teacher Ted Cuevas about why portfolios and badges are a better way to assess student learning, and how he does assessment in his class.
Stacey Caillier and Curtis Taylor talk to Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford about what Septima Clark, Ella Baker, and Bayard Rustin can teach us about continuous improvement.
Alec talks to High School teacher about John Santos about how he and his students explored AI together, and how it became a tool for building curiosity
Alec talks to High Tech High Graduate School of Education president Ben Daley about one of the most powerful (and simplest) data-collection tools in the world: the “by-name list.”
Kelly Wilson, HTH GSE Dean, talks to Benjamin Freud, head of Upper School at Green School in Bali, about doing socially-meaningful, student-driven PBL grounded in the local community, in a school with bamboo buildings and no walls.
Alec talks to Partners in School Innovation CEO Derek Mitchell and Executive Director of California Academy of Sciences Scott Sampson about what “regenerative education” is, and why the world needs it right now.
Alec talked to 23-year-old keyboard player, band leader, public speaker, and Akron, Ohio native Kofi B mere hours before Kofi kicked off the 2024 Deeper Learning conference with an incendiary set!
At Deeper Learning, Alec just started recording this interview to show Jessica how the mics worked—but once she started talking, he knew it was going to be an episode!
At Deeper Learning 2024, artist/choreographer Aysha Upchurch and Enrique Lugo talk about being artists in school, and the power of the cypher (and cuffed Levis 501s).
Rosemarie Biocarles-Rydeen talks to Alec about “Everybody Needs a Rock”, the kindergarten geology project she designed and ran at High Tech Elementary Chula Vista
Big Picture Learning Co-Executive Director Carlos Moreno and Co-founder Elliot Washor talk about love, care, and vulnerability, the three key characteristics of leadership that Moreno identifies in his book, Finding Your Leadership Soul
Alec talks to Waverly Zhao and David Lee, co-founders of Iowa WTF, about what it took to organize a state-wide school walkout in response to anti-Gay legislation in 2023
Alec talks to Waverly Zhao and David Lee, co-founders of Iowa WTF, an organization founded by Iowa High School students in response to state laws restricting what they could talk about in schools.
Derek Mitchell talks to Stacey Caillier about what he’s learned about how to help schools get better at giving every kid what they need to thrive, and about why this work matters so much to him.
Alec talks to the XP Trust’s Chief Academic Officer, Andy Sprakes, about how XP schools make sure every child’s work makes it into the final product, and the hard lesson that made them take this so seriously.
Alec talks to the XP Trust’s Chief Academic Officer, Andy Sprakes, about how XP schools make sure every child’s work makes it into the final product, and the hard lesson that made them take this so seriously.
This is the longer “director’s cut” version of this episode.
Peter Deswood is Assistant Superintendent of the Central Consolidated School District, in Northwestern New Mexico. He’s also a member of the Navajo nation, and he talks to Alec about why that’s important to his students, and to him.
Navajo teacher Bernita Bedah teaches a bilingual kindergarten class in Navajo and English. She talks to Alec about why that’s important for her students, and her community.
High Tech High Interim CEO Kaleb Rashad and co-founder Rob Riordan talk about how High Tech High’s approach to teaching and learning informs professional development in the organization.
Stacey Caillier interviews Connecticut RISE’s Nichelle Woodson and Peter Lorinser about how to keep it simple while improving 9th grade on-track for students furthest from opportunity
High Tech High Interim CEO Kaleb Rashad and co-founder Rob Riordan sit down to talk about what they were doing BEFORE High Tech High, and how it shaped their philosophy of education
Garett Brownlee Plantz talks to Alison Murray and Antonia Guzmán to find out how International Studies Learning Center (ISLC) achieved its extraordinary 100% FAFSA completion rate.
Veteran teacher Andrew Lerario talks to Alec about “sharing the cognitive load” with students, and treating the project as a shared journey you go on together. He also talks about doing rocket science with high schoolers.
Sofia Tannenhaus talks to High Tech High International’s College Advisor, Erik Castillo, about how his team makes sure no student slips through the cracks
Stacey Caillier interviews math teacher Janet Hanshaw and instructional coach Joanna Burt-Kinderman, both of West Virginia, about the Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teachers (M3T).
Brandon Wiley has been a part of Deeper Learning from the beginning. In this episode he gives his perspective on how the Deeper Learning group came together and developed, and how to bring Deeper Learning into your school.
Veteran PBL teacher Brian Delgado explains the power of thinking about the first time you do a project as a “first draft,” and unpacks a phrase coined by High Tech High cofounder Rob Riordan: “Let the experience be the text.”
Rochelle Gutiérrez, a professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois specializing in mathematics, talks about reconnecting math to our lived experience, and sharing the world’s rich history of different approaches to mathematics with kids.
Rapper (and Deeper Learning 2023 headliner) Ruby Ibarra talks about identity, Bay Area hip hop, the legacy of Tumblr, how her mother handles haters, and much more
This is a guest episode from Taking Off the Mask, a podcast that provides men a space to have conversations about life, challenges, joys, heartbreak, dreams, failures, and whatever is ready to be revealed.
Resistance Communication co-founder Aisha Bain and Stanford d.School Design Lecturer Manasa Yeturu to talk about how we care for ourselves and live in community with each other
Stacey Caillier sat down with Sofi Frankowski, Dana Diesel, and Taqwanda Hailey to talk about their organization, Schools that Lead, which runs networked improvement communities of schools across North Carolina.
High Tech High Interim CEO Kaleb Rashad and Vista Innovation & Design Academy Principal Eric Chagala talk about school leadership, and how to turn soaring rhetoric into concrete reality.
In this keynote from the 2023 Deeper Learning Conference, hear a story from Walter Cortina, 19, founded Bridgemakers when he was still in high school. Check out what he did, how he did it, and who helped him out along the way.
In this keynote from the 2023 Deeper Learning Conference, hear from LA Region South Superintendent Andre Spicer, who tells about what was missing from his own education, and how he’s making sure every kid in his district gets what he didn’t.
Last year, 14 high school seniors took part in C3 Mobility DAO, a summer program created by the High Tech High Graduate School of Education’s CARPE Collaborative with a very specific goal: to help students from underrepresented populations navigate the transition from high school to community college, and then from community college to a four year university. To achieve this, the DAO used a secret weapon: college students
High Tech High Graduate School of Education Director of Liberation Michelle Pledger talks to Stanford D.School’s Laura McBain about how the Deeper Learning conference came about, and what it takes to help conference-goers EXPERIENCE deeper learning, rather than just talking about it.
Adelric McCain (Network for College Success) and Xiomara Padamsee (Promise 54) explore the intersections of equity and improvement while sharing stories, wisdom and wobbles from their own journeys to integrate the two.
Eduard is the Director-General of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, the chair of the center for UNESCO in Catalonia. And this is striking because Eduard did really, really badly in school, but he thrived in scouting…
Sarah Strong talks to Cate Challen about the book she co-authored with High Tech High graduate Gigi Butterfield (class of ’21), “Dear Math: Why Kids Hate Math and What Teachers Can Do About It”
High Tech High Mesa Instructional Coach David Roney explains how his colleagues designed August PD to put projects front and center, so teachers were ready to launch their projects on day one of school.
This episode is a live recording of a deeper learning Den Talk, hosted by Michelle Pledger, with guests Suzie Boss and Ken Kay. Suzie and Ken have both done way more in education than I can get into here, but most recently they co-authored the book Redefining Student Success: Building a New Vision to Transform Leading Teaching and Learning.
Anjel and sam met 20 years ago as student and teacher. This co-keynote about deeper learning, hip hop culture, design thinking + community will amplify over two decades of learning together and leave you ready to do the work as you return to your context.
Stacey Caillier talked to Network for College Success’s Adelric “Del” McCain and Sarah Howard about how Chicago Public schools increased their “on track to graduate” rates from 61% to 89% in ten years. The secret? “Fix the system, not the kids”
Sixth Grade DJs DJ Dice and DJ Rose play their favorite clips for Alec, and give advice on running a youth radio show along with one of their teachers, Alex Owens.
Alec talks to Jean Kluver and Jeff Robin, co-authors of Changing the Subject: Twenty Years of Projects at High Tech High, about how they wrote the book, what they learned from it, and how they hope schools will use it.
Doctoral candidates in Western Carolina University Education Leadership Program need to design and run actual school improvement projects in order to get their degrees. Here’s what happened when four of them asked “how can we make sure principals are better prepared when they start their jobs?”
Stacey Caillier talks to Dr. Brandi Hinnant-Crawford about what Improvement Science looks like when equity and liberation are embedded in the PROCESS, not just the hoped-for result.
When her work for the Gates Foundation brought her to Beijing, Yinuo Li couldn’t find a school she was excited to send her kids to, so she founded one.
Stacey Caillier interviews Eva Mejia, Chief Program & Strategy Officer at Big Picture Learning, about why for her, “improvement” and “equity” are inseparable
A conversation about why more engaging learning tends to happen in electives and extracurriculars than during “core classes”, and how what we can learn from these “peripheral” classes, teams, and clubs.
In this Guest Episode from the Educated Guess podcast, Rodrigo Arancibia and Cesar Fernandez interview Escondido Principal Adriana Lepe-Ramirez about how she came to education, and how she and her staff are transforming the whole school culture.
