Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
SL Rao designs better systems for learning
65 Plays9 days ago
Contact SL @ Optimistic.design/contact
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Contact us: Starr@masteryportfolio.com crystal@masteryportfolio.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Goals
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Star Saxton and Crystal Frommer.
00:00:14
Speaker
In each episode, we bring you an authentic conversation with educators, both in and out of the classroom, that will hopefully encourage you to try something new. This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts or education at large.
Introduction to Guest: SL Rao
00:00:34
Speaker
The learner-centered spaces podcast is a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest.
00:00:48
Speaker
We are very excited to have SL Rao on the show today. She is currently the VP of Design Research and Strategy at Optimistic Design. Previously, she was the director of Design Research and Strategy, Substantial Principles Service Designer, Substantial Senior Design Lead, Washington State Department of Commerce Global Health Fellow, Anne Gates Foundation.
00:01:11
Speaker
We asked her one sentence about her passion and her purpose, and she said, co-creating solutions for seemingly intractable problems of our times. In her free time, she is an improviser, emerging screenwriter, and rock climber.
00:01:25
Speaker
We are so excited to have SL on the show today.
A Defining Educational Moment
00:01:28
Speaker
Welcome. Hi, thank you so much for having me here. Really excited to be here.
00:01:34
Speaker
So great to have you on SL. Can you tell us a little bit about a defining moment in your education journey or something that you're working on right now that you're really excited about?
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think one thing that comes to mind is um i was very nerdy in high school. I loved science and math, but I also love doing the arts. And um one of my friends, she was a couple of years younger than me.
00:02:01
Speaker
And I remember she would constantly joke about how she was not a math student. You know, she's she's not a math person. Like, math's not her thing. Girls are not good at math. um As a joke. And I remember one time she came back with...
00:02:16
Speaker
a low grade in math. and i was like, Hey, it's not that hard. Let's let's do this together. And so I tutored her for her next test. And she actually did a lot better. And it was like, for the first time, she was very surprised that she as a math per as not a math person could get ah higher grade.
The Power of Narratives and Tailored Learning
00:02:36
Speaker
And it made me really think about one the power of narratives, right? Like what are the things we tell ourselves, but also where are ah young girls getting these stories that they're not math people or math students, or it's not supposed to be a thing that a girl likes, but also, you know, how modifying
00:02:56
Speaker
the what modifying learning in the way that was like more specific to her needs, because I was able to sit with her one on one. And then just the ability as someone who had just learned something like that, you know, a couple of years before being able to tutor through it. So I didn't know the words like, oh, customized support, so peer to peer learning, but really recognizing that one on one customized learning from one another, we just learned better.
00:03:26
Speaker
I really couldn't have said that better myself. And so much a part of your bio is really interesting to me. I really want to dig a little deeper into what your day to day looks like.
Optimistic Design's Mission and Work
00:03:38
Speaker
What kind of work are you helping folks with?
00:03:41
Speaker
And based on that experience of helping people change their narratives, which I couldn't agree with you more. I was a writing teacher. And one of the things that broke my heart was I'm not a writer.
00:03:52
Speaker
I believe everyone's a writer. So it was definitely, it's definitely, I think, a narrative that's typical in the K-12 space for young people is that they have one bad experience or they have a teacher that says something and all of a sudden that becomes a defining moment in who they they see themselves as.
00:04:14
Speaker
So I'm glad that you were help you were able to help that person rewrite their narrative around K-12 not being a math student and being a math student. um So can you tell us a little bit more about how you're helping people do that in your current position?
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, um actually, going back to what you just said, like not being a writer, ah that's something that always comes to me, even as as a grown adult who's written a lot of things. I still in the back of my head because I'm multilingual and English was one of my languages that I learned when I was young, but in addition to other languages that I learned.
00:04:50
Speaker
So I'm glad to hear you say that everyone is a writer. So i appreciate that sentiment. um the uh so on a day-to-day basis a couple of things that we um so i work at optimistic design and we are our research and design consulting firm we focus on helping understand trends uh from a qualitative perspective so we do a lot of research that can be can that can look like interviews observations to understand what the state
00:05:21
Speaker
of education is, what our perspectives the students are experiencing. We do this research across from all the way from early learning to higher education. And part of doing this is like being able to see at a, I want to say global level, but you know, a lot of our work is in across the United States. So I'm using the word global as a word to just say, like, at a large level, like, we can look at data, ah but the data doesn't give us more of that, like,
00:05:49
Speaker
authentic student one-on-one experiences, right? And so that's what we bring. And we use that as a way to help technology designers, policymakers, um educators make better decisions, design better services and products and policy for students.
00:06:08
Speaker
We also tend to focus on students who have maybe the least access to be able to inform these
Engaging with Districts and Addressing Opportunity Gaps
00:06:14
Speaker
kinds of products. So we look across education and see, okay, where are we seeing students where there is an opportunity gap? ah ah Historically, the education system being set up in certain ways might privilege certain students and maybe even impact other students differently. And we recognize these are broken down by socioeconomic status, race, ah geography, gender.
00:06:38
Speaker
So we tend to, in our research, bring in those perspectives, maybe even um over ah increase the number of those students represented within the sample so that we can design better systems for all students by focusing students who um might not always have access to power and historically might not have been able to shape um education technology products or the education system ah ah but ah based on their experiences.
00:07:09
Speaker
I think that that's amazing. And um as somebody who used to teach in New York City public schools in underprivileged spaces, how do you engage with districts as you're making these kinds of designs and what kind of like how do you decide who to engage with?
00:07:29
Speaker
Yeah, this is a really good question. um A lot of our work has been, um so for example, in K-12, some of them are not district specific right now because ah our work has been across the country.
00:07:43
Speaker
So because we've been doing a lot of research generally to understand like, okay, let's say, for example, one of the projects that we did was focused on um what could ah math education look like 20 years down the line.
00:07:56
Speaker
So what we did do, so we did engage the districts in the sense of being ah able to help us recruit more students um to participate because a lot of the work that we do is, like I said, you know, we do interviews and and things like that. But we also do something called generative design and co-design. So we want to generate new ideas for what futures could exist.
00:08:16
Speaker
So the ways in which we um we looked at the entire education system, we looked at the history for this project. We looked at the previous public policy that has impacted the education system as a whole. And then we said, OK, who are the students that we know have been impacted? So we really recognize You know, it's black, indigenous, Latin students. So students who are an immigrant students.
00:08:38
Speaker
um And also we recognize like a lot of these perspectives, if we look at the future, ah these perspectives are not taken into consideration. So we wanted to look at schools that are maybe Title I schools predominantly ah support and have students who are low income in addition to focusing ah you know with students who are Indigenous, Black, and Latinx.
00:09:01
Speaker
So for a lot of our work right now we haven't gone in specifically to each district and within that district identified you know how we look at students But we were looking overall education system.
00:09:13
Speaker
Hopefully in the future, we'll get to work more directly with ah with districts and also within those districts focus and say, like, OK, how are you supporting and servicing? Do you do you have enough voices from disabled students? And even within that, ah really recognizing, OK, is are there different looking at the data and saying,
00:09:31
Speaker
Is there differential outcome based on the kinds of disabilities students are experiencing? it broken down across race and locations? so So a lot of times like rural schools, ah even slightly more rural areas within a district might have slightly different um outcomes. So we want to be able to use those data points to then say, okay, let's use that to then focus in on who we want to bring into the conversation, who should be part of this co-creation.
00:10:01
Speaker
I was reading some more about your work and what your company does, and I know that you do have a focus on multilingualism. And I previously worked at a school that was a bilingual school, um in many cases, trilingual.
00:10:14
Speaker
And I'm curious how your company and how your work is is helping districts and schools with a high population of students who are learning English and come from many backgrounds of languages.
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, this is a really good
Supporting Linguistically Diverse Students
00:10:28
Speaker
question. i think one of the things that, so I'll share one of the, not only do we do research, we wanna make sure those insights are actually accessible and usable by districts educators and product um companies a lot of the work we've been doing more recently has been at the intersection of education technology and student experiences and so one of we were we noticed that a lot of education technology companies are not necessarily co-designing with students so what ends up happening is
00:11:00
Speaker
um you know, if I'm designing a product in and I have a friend's child who shares similar demographics to me, I might be like, okay, just give me some feedback on this product. But it might not necessarily represent the majority of students who are going to be using the product.
00:11:16
Speaker
And a lot of the hesitation we heard was in engaging younger students to be able to provide feedback um to products. And so we we stepped back and said, okay, how do we help ah companies develop better education technology products, but also build capacity within those teams to be able to engage a diversity of students. And this includes multilingual students, it includes disabled students, it includes low-income students, um and it includes students who are Black, Indigenous, and Latine, right?
00:11:50
Speaker
um And students who are experiencing poverty across ah all races and ethnicities. There's there's a hesitation sometimes that happens, especially when people don't have shared lived experiences. And I think as educators, you are used to engaging with a diverse classroom.
00:12:07
Speaker
And so in doing the research, we wanted to better understand like, okay, what are what are the experiences of students we need to consider? So we talked to district leaders, we talked to educators within the classroom because we want to understand what's happening within their classroom.
00:12:21
Speaker
We focused on teachers who were teaching diverse classrooms, who had maybe even um a lot of students who were a lot of immigrant students, a lot of multilingual students, students who have disabilities, because we want we know that those voices are not usually captured within a product design process.
00:12:40
Speaker
And We didn't want to just say, okay, here's the research, go do your work. We created a toolkit, which is actually available on our website that helps um product teams develop better products.
00:12:54
Speaker
And one of the things there that we really recognized was in, we take an asset-based perspective for the student experiences, right? So a lot of times when we are doing In the United States, English is the language that we use to communicate a lot. And we see that students, when they English is not their first language or they're learning English, it's seen as a deficit, right? Like we see the where the the gap that they need to jump to be able to get to where they, quote unquote, need to be.
00:13:24
Speaker
But in taking a very asset-based perspective, we really recognize it in also talking to educators who are using students' first languages that might be a variety different and sometimes students might have might be might have competency multiple other languages um and the teachers are using that as a way to help students learn english and also learn math because they already know that the students have a level of competency in this other language and they have these concepts already available to them but in
00:13:55
Speaker
And translating that to English is where maybe, you know, the student might be having difficulty. And so it's not necessarily a deficit of their their intelligence their learning their their ability learn or anything like that. So we created these um profile cards for students that takes that into consideration, right? It looks at multilingualism as a strength. So shows ah proficiency across the spectrum ah for students and and that also looks at additional languages. So we want to elevate and make people aware that we're not just saying the student is an English language learner. We're saying, well, the student has like really high competency in language XYZ.
00:14:33
Speaker
And maybe maybe not as advanced, maybe you know medium advanced on another language and then in English or something along those lines. So a lot of our work is in translating that research, taking asset-based lens and creating things that educators, ah product teams can use in their work to create more equitable classrooms.
00:14:57
Speaker
I like that perspective. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm wondering, you know, we have a lot of educators, teachers, administrators listening to our podcast. And can you give them some advice if they are in ah classroom where they want to start implementing more of your work and more of design thinking?
00:15:15
Speaker
Where could they start something small they could start with?
Advice on Design Thinking in Education
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of our work that we do, we take this. um So there are, you know, you mentioned design thinking. um So there are a few different um templates out there that look at ah design thinking, human centered design.
00:15:34
Speaker
There's also equity centered design. um That's the framework that we use in our work, ah which is informed by the National Equity Project and the standard Stanford D School. And so Major part of that perspective is not just going out and saying, okay, to create a learner centered classroom, what am I seeing in my classroom?
00:15:54
Speaker
And how do I customize it? That is a big part of it. But it's also recognizing who we are as educators, researchers, district leaders, what are we bringing into the space, like what mindsets,
00:16:06
Speaker
What perspectives ah are there existing power dynamics that might be showing up that might be impacting in the ways in which we can create a truly learner centered um environment?
00:16:17
Speaker
And so um in and you know, so the way we show up, the perspectives, the biases that we've built over our lifetime and everyone has this, right? We built it over a lifetime of our education, our culture, our, you know, who we've been exposed to.
00:16:32
Speaker
it might impact how we in interpret what we're seeing in the classroom. So it's, like and this is, you know this is a ah very basic example ah that, you know, everyone's aware of now, but for a long time, if the child disruptive, you know, it's seen as a, it's seen as a negative, but we don't all, when, if we don't take that asset-based perspective to say,
00:16:52
Speaker
Oh, am I, is this, does a student need more access to enrichment programs? Is this level that the rest of the classroom is at not necessarily meeting their needs? How do i continue to challenge them and keep them interested? Just one basic example, right?
00:17:06
Speaker
um So if we're, if we're taking a neg, a more coming at it or from our own biases perspective, and might be like, oh yeah, this child is disruptive. All kids of this, this gender or race tend to be disruptive versus really thinking, okay,
00:17:21
Speaker
how are ways in which we, ah my own mindsets are preventing me from seeing the assets the child is bringing into the classroom. And um I think a lot as a researcher, as a designer, um helping develop new products, policies, I also really always consider the ways in which I'm showing up into this work.
00:17:42
Speaker
ah What are ways in which I might um bring my own biases in and change the way the interpretation of the results happen, which is why the other thing we tend to do a lot, I kind of mentioned generating generating and co-designing. So we want we want to create spaces where you can co-design things with your students, right? We do that a lot in our research.
00:18:03
Speaker
And so I'm thinking about the ways in which within the classroom, is there a choice and agency for students to co-create what their experience is going to be like, what they learn, and um how they learn? and Is there opportunities for them to give that give you feedback um so that this is all part of the design thinking iteration, but kind of extending it beyond the traditional design thinking, where traditional design thinking The person implementing, so the in this case, the teacher is the person who holds a lot of the power. In equity-centered design, you're saying, let me try to shift this power so that we're doing this together. We're making meaning together. We're understanding together. We're designing together.
00:18:44
Speaker
And we're creating a space where we all learn together. There isn't one person. i mean, of course, there you know there is that general power dynamic where there is a teacher. they bring They bring in the knowledge. They bring in the structure. That is really important.
00:18:57
Speaker
And they really they're also the facilitators, whereas really helping the rest of the students in the classroom co-create together. That resonates so much for me, SL. When I was getting closer to the end of my time in the classroom, I was co-creating curriculum and assessment with my students.
00:19:18
Speaker
And I saw a very noticeable shift in their ownership beyond the other things that I was already doing up to that point. And it made me a little sad that I hadn't allowed myself to go down that path sooner um I don't know what fears I had about giving up that last bit of control that I had in my space. it it was a very learner-centered space to begin with, but there were still some...
00:19:48
Speaker
Some residual things I had a hard time letting go of so aside from things like my administrators saying that there were certain things we needed to cover in a certain way and finding ways around that so that student voice was pervasive in the way that we were working together, partnering in the learning in in the space.
00:20:08
Speaker
And so it makes me really happy to hear that there's an organization that's doing this from the outside looking at looking looking at the equity specific to these minority groups, especially in the current climate of what's going on.
Resource Recommendations for Educators
00:20:26
Speaker
And to that end, we we usually do shout outs where it's like, where, you know, who should we be following? But i would really love for you to share some, like, what are some really important resources that folks listening today need so that they could ensure that they're lowering these barriers and really working towards this asset approach where kids are able to partner and bring their full selves into their learning?
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, um I definitely would highly recommend the Liberatory Design Toolkit from the National Equity Project in the Stanford D School. um They do have a series of mindset cards that educators can use um to understand like what mindsets they're bringing into the classroom.
00:21:12
Speaker
And of course, a lot of our equity center design practice is built from there. um i would also suggest systems thinking. The other book I'm going to recommend is Closing the Loop by Cheryl Kababa. It is a systems thinking book that is focused on for designers, but I see educators also as designers. So ways in which you can use, there's a series of case studies, but there's also series of tools in there that educators can use within their classroom to say, I'm seeing this as the outcome.
00:21:42
Speaker
out the outward experience that i'm having what else might be happening within my classroom and so this goes to where you were just mentioning earlier around the kind of fear of letting go right so then it might actually allow us to see what else might be underneath that can help us shift our practice um and the last one i was thinking about was um on our website.
00:22:08
Speaker
um And also we have a website called modernizingmath.com. dot com um It a has ah a um an output, which is a kind of like a policy document, like a roadmap for the future of math education. I recommend that because it has a series of things that came out from conversations with teachers and students.
00:22:31
Speaker
And stue the the students brought up a lot of things around like ah ability to give feedback, ah what they would like to see in in the future in their experience for math.
00:22:42
Speaker
But it's not just math. A lot of the asks were around integrated experiences around learning. So science, history, um you know, English. So I think any educator can pick that up and say, okay, what are ways in which I can start working towards this? um So those are some of the things that are coming up for me.
00:23:02
Speaker
SL, thank you so much for sharing all of this information. I think that our listeners are really going to take a lot away from it. And I'm going to put in the show notes, all of your links and ways that they can get in contact with you if they want to follow up with more information.
00:23:16
Speaker
So thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Thank you both so much. Thank you.
Conclusion and Call for Feedback
00:23:30
Speaker
Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at MasteryPortfolio.com.
00:23:45
Speaker
Please sign up for our monthly newsletter for resources to support your learner-centered pedagogy. You can follow us on LinkedIn on our Mastery Portfolio page. We'd love for you to engage with us.
00:23:57
Speaker
If you'd like to be a guest on the show or know someone who would be an inspiring guest, please email us. Look for our contact information in the show notes. And we'd love your feedback.
00:24:08
Speaker
Please write a review on your favorite podcasting app.