Transforming Schools into Learning Hubs with Dr Annalies Corbin S10E7 (137)
What if schools stopped being the center of learning and instead became the connective tissue of a wider learning ecosystem?
What opportunities are we losing every day because we don’t begin with “yes”?
🎙️ Episode Summary
In this episode, Louka Parry sits down with Dr Annalies Corbin, founder and CEO of the PAST Foundation, for a powerful conversation about reimagining the purpose and practice of education. Together they explore how schools can evolve from isolated, subject-bound institutions into dynamic learning ecosystems that connect curiosity, community and real-world problem-solving.
Dr Corbin shares insights from 25 years of innovation — from honouring student passions and recognising learning beyond the classroom, to supporting teachers in showing up authentically and reigniting their own love of learning. She discusses the importance of micro-credentialing, the future of STEM, and what it takes to design learning experiences that truly link learning to life.
A compelling conversation for anyone passionate about transforming education, empowering young people, and imagining what’s possible when we start with curiosity and say “yes” to new ways of learning.
👤 About Dr Annalies Corbin
Dr. Annalies Corbin is the Founder & CEO of the PAST Foundation, a trailblazing organization transforming education for the 21st century. A relentless innovator, Dr. Corbin has been reshaping how we connect learning to life for the past 25 years, bridging the gap between scientific research, real-world problem-solving, and classroom experiences.
In 2000, Dr. Corbin founded the PAST Foundation, an organization she envisioned could lead the way to connecting scientific research with classrooms, schools, and communities. From a single school partnership in 2006, Dr. Corbin has grown PAST into a nationwide movement, impacting over 3 million students, 22,000 teachers across 42 states, and fostering hundreds of partnerships. Her commitment to innovation led to the creation of the PAST Innovation Lab in 2015. A state-of-the-art learning ecosystem offering hands-on STEM programming for students and cutting-edge professional development for teachers, both in-person and virtually.
In 2019, Dr. Corbin took her mission global with the launch of the Learning Unboxed podcast, where she challenges listeners to rethink education and create innovative solutions to meet the changing needs of the workforce. Her sixth book, Hacking School: Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life, published in 2024, continues her mission to bridge the gap between education and real-world applications. With a reputation for transforming teaching and learning, Dr. Corbin is a true visionary, dedicated to preparing students for success in the 21st century and beyond.
📘 Takeaways
We need to stop viewing schools as closed places of learning.
Education should be seen as a community-wide effort.
Schools should facilitate learning experiences beyond the classroom.
The role of schools must evolve to support community learning.
Learning ecosystems can enhance student engagement and growth.
Collaboration between schools and communities is essential.
Students should be encouraged to explore learning in various environments.
The traditional model of education needs to be reimagined.
Facilitating learning experiences can empower students.
A shift in mindset is necessary for educational reform.
🔗 Connect and Resources Mentioned
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For the latest learning innovation follow Louka on LinkedIn
Share your thoughts by visiting www.thelearningfuture.com
Tune in to be inspired, challenged, and reminded why love truly is at the heart of learning.
[Transcript Automated]
Louka Parry (00:01)
Well, hello dear friends and welcome back to the learning future podcast. I'm your host, Luca Parry, and I am here today with Dr. Annalise Corbin. She is the founder and CEO of the PAST Foundation, a trailblazing organization, transforming education for this century. She's a relentless innovator as you'll hear, and she has been reshaping how we connect learning to life for the past 25 years, bridging the gap between scientific research, real world problem solving, and classroom experiences.
It's been 25 years actually since Dr. Corbin founded the PASS Foundation. And you know, it kind of began with this idea of how can you connect scientific research with classrooms, schools and communities. And we'll hear about her background shortly. It's from a single school partnership in 2006. It is now a nationwide movement across the United States impacting over 3 million students, 22,000 teachers across 42 states and fostering hundreds of partnerships. Dr. Corbin has also
runs her own podcast called Learning Unboxed, where she challenges listeners to rethink education and create innovative solutions to meet changing needs of the workforce. Get this, her sixth book, goodness gracious, Hacking School, Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life was published in 2024 and continues her mission to bridge the gap between education and real world applications. Annalise, thanks for joining us on the Learning Future podcast.
Annalies Corbin (01:23)
Well, thank you for having me and for that very gracious introduction. I appreciate being here. I'm looking forward to it.
Louka Parry (01:30)
Well, you've
been busy clearly. And, you know, I know that we're, can tell we're to have such a really interesting conversation about learning life education. ⁓ my first question always is what is something that you are learning right now in your, in your work and your life?
Annalies Corbin (01:44)
Mmm.
What I am learning right now is about the journey of humanness. A little bit of a personal piece, my father has Alzheimer's. It's okay, right? It is what it is. What am I learning? I am learning about being a caregiver of somebody late in life. It informs what I do right now, what I do every day, but it's also
Louka Parry (01:56)
Mmm.
⁓ no...
Annalies Corbin (02:17)
interestingly enough really started to inform the way I think about how we think about teaching and learning, right? You know, I watch the things he remembers versus the things he doesn't remember. And I watch the way he takes and applies the work of his work over his lifetime into his current scenario. It's fascinating to me. you ⁓ know, taking that sad moment and turning it into an opportunity to say, hmm, the human brain is an amazing thing.
Louka Parry (02:26)
Mmm.
Wow. That's such a powerful reflection. ⁓ cause I often think, think we're going to get pretty philosophical here to start at least, but there is something about reflecting on what it's all for, you know, the purpose of one's life. And of course, you know, when we have for all of us, we will come at some point, our lives will come to an end. So it's kind of, you know, what's the purpose of my life? What's my soul's purpose or, and how of course do we apply that to our work in education systems?
Annalies Corbin (03:08)
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (03:13)
What's the purpose of this activity? You know, I think we get so obsessed by what works and kind of that, that conversation that we forget about what matters. And just because we, you know, if we're trying to achieve efficiencies, but what about effectiveness? What about doing the right things instead of doing things? So take us a bit into, into the work then, and at least like why this work for you? Why, why are you sitting here talking to me now? Like what, what is it that has captured you?
Annalies Corbin (03:14)
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm, absolutely.
You know?
Louka Parry (03:40)
I've written all these books and done the podcast and, you know, worked with these millions of kids.
Annalies Corbin (03:43)
Mm-hmm.
You know, for me, it's about honoring the journey of curiosity. So, I was a kid, full transparency. I loved to learn stuff. I was that kid that liked to read. I was that kid that was perfectly content to sit in a corner and just explore. I loved wandering, right? You know, everything was a question. And so the idea, but...
As I progressed in my own learning journey, and especially as I got older towards high school, I was that kid that was bored to tears. And it had a profound impact, you know, to go from the joy of discovery and curiosity and exploration into, my God, are you doing this to me today? Right? And everything in between. And ⁓ it's just not something, I mean, we're losing so much.
by not fostering that curious nature that kids have and just really embracing kids and students. And they have so much to offer the world. And we keep telling them, no, you're not old enough, or you haven't graduated, or you haven't met this artificial milestone that someone sitting in a room 150 years ago created and we're still living with for reasons that are completely beyond me most days. So.
Louka Parry (04:37)
Mmm.
Yes.
Annalies Corbin (05:01)
⁓ So for me, that's what it was about. It's like, can we really do something different and to fundamentally ask the question every single day when I get up, what are we preparing kids for?
Louka Parry (05:16)
How do you, what's your current construct to answer that question? Because that's the heart of the matter really, isn't it?
Annalies Corbin (05:22)
So for me, yeah,
it is the heart of the matter. And I guess for me, right, I mean, I don't think I've ever met anybody that doesn't agree. We want these young people, and we can define young in a thousand different ways, right? We want these young individuals to grow up to be happy, healthy, and contribute to society in a meaningful way, right? Yes, 100%. But I think we want a little bit more than that.
Louka Parry (05:37)
Ha ha ha.
Annalies Corbin (05:51)
We want these people to be joyful. We want people to find their passions, the things they love in life, and we want them to figure out how to turn that into a career and a contribution. We want to help people be their fully authentic self and to bring that authentic self safely and with fidelity to every moment of their lives. That's what we're preparing kids for in my mind.
Louka Parry (05:55)
⁓
That's, that's great. Sign me up. I hadn't heard it. I hadn't put it in that. hadn't heard it put in that way. You know, ⁓ there's, there's a kind of frame that I really liked that I heard from Dr. John Churchill, which is the purpose of life is to individuate as much as possible in order to be of service to the collective. And there's something about that that I love. think we forget the latter part often, and we become a bit navel gazing and inward and my journey and my truth.
Annalies Corbin (06:25)
Sign me up.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (06:51)
versus like, am I here to give and be a part of the self-transcendence spaces? That's a beautiful, beautiful destination to seek. What have you learned over the last couple of decades about this work? You know, there's lots of people trying to do this. Institutions like schools and education systems are very robust.
Annalies Corbin (06:54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (07:18)
And you would say a little bit calcified in terms of the mental models because of, you know, the system structures. What, what have you discovered? Like what were the kind of flashes of hope?
Annalies Corbin (07:25)
Mm-hmm.
Well, I mean, think the first thing to acknowledge always is that this is really hard work, right? Because what we're talking about is human culture and human tradition. And we're talking about disrupting that. And it's going to be resistant to that disruption. And that's just part of human nature. You know, I'm an anthropologist by training and by background. And so for me, I...
Louka Parry (07:53)
I love that.
Annalies Corbin (07:55)
everything about this work is to recognize the human at the center, right? And that's the human as part of the collective, that's the human as the individual, that's the human as part of the family, that's a human ⁓ as a part of a tribe and so on. And for me, it's impossible to separate those elements out of understanding the nature of the work. I always make sure that
Louka Parry (08:11)
Yes, yes.
Annalies Corbin (08:24)
regardless of who I'm working with, who our partners are, what we're rolling up our sleeves to do, that we're collectively recognizing that the systems we're trying to change are change resistant by design. And if we don't understand that, it's going to be very, very difficult not to beat your head against a brick wall and bring back the equivalent of a bloody stomp, right? Not to be particularly gruesome, but seriously, right?
Louka Parry (08:36)
Mm-hmm.
It's so visceral. Yeah,
it's a good visual. Yeah. Yes.
Annalies Corbin (08:54)
So, you know, in terms of what have I learned over time is first and foremost,
you have to center yourself in that reality and then to stretch beyond that and say, look, we can approach this collective work in the same way we've always done this or we can be brave and we can be bold and all those buzzwords that everybody loves to use. We can literally say, what would happen if...
And if being the primary driver there, right, you know, let's go back to imagine anything is possible. Why not start there? Instead of making that your outcome, make that your beginning.
Louka Parry (09:36)
Mmm.
⁓ such good work, the purpose emotive, you know.
Annalies Corbin (09:43)
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (09:44)
I think for people listening to our conversation, know, many of them are right at the front line of this, like they're at the interface between young people and the pedagogue, the educator, and they are that educator. And so I wonder about your reflections on, again, all the partnerships and stuff. And I know that your work is, largely contextually based in the United States. So there's, there are nuances internationally, but what I've learned from traveling around for all these years is
Annalies Corbin (09:52)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (10:14)
young people are pretty well, they have the same underlying principles. They want to be loved. They want to be seen. They want to be challenged. They want to be heard. They want to be socially connected. They want to ⁓ have a say, be a co-producer of their work. So what would you say to somebody right now that's kind of in, like, you know, do you have a story about how you've seen learning really linked to life in a powerful, powerful way while still operating within the constraints of a system?
Annalies Corbin (10:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (10:43)
Because
I think that's, that's of course, that's the dissonance. And I'll just add one more thing. at least I, I sometimes find, I sometimes find myself in a quandary with my work. Cause my work really is about possibilities. It's around strategic futures and stepping into that space of potential and create creativity, true creative potential, your life force. What are you going to, what are we going to do? All we have is choice. All we have is time. We're not time poor. It's all we have. It's just how we choose to put that, what we pay attention to.
Annalies Corbin (10:52)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Right. Right.
Louka Parry (11:11)
So then there's a dissonance that can be created, is, well, I'm all, I'm enlivened, but then I'm also contracted in this current situation. So I just wanted to add that just to see if you can, yeah, give us, give us some strategies, give us some stories.
Annalies Corbin (11:20)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
You know, I think that, you know, when I think back to some of the most profound sort of moments or journeys that I have had the privilege and it's truly a privilege, right, to be part of some of the underlying features of those profound journeys have been the fact that these young people have been able to identify the thing that matters to them the most. And then through their
own agency or through the facilitated mentorship of really caring, meaningful adults have been able to advocate for themselves within the system that those experiences, those things that they love should be allowed to count. And what do I mean by that? Right. You know, at the end of the day, no matter where we are in the world, and yes, we do a lot of work in the U.S., but we work lots of other places around the world as well. And
It's the same, to your point. We see a lot of similarities. what young people desperately need is the thing that I am doing or the experience that I'm having, that internship, that out-of-school experience, that sports team, right? All of these elements should count towards whatever the requirements are that I'm supposed to be meeting. Because the reality is, the likelihood I have found is that that
Louka Parry (12:36)
Hmm.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Annalies Corbin (12:51)
young person is going to learn as much, if not more, in that unstructured, unregulated time, back to your time notion, right? Then they will within the confines of the traditional system, no matter what system they happen to be sitting in. So I would argue it's a great epic failure on the part of all of us who are supposed to be helping young people move through the world that says, no, that
that doesn't count, you need to go and sit in this seat and spend 50 minutes, or my favorite, or 42 and a half minutes, what is that, right? So that I can give you credit for whatever. And none of that makes sense, and it's not linking learning to life. And the fact that we're segmenting learning, like we're gonna ring a bell and you're gonna go to math class, we're gonna ring another bell and you're gonna go to English or social studies or science or whatever,
Louka Parry (13:36)
Yes.
Annalies Corbin (13:51)
in whatever part of the world it happens to be. What is that?
Louka Parry (13:58)
They are, they are trying. Yeah, that's right. I think those are attempts in some ways to create, you know, the committee of 10 in 1890, for example, that kind of said, Oh, we're going to do science, you know, to your 10th, we're going to do biology and chemistry. mean, nowhere else in the world. It is absolutely it's completely arbitrary. No, but that it's so interesting. And I think often in my conversations with teachers, we also have an identity aspect to this change work, which is I am a.
Annalies Corbin (14:07)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. It's artificial. Yeah, it's not real. There's nothing real about it. It is.
Louka Parry (14:27)
I know I actually am a drama languages, PE teacher. So I, know, there's a lot of identity that I hold in that. And if you're a STEM teacher or, know, an English, you know, and then all of a sudden, as we see our role, perhaps shift to being kind of more like guides, activators, know, facilitators, the active facilitators of learning instead of just instructors, you know, and I think that is what I think that's the trend that we're seeing, especially with generative AI and tutors and all the rest of it.
Annalies Corbin (14:35)
⁓ yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
absolutely. Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (14:58)
That's a big change journey for all of us to go on in terms of identity. But actually, no, I love my subject area. So what's a reflection you have on that, on the identity piece?
Annalies Corbin (15:01)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Well,
first I would say, yay, you know, thank goodness you love something. I mean, I do a lot of work with educators who are looking to sort of figure out how to make this change. And one of the things that I do every single time is like, I don't care what your subject is. We're going to spend some time together in this work. And it does not matter to me what it is. In fact, leave it outside the door. When you come in the room, all I want you to bring is you.
I wanna know what do you love? What are your hobbies? What matters to you? I'm trying to get at your true authentic self again in the same way that as educators we expect our students to show up and be their true authentic selves and to bring their A game, know, whatever that happens to mean to any individual. why shouldn't the students expect the same from you, right? So if you, you know,
If you love, I'm just gonna make something up here. If you love to knit, and that's what you do with all your spare time, awesome. Why wouldn't you bring that into the experience of learning with your students, right? And figure out a way to make that tangible. They wanna know who you are. The students want to know who you are, not as their teacher, but as another human.
Louka Parry (16:26)
Mm.
Annalies Corbin (16:29)
And so I think that a lot of this is, and I talk about it as teacher passion, and actually that's the title of my next book that's coming out hopefully in the spring. And I use this for a reason. It's because if you could show up with these pieces and parts, you can do some incredible things. And in this new book, I tell the story of five incredible, in this case, elementary educators who I've known for many years and been on a long journey with.
Louka Parry (16:38)
Wow. Amazing.
Annalies Corbin (16:58)
And one of my favorites is a kindergarten teacher who when we first started working with her and her school district and her state, it was a really big statewide initiative. And this change was going to be super, super difficult. And I will never, ever forget, you know, lots of ideas were being batted around by the school and it got really overwhelming really, really quickly for this, this educator. And she says to me, I don't know about any of that other stuff. I just love birds. And I'm like,
Louka Parry (17:21)
Mm.
Annalies Corbin (17:28)
You love birds? She's like, yes, I'm a master bird. I'm a global master birder. I'm like, well, that's incredible. There's nothing in kindergarten you can't teach through birds. So how about we give it a try?
was like 20 years ago or something. And my gosh, the things that this educator has been able to do with kids and more importantly, the change she's been able to make inside her own community because she inspired these kids so much. those are the pieces that are, that's the authentic. And this gets back to your question around identity. I also think it's fascinating that you're asking about this because
We've been engaged in a multi-year research study specifically around identity and identity formation in kids and how the levers, especially in STEM and STEM fields, for kids get turned on and off, especially like ⁓ for girls and math and things like that. Because we really want to understand what these levers are and how a student actually establishes and confirms their identity for themselves. And can we design
with those levers in mind. If they're turned off, can we turn them back on? Things like that. Really interesting. ⁓
Louka Parry (18:41)
Hmm. So good.
At least I just, this might be a bit of a simple question, but I'm really curious because I was clearly like this connection between scientific research and real world problem solving and transdisciplinary kind of, kind of learning spaces. What's it, can you make the case for it? Because I, what I notice is
Annalies Corbin (18:55)
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (19:03)
Why did, know, STEM came in, in some ways to try to connect disparate, different disciplines. But of course it's also in some type. We had a moment in Australia, for example, where there's this coding piece. Everyone needs to become a software programmer. It's like the, it's the skill of the future. And of course some of us were saying, well, I'm not so sure about that. probably computational thinking that underpins it, you know, like, you know, and data science, but yeah, what, what do you think the current state of STEM is at this point?
Annalies Corbin (19:07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Right, right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (19:32)
You know, and, and why, why should it be a focus or what is it trying to achieve by bringing these four or more, because there's many kinds of increased acronyms and then eventually it becomes the whole learning process. go, well, okay, well it's now a focus, but not so yeah. would you reflect that? good. I'm sure you've got a hundred. ⁓
Annalies Corbin (19:36)
Mm-hmm.
Right, yeah.
I collect those, by the way, the acronyms all over the world because there
are some crazy ones, right? But I think that's also indicative of the problem, right, to get to the heart of your question, right? So what is this thing? So in my mind, what this thing is or should be is it is a foundational approach. Back to your point, it's about how one thinks. It's about problem solving and reasoning skills. It's about that endless curiosity and asking questions.
Louka Parry (19:53)
So.
Annalies Corbin (20:16)
It's nothing more than a tool. It's like your computer. It's like AI. It's like any other sort of tool that we use. know, STEM, STEAM, STEM with multiple M's, add an H, right? Whatever we need it to be, right? ⁓ all of them, right? SQL was one of my favorites. ⁓ So, I'm gonna need quantum physics in there and someone was feeling left out. the...
Louka Parry (20:30)
Esteem yeah all of them. Yeah enterprise. Yeah
Wow.
Annalies Corbin (20:41)
At the end of the day though, right, it's foundational, right? And so to get back to the question about, you know, the what or the why of pulling all these pieces together, the way I explained it is like this. If we believe that every child or learner that walks through your doors, wherever that happens to be, is capable of solving the world's greatest problems, right? Well, A, what a wonderful thing to think about anybody that comes in, right? Because that's not
the case. We live this. We know that's not the case. ⁓ That we don't collectively all believe that about every kid we're interacting with and teaching, which is a shame in and of itself. But more importantly, if we believe that fundamentally, it means that we're going to approach that individual learner recognizing that it is our duty to ensure that they can in fact do those things. So it's the skills development.
the understanding of the social and political world, it's their understanding of the environment, and it's the weaving of these ideas all together so that our learners can draw on the things that they need in any moment to solve whatever it is that's before them. And in my mind, that's what STEM is supposed to be. It's that foundational piece that allows us to explore what we want to become.
Louka Parry (22:04)
Hmm, beautiful.
Annalies Corbin (22:05)
Making
sure, I'm gonna add to that, making sure that no opportunity is lost because opportunity's a funny thing, right? It's not an opportunity if I can't actually give it a try.
Louka Parry (22:19)
Absolutely. Yeah, where do we learn what we're capable of if there's no space to experiment into that place?
Annalies Corbin (22:26)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, and I tell people all the
time, you know, when they come to pass to the Innovation Lab, we've built an education R &D prototyping facility. And in that, it's our place we play all day, right? This is where we build design tests. It's an amazing environment that we've created. And I will tell people who come and people visit from all over the world to come see what it looks like. And I tell them, look, you know, I will put...
the learners, the students in the space up against any R &D team in the world? Are they always gonna have the answer? Are they gonna have the right answer? Are they gonna have the winning solution? Nope. But what I can tell you is they will approach it with a fearlessness that allows them to explore every possibility that they can come up with. And that's the win.
Louka Parry (23:15)
I love that. And at least just a question on the in your view. How do you think learning happens?
Annalies Corbin (23:25)
Hmm. It's an interesting question. How do I think learning happens? ⁓ Well, the best I can do on that, I think, is really sort of tap into my own experience and my own understanding of the way that I learn. And so for me, learning happens when I'm allowed to not only ask the question, but spend time actually exploring the possible answers.
Louka Parry (23:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, I just, I, it's such a great, I love that question by the way. And it's, it's a, it's one that I would ask, uh, I would recommend any principal asks there when they're recruiting teachers, because it, what it reveals is the invisible pedagogical mindset. Um, and Brookings institution has done some good work on that, but I I just think it's such a great thing. like, yeah, okay. Cause often it's invisible and it's like, we assume learning happens. And I think if we're in a, in a transaction approach, I, I teach some people say, well, I teach you.
Annalies Corbin (23:56)
That's a good one.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (24:22)
And then you learn. I could be a more transactional purchase. I create an experience in which learning happens. And there's more social constructivist, right? ⁓ it's really fascinating. what about the connection between content and dispositions? You know, like what do kids need to know today? Analysts. Cause this is such a, like a, such a gray area, you know, like, and for a long time we've had cognitive offloading tools, you know, the internet was like V1. Now we've got gen AI, agentic AI soon. V2.
Annalies Corbin (24:22)
Mm-hmm. Hmm.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (24:52)
What do we need to know? And like, what's the dispositional skill? How do all those things play together in terms of the work that you've done?
Annalies Corbin (25:00)
You know, that's also a really interesting question. And I get this one a lot, right? And I think that, I mean, I always start with ⁓ this amazing conversation that I got to have with Sugata Mitra. I don't know, probably seven years ago or something like that. And, you know, we're having a conversation about the way folks learn. And I'll never forget, he pulls his phone right out of his pocket and he says,
Louka Parry (25:13)
Yeah, good.
Annalies Corbin (25:28)
And I think he's done this numerous times, right? He says, you know, why are we teaching everything that this knows? Instead, why aren't we teaching or helping folks understand how to evaluate what it knows or more importantly, everything that it can't tell us? And I really love that approach because I think it gets at the heart of the question in the sense that, you know, when we think about learning and we think about
Louka Parry (25:44)
Mm.
Annalies Corbin (25:57)
the process of learning and we think about the potential of learning, the reality is the stuff, the knowledge, right, the foundational pieces, they set a core for us, right? It's important that we understand them. But the reality is we don't need to know the same things today that we used to need to know because we have tools that fast track that. What we need to know now is how to evaluate the information that we have.
Louka Parry (26:21)
Hmm.
Annalies Corbin (26:25)
how to act on it quickly and to put it to work for us.
Louka Parry (26:31)
Yeah, I remember seeing a video from Sugata. He talks about the three things, the three things for the future that we needed. And one, the third thing, you know, one was reading comprehension, you know, because you have to, you have to be able to, those, those are kind of basic skills to access, right? Foundational pieces, but then there's kind of the transformative skills. Um, and he said this number three is like, and like how to believe was the third one. I just always thought it's so interesting because that really is mental model work. Why do I believe what I believe?
Annalies Corbin (26:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Right, those are just foundational pieces, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (27:01)
about this concept, this situation, this political leader, whatever the case is, right? It's just, yeah, like to think critically and deeply. mean, that to me is like the thing that all of our education systems need to orient towards and the kind of the surface level of, well, we've got, we do with the knowing. You know, even with assessment today, Annalise, where, you know, these tools can create essays and assessment.
Annalies Corbin (27:07)
Whatever, happens to me, right? Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (27:31)
artifacts so quickly, it's better than students can. ⁓ but the point, the only reason we had the assessment was to measure the learning process that was trying to test for something, which that made critical thinking or constructing a coherent argument, for example. ⁓ so it's just such an interesting thing. I think this moment with tech is forcing us. It's probably the biggest question is assessment actually. It's like forcing us to reconsider. Well, the proxy no longer is going to be as
Annalies Corbin (27:40)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (28:01)
valuable to us because it's kind of hackable. So then how do we have to restructure the learning experience and how do we move towards an assessment model, which is continuous, it's iterative, frankly, more aligned to real world practice anyway. You're like, when did you last do a closed book exam?
Annalies Corbin (28:11)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, exactly.
Yeah, right?
Louka Parry (28:20)
Like post-grad, I dunno, something.
Annalies Corbin (28:23)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
mean, when was the last time I did a closed book exam? Oh my gosh. Yeah, my doctoral exams, I guess, right? You know, that process that we had to go through. Yeah. Do I ever want to do that again? No, it's useless. I mean, it's an exercise in regurgitation. It's not useless. It didn't measure anything, really. Right. So.
Louka Parry (28:28)
Yeah.
Do you think, do you,
do you think Annalise? Cause I mean, I agree with you. I'm trying to disagree with you, but some people would say, well, it is useful. Cause what it does is it, it is a kind of ranking feature. And I'm very much more pro matching rather than ranking as a paradigm. don't really believe in it anymore. Right. But this whole idea is, well, actually it showed that you were someone capable because of your skills at that point in time of achieving the PhD or whatever it is.
Annalies Corbin (28:52)
Ha ha ha ha ha
Louka Parry (29:16)
Do know like what, when you think about the credentialing system now that's just so still governs, you know, the GPAs and all the other things that you have in the US, you know, we have a thing called the ATAR, which is the tertiary admissions rank. It helps you get into university and really only, you know, only 10, really 10 degrees that kind of, know, like what, do think we're going with the future of credentialing? Have you thought about it, thought that?
Annalies Corbin (29:21)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
My
hope, yeah, we do. And we actually do a fair amount of work in this space. And for us, we're really thinking about the idea of stackable credentialing and micro-credentialing as a mechanism to be able to add value to, and I'm going really specific about that. So add value to these micro-experiences that collectively add up to the demonstration of I am capable of. But it's not just that it's
Louka Parry (29:52)
Hmm.
nice.
Annalies Corbin (30:10)
about the testing of the credential, right? It's about the experience of working your way through the earning of the credential. And for us, that's the difference. ⁓
Louka Parry (30:19)
Do
you have any examples to share?
Annalies Corbin (30:24)
Yes. So for example, we have students that are super, super interested in drones. So a lot of the work that we do is around tapping into students' natural interests and then seeing what we can do with those things. So drones, kids love drones. They're super intriguing. And imagine all the things you can do with them. Everything from the mechanics to the flight to the visuals to the engineering to the sensors to the, I mean, it's literally endless.
Louka Parry (30:37)
Correct. Yeah.
Annalies Corbin (30:52)
data acquisition, right? I mean, so many things you can do with it. So if you take all that potential possibility and you break it down into fine pieces or elements, the reality is I could micro-credential somebody and their experience with this, which is nothing more than a tool, right, in so many different ways. So on the high end, right, it could be to, in the US, ⁓ we have students
earn the FAA, which is our administers all flight, unmanned and unmanned flight. They sit for part ⁓ 107B of the flight exams. That's a federal exam. Every pilot must take certain levels, right? This is right smack dab in the middle. It's just shy of I'm a pilot flying a physical airplane. So it's all the way up to that, right? On that end.
Louka Parry (31:27)
wow.
Wow.
Annalies Corbin (31:49)
But on the smaller end, could be the credentials around the particular sensor that the drone is carrying, right? So we're using drones in precision agriculture. We're using drones to evaluate energy systems, then building envelopes. So it's that full range of things, right? To say, we're gonna grab all the pieces and parts, and we're gonna give each piece and part a value.
We're not going to ask you to sit for a test for all of it. We're going to ask you to have an experience or to demonstrate how you're utilizing that. the building envelope is a really great example, right? So we put sensors on these drones, and these drones used in construction or in evaluating energy systems fly the building, right? And they're just gathering all of this data.
Louka Parry (32:33)
Mmm.
Annalies Corbin (32:35)
Right? Around all of these windows are leaking terribly or all this energy is being absorbed or this energy is being lost and so on and so forth. Right? And so the evaluation is what do we do with that data and what are the recommended changes based on the data I have? That's a microcredential.
Louka Parry (32:49)
Hmm.
Hmm. Brilliant. I just, I feel like some of these experiences are just so enlivening, you know, like just even you're describing that and you, so you say to a young person and you know, I'll be extreme examples, but okay team today, we're going to use a drone to wait. even that. How, what interests you about drones? And then you start from that starting place versus kind of a bit of a command and control piece, which is okay.
Annalies Corbin (32:59)
Mmm.
Right, right.
Louka Parry (33:19)
Everyone sit down. This is what we're learning today. This is what success is. Okay. I'm going to teach you explicitly and then you're going to do some practice. Like they seem like radical different learning experiences.
Annalies Corbin (33:26)
Mm-hmm. Right, right. Mm-hmm.
Well, and I would say radically different teaching experiences too. And I think that that goes back then to that sort of authentic self. You know, as an educator, what are you doing here? Very few, I mean, we've probably all talked to them, but there are relatively very few people that are like, because, you know, I love rules. We didn't go into teaching for that.
Louka Parry (33:37)
Goodbye.
Annalies Corbin (33:55)
We went into teaching because we generally probably love to learn ourselves. Right. There's this thing, this passion, this intrigue in that space. And so I think that when we create that disconnect between the reason we got into this profession to begin with and the way we actually practice that profession is part of the problem that we're having. And it ends up translating into the experience of the students that we're there to serve.
Louka Parry (34:25)
Yeah, it's so true. think to your piece on authenticity, if a teacher's not having a joyful experience, it's difficult to create one for the learners as well. And I think sometimes we do, we do do like, it's where a student centered school, but, that's that you can understand why that's the case, but it's kind of, need to be a human centered school because you know, you need educators to feel enlivened, supported.
Annalies Corbin (34:37)
100%. 100%.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (34:52)
Yes, stretched because it's the most difficult job I've ever done. You know, especially leading a school probably, you know, just incredibly ⁓ incredible role. that, ⁓ yeah, like how do we care for ourselves and care for our teachers? ⁓ in this moment where, you know, we see not a lot of people, well, we have less people wanting to be teachers than we have across the Western world. And we have these teacher shortages.
Annalies Corbin (34:53)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, yes, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
It's so true. And it's almost at a crisis point. And in some places it is. I I worked in a community. I worked in a community who had been advertising for a science teacher for 12 years. There was not a single certified science teacher in the entire district. And it was a small rural district, so full transparency. But it didn't matter, right? And the kids in that community
Louka Parry (35:28)
Mm-hmm.
my goodness.
Sure, yes.
Annalies Corbin (35:48)
deserved a high quality science as part of their education. And the thing is, and I vividly remember the conversation of, look, you can advertise this position for the next 12 years. No one is coming here to teach science. And the reason is because science teachers are in high demand. No one wants to come here geographically and other places
are going to offer them so much more money than you can. So what if instead we rethink the way you deliver science in this community and make it such great science that your kids outperform all the other kids in science. But those are the realities of this profession. We are losing people, really great people, honestly, and we're losing them every single day and we're not attracting new people and we're not capturing people
Louka Parry (36:27)
Mmm.
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah.
Annalies Corbin (36:47)
who are ending careers and other things for variety of reasons. They're retiring, they're ready to make a shift, who would be incredible teachers, but we also, in lots of places, there's not an easy path to be allowed to teach. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (36:58)
Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Yeah. I think if you're, if you're a teacher, listening to this, thank you for what you do. Honestly. I mean, it's such a crucial role. and I certainly speak for myself, Annalise and my colleagues. We just feel so lucky to be able to support teachers, just to kind of remember what we're doing this for. ⁓ If we were to sit down and have a conversation in 10 years, Annalise.
Annalies Corbin (37:08)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (37:29)
Which perhaps we do. What do you hope we are talking about? What do you hope the future has become in 2035, especially for education?
Annalies Corbin (37:40)
Yeah. So for education, what I hope is that we stop having conversations about schools as this closed place of learning. And instead, we talk about ecosystems or full communities of learning. And what I mean by that is it is my hope and I will fully acknowledge it might be incredibly naive, but I'm going to put out there anyway, because I know it's possible and I would love to see it happen.
I would love schools, the roles of a school, if you will, right? That community to shift from being the place where all knowledge is like poured into a student and instead to be the place that facilitates the learning that a student can have all over the community. So we stop just going to classes and we start helping learners find themselves in and everywhere and that.
The role of school is to facilitate the experience of learning.
So I want that for school and for the rest of the world, know, just like take a moment, breathe, look around.
Louka Parry (38:55)
Beautiful. Yeah, just for the, I think for every human listening, take a moment, breathe. Slow down one's nervous system, activate some parasympathetic, you know, goodness. Yeah. Have a psychological sigh. It's just such a, such a wonderful thing. and at least it's been wonderful to talk to you and learn more about your work and your vision and what you're doing. Thank you for what you do for young people. It's so clear that your passion.
Annalies Corbin (39:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, please do.
Yeah, go outside.
Louka Parry (39:24)
You found your place, you know, this is your thing to do. And from where we started, you know, ⁓ with caring for your father and kind of, know, the human mind and, know, the fact that we have this arc of life and an arc of contribution. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we can have as many people as possible feeling like they are in their kind of Ikegai in that, in that place where they feel enlivened and challenged, but doing the work that's theirs to do. What would you love to leave our community mulling over?
Annalies Corbin (39:37)
Mm-hmm.
Louka Parry (39:55)
What's a take home message perhaps that you'd like to end with?
Annalies Corbin (39:59)
You know, I would like everybody to do two things. So the first one is to say yes. And what I mean by that is we are bombarded all the time with these opportunities to do, try, think about, explore, you name it. And for whatever reason, we often have a tendency to pause and sort of hedge. Do I have time? Do I want to do, you know, all these sorts of reasons why not?
⁓ And we miss so much because we don't just start with yes, and then I'll figure it out, right? I'll figure out how to make time for it or whatever. And I just think for ourselves as individuals, we need to be open to all those possibilities, all those opportunities. And so that's one piece. And then the other piece that I would like to leave people with is
Think about what you have to offer somebody else. Not about what you need, but what you can give.
because there is somebody out there that desperately needs what you have to offer them.
try it.
Louka Parry (41:20)
Well, thank you for giving your expertise and your insights today, Annelies. I'd to speak with you and learn more about the past foundation and the innovation lab and the work that you're doing. Thank you for joining us on the Learning Future podcast.
Annalies Corbin (41:32)
Well, thank you for having me. It was a wonderful conversation. Thank you.
