Learning Unboxed

Evelyn Van Til has her fingers in oh so many pies: she’s a cultural architect, she works in apprenticeships as a consultant at Apprenti, and she's incredibly active in the Central Ohio communities around technology, computer science education, and more. There is an expectation today that you can use technology, whether or not you see yourself working in tech. From retail, food service, and war...

Grady Burrows leads the talent initiative at BioEnterprise, a non-profit accelerator for the biomedical space. They find talent and train them in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and health IT industries. These fields are growing rapidly, locally and globally, and their job to grow and diversify talent is increasingly important to society. To learn more, visit: pastfoundation.org Resources: Bio...

The Innovation Lab is the PAST Foundation’s “test kitchen,” where we brainstorm the creation of summer STEM experiences for the students. And today, we’re talking to two of the people responsible for creating these experiences: Ashley Price, Assistant Director of Bridge Programs at the PAST Innovation Lab, and Laura Bloch, a student at Columbia University who is working towards her master’s degree...

Joining us today is Kelly Preheim. Kelly is a kindergarten teacher in Armour, South Dakota. Armour is a small, rural town in South Dakota, with a population of only 800 people. Kelly is passionate around birds, and she found a way to teach everything in kindergarten through the lens of birds, from creating bird houses to field guides to help out their community. She also started the Chickadee Club...

When people talk about education, they rarely talk about agricultural education — but there are infinite possibilities for careers that are available to explore in this space! Luckily, we’re joined by two people who are well prepared to guide us through this possibility space: Chris Baker, Executive Director of the Ohio Farm Bureau Foundation, and Marissa Mulligan, Extension Educator with 4-H Yout...

We’re back on the road. This time, we are in the beautiful, bustling city of Cape Town, South Africa – and we have an incredibly special treat! Because we have the opportunity to visit with Russell Stevens, Head of Education of the Two Oceans Aquarium. Two Ocean Aquarium sits in a perfect location for marine education, primed to be one of the most impactful education programs in the world. Because...

Today’s guest is René Van Blerk, who is the Senior Educator and Senior Curation of Education and Interpretation of the Van Gogh Museum, who helped shape one of the most creative and innovative programs that I've seen in a long time. It's called Vincent's Traveling Case. René wanted to find ways for families to engage with the art they were viewing when they weren’t right in front of it...

Today, we are continuing our conversation about the critically important role of the arts in communities and education. To guide us through this conversation, we sit down with Cindy Meyers Foley, the Executive Deputy Director for Learning and Experience at the Columbus Museum of Art. To learn more, visit: pastfoundation.org Resources: Learn more at www.columbusmuseum.org Cindy’s TEDx Talk: youtu.b...

Today, we have a wonderful teacher and a student joining us today, Amanda Schaeffer and Neel Mawalkar. Amanda is an art teacher out of Hilliard City Schools, which is one of the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. She teaches both Art and Ecology, very STEAM-focused, in part of Hilliard City Schools Innovation Learning Campus. Neel is a 10-year old student who just finished up the 5th grade at Wickliffe El...

Today, we’re going to be talking about music and the role of arts, music, and technology in education – and we’re going to be doing that by learning more about the unique and innovative program here in Columbus. GROOVE U is a post-secondary two-year music industry career program focusing on music industry entrepreneurship, with a heavy emphasis on experiential and applied learning. And, impressive...

We are joined by awesome guests who know a thing or two (or ten) about what happens when you take your kids out of the classroom, out of the building, and you go into the field. Pam Hayes is the Early College Coordinator for Metro Early College High School in Columbus, Ohio and Sheli Smith is the Chief Academic Officer at the PAST Foundation and the PAST Innovation Lab. But this is not just a conv...

Today, we are continuing our tour of early access programs that help children transition into post-secondary, often blurring the lines of that traditional high school to college transition in the process. We’ve luckily had the privilege of seeing and exploring some of these programs in other areas of the country and world, and we think getting a view of everything that people are doing now is a re...

Today we’re excited to introduce you to a new program called STEMcoding, which is an effort to reimagine STEM courses with computer science in mind, and two of the people spearheading this initiative, Chris Orban and Richelle Teeling-Smith. To learn more, visit: pastfoundation.org Resources: Learn more about STEMcoding: u.osu.edu/stemcoding Start taking modules now on the YouTube channel: youtube....

This week, we are wrapping up our tour of the Alaska Middle College program with an on-location conversation at the Mat-Su Middle College. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Middle College as well as the pains of creating transformative educational programs across the nation and around the world. Our guests today are Greg Giauque, who's a Principal Teacher at Mat-Su Middle College,...

In the last episode , we sat down with four of the innovative educators and administrators behind the Alaska Middle College program to discuss what Middle College is and why they’re so effective at improving student outcomes. Today, we’re talking to a teacher and student from Mat-Su Middle College School, the first Middle College school in Alaska, to learn what both students and teachers love abou...

Today we are going to learn what Middle College programs are, why they’re so effective at improving student outcomes, and what communities need to know if they are contemplating the possibility of launching Middle Colleges of their own. And we have an all-star lineup of guests joining us to talk about the success of the Middle College School programs in Alaska! We sit down with Dr. Claudia Lampman...

Karl Rectanus is an educator, entrepreneur, advisor, and the co-founder and CEO of LearnPlatform, an organization with a team of educators, researchers, and technologists committed to leveraging data, delivering dynamic solutions, and making results matter. Karl leads K-12 districts, higher ed institutions and state education agencies in their efforts to use the research-based LearnPlatform to con...

Today, we’re talking about the role of invention in education – and why design thinking and problem-based learning should, ultimately, have a much greater role in our classrooms than they currently do. To illustrate the value of invention, we invited two amazing guests, Robin Hilsmeier and Jim Bruner, to discuss how the Ohio Invention League gives students the opportunity to practice design thinki...

On Learning Unboxed, we like to share case studies of the projects and programs that are revolutionizing education; great new ideas that have already been tested, the lessons that we've learned along the way, and where there are opportunities for other communities to do similar things as they think about education.   That’s why, today, we are excited to introduce you to Energy4Learning, a prog...

I’m often asked question about internships for high school students, so it’s clear that the subject is top of mind in many schools, communities, businesses, and industries. So, in this episode, I want to shine a spotlight on a partnership that exemplifies the benefits of high school internships, for both students and businesses, and encourage other communities to adopt a similar model. Joining us...

Dr. Kimberlee Kiehl is a passionate supporter of education in the Columbus area, and she has been for a number of years. She actually started a career in formal education, but she left to focus on informal education – and that’s what makes her the perfect person to teach us about how informal education spaces are disrupting the education world and how teachers can utilize local resources and oppor...

Josh Bernstein and Mike Schott are responsible for an awesome new program designed to get kids excited about science: Explorer At Large. Their mission is to engage, inspire, and educate PreK-12 students around the world with standards-driven content that sparks curiosity, playfulness, and wonder. XAL is now placing its educational content in school systems around the country, with help from partne...

Giving students more experience solving real-world problems is critical to their development as future problem solvers, and that’s why the Ohio Stem Learning Network hosts statewide design challenges. This year, OSLN is asking students to imagine, prototype, and design a solution to food insecurity in their life, community, or world. Luckily, we have two amazing women joining us to unbox this huge...

One of the things that we love here at the PAST Foundation is having the opportunity to watch incredible young adults learn and grow; these amazing students are rock stars in our eyes, and giving them a space to stretch their wings is one of the most rewarding experiences we have. And today, we want to introduce you to three of the rockstars that lead the Metrobots, Metro Early College High School...

Today’s guest is an educator, a counselor, a researcher, an author, an advocate, a mentor, a creative thinker, a community changer, an amazing entrepreneur, and a change agent in the lives of girls around the country. Dr. Lisa Hinkelman has spent nearly fifteen years researching girls and educating counselors as both as a professor at The Ohio State University and as the founder and CEO of Ruling...