Age of Awareness Podcast

We are excited to present this conversation as both a  New Year's day present and a final episode of season two for the AoA podcast. We chat with author and speaker David Stroh on what systems thinking is, how to apply to global issues, how to use it to reframe our thinking, and then how this reframing could impact life in the classroom - for both students and teachers. Thank you for all of your continued support in the past and we look forward to growing in 2025 and beyond. Where to keep up with David and his work online:Systems Thinking for Social Change (Book)LinkedInBridgeway Partners

José Antonio Bowen has been a strong advocate for student-centered education in a number of roles and in a number of ways. From TED talks to books, from creating departments to becoming the president of colleges. The number of hats he has worn in the world of education is countless.We discuss his recent and not so recent works: Teaching with AI and Teaching Naked and how they can be incorporated in practical day-to-day approach for all teachers. We also touch upon his TED Talk: the New 3Rs for Education and how it plays a role in this ever-changing landscape of AI and education. Overall, it was an eye-opening conversation for me a teacher and as someone who is working to navigate this new world of AI and education. We hope you enjoy!

We dive into Dr. Desautels' busy life as an assistant professor at Butler University and her work there with educational neuroscience, as a published author, and reflect on her insights and experiences as an educator in the classroom. She shares valuable insights as she guides us through her  book, 'Connections Over Compliance', as well as other works she has published, while also sharing her experiences from her graduate classes at Butler University. It's a brief but information-packed conversation filled with useful takeaways for both educators and non-educators alike. Dr. Desautels online:WebsiteInstagramBook: Connections Over Compliance: Rewiring Our Perceptions of DisciplineTED Talk

We dive into a really interesting conversation with educator, author, speaker, innovator Paul Gorski. We discuss his recent book, 'Fix Injustice, Not Kids', his work at GMU, his approaches to equity in schools, and much more. We are also joined today by a new co-host, Alina Kaye. Alina is a former educator and now is involved in early childhood education and we couldn't be happier to have her join us on this journey!Links to learn more about and to connect with Paul Gorksi:WebsiteEquity Literacy InstituteBooksInstagram

We end 2023 with a wonderful conversation with Dr. Carter Berry discussing her work at her organization, Brownicity and her work as an author. We discuss her recent work, "Teaching for Justice and Belonging: A Journey for Educators and Parents" and how it lays down the steps for the "how-to" of implementing such initiatives in ones classroom. It was amazing to hear how her efforts started in the community and through such grassroots actions to grow into something so needed it today's world of education. I really enjoyed this conversation and found myself feeling revived and renewed as I went back to listen again during the editing phase. I also want to share that we have a new host, Alina Kaye, joining us for this conversation and for many more in the future. Thank you for all of your support in 2023! Have a great end of the year and happy 2024!Links to connect with Dr. Carter Berry and her works:InstagramBrownicityRecent book

Navigating the Ethical Horizons of AI with Prof. Casey FieslerJoin us in a thought-provoking conversation with Professor Casey Fiesler from the University of Colorado - Boulder, as we delve into the intricate intersection of artificial intelligence, ethics,  technology, and the world of education. We look into the role of AI in education and gain insights on staying informed in this rapidly evolving landscape. Professor Fiesler, now known for leveraging her massive social media presence to educate on AI ethics, shares valuable perspectives on responsible technology use. Tune in for an exploration of the ethical dimensions of our AI-driven future and how educators can frame their approach with such technology - enjoy!Be sure to check out our past episodes here and check out our publication, Age of Awareness here - we appreciate your support! Links to connect with Professor Fiesler:TikTokInstagramYouTubeWebpagecaseyfiesler.comMedium (blog)

We have our 5th Coffee Chat and part 3 of our conversation with Professor Stephen Mulkey. We chat about warming in the North Atlantic and its impact on ocean currents, changes in hurricane systems, geoengineering projects and why fossil fuel companies support them, how global agriculture will have to change in the face of our current climate crisis. Thank you for tuning in!Where to find Mulkey online:TwitterWikipediaHis Blog: The Environmental CenturyAnd be sure to check out his works on Medium.com

Check out our past episodes at: aoapodcast.comHere is part 2 of 3 of our Coffee Chat conversation with Professor Stephen Mulkey. We chat about the concept of degrowth and how it fits in addressing climate change, the current state of carbon capture technology, and end with the Amazon Rainforest. Be on the lookout for part 3 of 3!Some articles were mentioned in this chat. I will link here:Working Group III Mitigation of Climate ChangeAR 5 - Fifth Assessment ReportWe also want to highlight two upcoming episodes that we are really excited about: we will be having University of Colorado Boulder Professor Casey Fiesler on to discuss AI ethics and we will be having author/educator Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry on to discuss her book "Teaching for Justice and Belonging."We hope you enjoy!Music credit: Ascent of Sham by krackatoa

In this Coffee Chat we have a familiar guest back on, Professor Stephen Mulkey. We discuss current climate change issues, we work to clear up some confusion on 'wet bulb temperature' and dive deep into one of Professor Mulkey's new course: Communities and Climate Change. We discuss how climate justice and community-based initiatives play a vital role in how we move forward with addressing climate change.  This is part one of two of the conversation so be sure to be on the lookout for the second half!We also want to highlight two upcoming episodes that we are really excited about: we will be having University of Colorado Boulder Professor Casey Fiesler on to discuss AI ethics and we will be having author/educator Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry on to discuss her book "Teaching for Justice and Belonging."We hope you enjoy!Music credit: Where Life Goes (Man Kid Remix) by Daniel Birch

We have finally gotten around to sharing the second half of this wonderful conversation with professor and environmental scientist Stephen Mulkey. This is our second Coffee Chat (CC) and we are hoping to post more of these in addition to our episodes. We talk about divestment opportunities, teacher tips (really for all levels), and the future of science education - with fun stories mixed in. We hope you enjoy!Find him online at:TwitterHis blog: The Environmental CenturyHis University of Florida profile: link

Addressing food insecurity in schools was actually one of my main focuses as a first year teacher many years ago as an environmental educator. I was overly enthusiastic and naive about the promise of schoolyard vegetable gardens solving all food insecurity among the 10+ million children living in hunger in the US.  Years later it is still a focus of mine but I have learned so much along the way. This conversation with author and professor Marcus B. Weaver-Hightower helped shed much more light onto the school lunch situation here in the US. I find it to be especially relevant with over 30 states cutting food stamp benefits, federal aid ending for free school lunches for all, and then in the other direction states making free lunches for all students no matter their income. There is a lot of food news in the cycle as of lately and Marcus B. Weaver-Hightower helps pull back the curtain on much of it. We hope you enjoy!Where to find Marcus online: WebsiteHis new book "Unpacking School Lunch"Other works

We are happy to share with you an engaging conversation for your Thanksgiving Break! In this episode we had the privilege to chat with keynote speaker Principal Kafele. We cover how schools can better support their administrators, specifically their assistant principals, so they can better support their schools, what it means to push for equity in a learning environment, and how administrators can work to change or alter their school culture in a sustainable manner. We hope you enjoy! Links to connect with Principal Kafele:WebsiteTwitterMusic credit:Neptunea by Scanglobe

Tune into a fun conversation with author and professor Renee Hobbs. Renee first got on our radar with he recent book and winner of the 2021 PROSE Award, "MIND OVER MEDIA: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age." We discuss her book and how she first got into media literacy. This conversation helped reframe how I saw "screen time" and how my students could communicate their grasp on my class content.  We hope you enjoy! Links to connect with Renee Hobbs:Recent book - Mind Over MediaTwitterWikiMedia Education Lab 

We are excited to kick off our second season of episodes with a conversation with author and lecturer Alfie Kohn.  This was a shorter conversation but we covered a lot of ground. Like many of our other conversations here, I think everyone from parents to students, teachers to administrators, and activists to policy makers can get something out of this conversation. We chatted about the topics such as the myth of learning loss, why we should be pushing back against standardized testing, and a quick reflection on his insights and experiences with education reform over the years. We hope you enjoy the conversation! Where to find Alfie online:TwitterWebsite

Here we wrap up our second Coffee Chat and the second half of our conversation with professor and environmental scientist Stephen Mulkey. We touched upon advice for both students and teachers in the environmental world, the uncanny beginnings to the International Center for Tropical Ecology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the plastic industry, and the false promise of current geo-engineering technologies and engineering our way out of climate change. Thank you for tuning in!Where to find Mulkey online:TwitterWikipediaHis Blog: The Environmental CenturyAnd be sure to check out his works on Medium.com

This is a fun conversation that touches upon Stephen Mulkey's original motivation to pursue this path, how he has navigated academia in the face of climate-change denial, and how the youth can help shape the future of environmentalism—both as students and activists.Mulkey has been active in the environmental science realm in almost every aspect. To helping start conservatories to leading the first university divestment process from fossil fuels, from research in the Amazon to spearheading science literacy programs, he has truly done it all. As an environmental educator, Mulkey and his works are a huge inspiration for me and so many others. To be honest, this past school year was chaotic and draining to say the least. I wanted to get back posting conversations months ago but had to do what was best for myself and wait until the end of the school year. I am super excited to get back posting here and sharing these wonderful insights from such amazing people. Oh, and we are happy to finally get around to posting Coffee Chats —the shorter conversation many were asking for. Where to find Mulkey online:TwitterWikipediaHis Blog: The Environmental CenturyAnd be sure to check out his works on Medium.com

In this last episode of 2021 we end the year with internationally-acclaimed speaker Ken Shelton on the topic of technology in schools. We cover so many more topics and Ken provides us with several real-world examples that I think anyone in education can appreciate. Whether you are an administrator, educator, parent, or even student I think there is a piece of advice for everyone.Read more about Ken's writing on “techquity” here: "Techquity": Going from Digital Poverty to Digital EmpowermentThis conversation with Ken is a great way to end the first year of the podcast as he comes to share insights and experiences from so many different perspectives in education (as a classroom teacher, education keynote speaker, consultant, and involvement with education policy). I know these past two years have been especially difficult for educators but Ken does provide advice that one could implement on Monday morning or over the course of a career. Enjoy the conversation and find our other conversations at aoapodcast.com. Where to keep up with Ken:WebsiteTwitterMediumInstagramOpening music credits: Sad Away by KetsaClosing music credits: Surface by Robert John

This was a fun episode as we got a chance to speak with someone who has been contributing to Age of Awareness for years.  I actually discovered the insights and works of Sarah Mock on medium.com about five years ago. Now, she is a best-selling author with her recent book "Farm (and Other F Words): The Rise and Fall of the Small Family Farm." This was a nice conversation about some of the major misconceptions of the "American farmer",  glaring issues with our farm subsidy system, and also things to be hopeful about in the coming years in the farming world. We can't have any serious conversations about climate change without addressing our farming methods and that is why it is so critical that this is part of our mission with environmental education . We hope you enjoy the conversation and we hope you subscribe! Be sure to check out our past episodes at: aoapodcast.comWhere to keep up with Sarah:Link to her book "Farm (and Other F Words)"SubstackSubstack NewsletterTwitterWebsite

This 8th episode was really fun to do. As a Design and Tech teacher, I really enjoyed hearing about the design process, the creative freedoms, and then the impacts of the final products they are producing over at Microsoft Education. For the educators listening in to this episode; you will notice that it is clear that Microsoft makes it a priority to communicate and collaborate with in-class teachers for their design phases. Enjoy our conversation with Microsoft Education's Mike Tholfsen and be sure to subscribe! Connect with Mike Tholfsen and his work below:YouTube ChannelTwitterTikTok

We had the amazing opportunity to sit down with Lorena Germán and to discuss so many great topics about her work and about her journey to where she is now.  Her new book, "Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices" is available for pre-order now and will be available in September.  You may know her from one of her many other projects in education and education reform like Multicultural Classroom or the #DisruptTexts movement - I truly do not how she does it all.  We go into her projects and work but also her motivation and why she is hopeful moving forward. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did and be sure subscribe!You can also find the work of Age of Awareness authors on our publication at Age of Awareness. There we are connecting 500,000 monthly readers with over 1,000 authors from around the world on the topics of all things education reform. You can also find all of our podcast episodes on aoapodast.com. Thank you for listening! 

We had the privilege of chatting with one of the world's leading science communicators, Hashem Al-Ghaili. As a social media manager myself, I was just blown away by the numbers he was reporting: reaching 200,000,000 people each week just on Facebook alone?! Numbers that I couldn't even imagine seeing on the analytics boards. But we spoke about much more than just reaching so many people, we jumped into why it is so important to Hashem to reach those people. He is on a mission that inspired me as an educator, a social media manager, and just as citizen scientist learning along the way. Tune in to hear how and why this scientist  switched over from the lab to science communication - and became one of the best doing it. You can find all of our episodes on: aoapodcast.com 

How were some teachers able to thrive during their time teaching from home during a global pandemic? How were some able to pivot so easily and transition from in-person teaching to remote teaching? Well, for thousands of teachers around the world The Modern Classrooms Project might be the answer. In our fifth episode, we jump into a conversation with their co-founder Kareem Farah. We explore the roles of blended-instruction, self-paced structure, and mastery-based grading in the classrooms of today and tomorrow. Listen to why and how this award winning teacher, Kareem Farah,  helped create a program has grown from 50 educators to over 22,000. Enjoy!

Kids can be entrepreneurs, too. That is what Stephen and Sean discover in this episode of the show when they sit down with Rocket Club founder and CEO, Alex Hodara. Rocket Club is a program for kids that combines the disciplines of coding, robotics, and entrepreneurship to teach kids valuable lessons they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Alex talks about the origins of his own journey into entrepreneurship, the gap he saw in education at schools that led to the creation of Rocket Club, and shares some of the amazing accomplishments his members, who, mind you, are only kids, have achieved out in the world of business. We hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you are using, and check out the Age of Awareness publication on Medium.com

In our third episode we had the opportunity to talk with science communicator and celebrity Steve Spangler. You may know him from The Ellen DeGeneres Show or from his presence on various other platforms (TikTok | YouTube | Instagram) We get into engagement strategies with students, learning to teach in a virtual/online setting, starting and managing several businesses, and being a lifelong learner. Please join us in listening in and watching (YouTube Channel here) our conversation with Steve Spangler. From teachers to students and entrepreneurs to parents, we feel there is something to learn for all listeners. Enjoy!Visit our publication Age of Awareness to view our published works and articles. 

Yes this episode is about Scratch, one of the most well known programming language for kids, but it is about so much more. Join us as we talk with Scratch founder, Mitch Resnick, about bringing creativity back to the classroom. We dive deep into his time with his mentor Seymour Papert and into his creative process with his team in the MIT Media Lab.  We cover his journey to where he is today, important things to remember when inspiring a child's imagination (on and off the screen), and the magic of being a lifelong kindergartner.  Enjoy!

In our first episode, hosts Sean Follin and Stephen Muskett sit down with Vidcode co-founder and CPO Leandra Tejedor. We explore the creation and foundation of Vidcode, how it is helping students around the world learn to code, the journey of managing an ed-tech startup, and much more.

Hello!We are excited to announce that, due to popular demand, Age of Awareness is now offering a podcast! As the largest education reform publication on Medium and one of the fastest growing communities on the site we understand that our followers learn in many different ways. Our hope is that a podcast and video recordings on YouTube of these conversations will pair well with the articles on the publication and help cater to the learning needs of our all of  followers. Your hosts Stephen Muskett and Sean Follin are excited to take you on a journey talking with activists, teachers, administrators, science communicators, ed-tech startup entrepreneurs, and those leading the movements to positive changes in our education systems. Welcome to the Age of Awareness podcast. We hope you enjoy!