Episodes

This week on TeachLab, host Justin Reich is joined in a live webinar by members of the Youth in Front team. They answer questions and share reflections and resources that we believe can help educators process this moment themselves and with their students. “So I've been doing a 10 minute election update every day...but again, really thinking about dosage and trying to just think about what is the right amount to not sort of overwhelm you or drown you in this, but also to make sure you feel like ...

For TeachLab’s second Failure to Disrupt Book Club episode, Justin Reich is joined again by friend and colleague Audrey Watters to reflect on their conversation with special guests George Siemens and Elizabeth Losh. They discuss Failure To Disrupt’s Chapter 1: Instructor-Guided Learning at Scale and Massive Open Online Courses, looking at “three big bets of MOOCs,” and exploring why MOOCs failed to achieve their most ambitious goals. “I don't know if I've ever seen an ed tech thing where we can ...

For TeachLab’s first Failure to Disrupt Book Club episode, Justin Reich is joined by friend and colleague Audrey Watters for her insight on Justin’s new book as a well respected writer on educational technology. They reflect on and play clips from the first live webinar Book Club from September 21st, where they were joined by special guest Chris Gilliard, Professor of English at Macomb Community College, to get his unique privacy and surveillance perspective on the book’s introductory chapter an...

Justin Reich is joined by Mitchell Stevens, a sociologist of education at Stanford University to discuss the history and current relationship between online learning and higher education, and how COVID has altered that relationship. “I do think this provides a moment of true uncertainty about the future, because essentially every college and university overnight had to reconceive what quality instruction would look and feel like at their institutions. It creates an openness to forward change tha...

Justin Reich is joined by editor and EdSurge podcast host Jeff Young to discuss the current state of higher education and the technology issues of opening schools during the pandemic. They also look at Jeff’s new project, the Pandemic Campus Diaries, a series on the EdSurge Podcast that aims to document this unique moment in a lively and lasting way, and shine a light on the nuanced effects the pandemic has on students whose learning has been disrupted. “...we were trying to get a sense of, ‘wha...

Michael Pershan, a New York City math teacher, returns to TeachLab to share his experiences in the face of COVID-19. Back by audience request, Michael reflects on the challenges faced during the spring, and shares his strategies for the fall. “...It's hard to know what kids are actually learning and doing. So I'm trying to be flexible. My plan for the spring was eventually keep things engaging, keep kids coming back. That's my fundamental goal. Try to teach as much as I can. And that's what I'm ...

Host Justin Reich is joined by Kevin Dua, 2017 Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year, a two-time Massachusetts Teachers Association Human & Civil Rights awardee, and a current member of the Ideation UpLift Legacy Cohort for K-12 Black Male Educators. Kevin is a History and Psychology Teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Justin and Kevin discuss anti-racism, unlearning, and strategies to increase equity in education in the age of Covid. Kevin also shares h...

This week on TeachLab, host Justin Reich is joined in a live webinar by colleagues Jal Mehta from the Harvard Graduate School Of Education, and Neema Avashia, a Civics teacher in the Boston Public Schools to discuss the Imagining September report; a joint research project to identify values and priorities for reopening schools. “We have to get smarter about how we structure ourselves in ways that actually are in service of kids learning.” - Neema Avashia Managing uncertainty What worked this spr...

This week on TeachLab, we’re republishing our talk with Rich Milner to emphasize his lesson of racial equity and connecting with students by bringing the real world into their classroom.

This week on TeachLab, Justin is joined by Lillian Hsu, the founding principal of Latitude High School in Oakland, California, and Angela Daniel, instructional coach and design thinking project strategist at PSI High in Seminole County, Florida. They reflect on their transition to distance learning in the age of COVID, what values they brought with them, and how this experience will inform the upcoming fall semester. “So much of the ninth grade program at our school is around visiting different ...

This week on TeachLab, Justin is joined by Paul Reville, founding director of the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Redesign Lab, and former Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They discuss the future of education during and post-pandemic, the shift of involvement for parents in their child's education, and the need for communities to shift in order to support it. “...it goes beyond just having higher expectations for families, and extended families. It goes to hav...

This week on TeachLab, we’re republishing our first episode with the brilliant Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, to bring her lessons of equity and race back into light during these challenging times of the COVID pandemic. Now with a new segment called “Dear Teacher”, a message from Dr. Tatum directly to teachers around the world. Next week, we’ll be back with a new episode in our COVID-19 series, talking with Paul Reville, founding director of the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Redesign Lab, an...

This week, TeachLab is republishing the latest episode of MIT OpenCourseWare’s Chalk Radio “Teaching Remotely During Covid-19 with Prof. Justin Reich”, hosted by Sarah Hansen. Below is the episode summary from Chalk Radio. “Join us as we talk with Justin Reich, assistant professor in comparative media studies at MIT. Professor Reich runs the Teaching Systems Lab, which was founded with the mission of designing, implementing, and researching the future of teacher learning. With the emergence of t...

This week on TeachLab, Justin is joined by Jessica Minahan, a behavior analyst, special educator, author, and school consultant. They discuss how COVID-19 is affecting students with anxiety, how it manifests through behavior, and some simple strategies that teachers can use during remote learning to help students feel a bit more in control during these challenging times. “...there are a couple of things to keep in mind as you're planning curriculum and planning different things is we're going to...

This week on TeachLab, Justin Reich joins Blake Middle School of Medfield, MA for their Monday morning check-in to discuss the many challenges of distance learning, and the specific challenges of middle schools, who have uniquely diverse age-groups to address. Principal Nat Vaughn guides the discussion and provides questions for Justin to shed light on with his experience and research. “when I was a brand new teacher, my department head used to say.... every time you assign an essay, you're assi...

This week on TeachLab, Justin Reich is joined by Daniel Wendel, Research Manager and Software Developer of the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program / Education Arcade. They discuss the importance and caveats of modeling, their use in the classrooms, and Daniel’s most recent collaboration project “Modeling the Spread of a Virus”, an interactive model designed to be used by teachers and parents for a conceptual understanding of how a virus spreads in a community, and how the individual can affec...

This week on TeachLab, Justin Reich presents findings from a report on remote learning guidance from state education agencies (see tsl.mit.edu/covid19). He discussed relevant background research, points of consensus among state guidance, and the most important question for schools right now: what is the purpose of schooling during a pandemic? Harvard University professor Marty West, a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education, joins as discussant to provide a state policy perspective. The c...

Justin Reich hosts a virtual session with MIT’s Jameel World Education Lab’s (JWEL) to offer practical guidance and strategies for online learning during the coronavirus pandemic. The live audience includes educators from all around the world, and Justin answers their questions and offers his advice on listening to students and faculty, designing learning for challenging times, and prioritizing the needs of marginalized students. “...really think about how you can partner with students and facul...

Justin Reich joins NPR’s On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti to discuss the challenges higher education is facing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and some strategies for navigating them. They discuss the need to engage the student who are most struggling, respond to pre-recorded testimonials, and provide advice for faculty for enduring these difficult times. Meghna and Justin are accompanied by Christina Morales, a senior at the University of Florida, who describes her experience transitioni...

At TeachLab we continue our efforts to support teachers during the coronavirus pandemic. In this episode, Justin Reich joins Laura Tavares from Facing History and Ourselves, a professional development organization empowering teachers & students to think critically about history & to understand the impact of their choices. We discussed building community, supporting students, and caring for each other in the transition to distance learning. During the webinar, Justin and Laura discuss: Sustaining...

To support teachers in the midst of the recent Coronavirus pandemic, TeachLab is switching our focus to highlight tools and strategies for effective teaching during this time. Today we talk with Michael Pershan, a New York City math teacher at one of the first schools in the country to shut down and transition to distance learning in the face of COVID-19. Michael joins our host Justin Reich to discuss what we know about online and distance learning, and what's feasible for a math teacher to do.

Dr. Meira Levinson joins Justin Reich to discuss an emerging field of educational ethics, what that means in the classroom, and just how nontrivial that can be in practice. “So as you start sort of peeling back the onion of the data, you think... I don't know if it's even possible to compare this charter with this district in terms of quality. And on the other hand, in some ways, we need to, right?”

Rich Milner, Educator, Scholar and Author of the book “Start Where You Are, But Don’t Stay There: Understanding Diversity, Opportunity Gaps, and Teaching in Today’s Classrooms", joins Justin Reich in a powerful conversation on how to help educators work for equity for all students. Rich encourages teachers, "If you're going to engage work that is transformative, if you're going to engage work that meets the needs of every young person with whom you work, then you've got to consider race". Rich’s...

Neema Avashia, a Civics teacher in the Boston Public Schools, joins Justin Reich to discuss the power of bringing real-world challenges into the classroom. We hear how Neema and her students rallied the community to challenge the closing of their school, McCormack Middle in Dorchester, and won. Neema speaks to the importance of empowering students to express themselves, and shares some of her best classroom moves. Neema’s Personal and Teaching Background Bringing complex issues into the classroo...