Future Learning Design Podcast

In the current context of ubiquitous digital tech and runaway generative AI, you'd think that a book calling out our collective delusions about digital tools in relation to learning wouldn't make much of a splash! But Jared Cooney Horvath's latest book 'The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids’ Learning -- And How To Help Them Thrive Again' (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-digital-delusion-jared-horvath/1148995809?ean=9798218880378) is currently #1 on the Amazon bestseller list in Educational Psychology and has been receiving a lot of love, including from actor and educational activist, Hugh Grant, and author of The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt! Jared is an old friend of the podcast, so I was really happy to invite him back on for a conversation about our shared concerns about the impacts that digital tech is having on our young people, the dubious motivations of Big Tech and the strange and growing alliance that is developing between people of all educational persuasions!Jared Cooney Horvath (PhD, MEd) is a neuroscientist, educator, and best-selling author who specializes in human learning and brain development. He is the creator of The Learning Blueprint, an international award-winning program helping educators and students understand how learning actually works.Jared has conducted research and taught at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Melbourne, and has worked with more than 1,000 schools around the world. He is the author of six books, has published over fifty research articles, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, and ABC’s Catalyst.Jared currently serves as Director of LME Global, an organization dedicated to bringing cutting-edge brain and behavioral science to educators, students, and communities.Jared's website: lmeglobal.comJared's previous books: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/8069909.Jared_Cooney_Horvath LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-cooney-horvath/Previous episode with Jared on the podcast: https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/dr-jared-cooney-horvath

In this final episode of 2025, you'll hear about some of the most exciting things happening around the world for pathways through the upper end of high school from the voices of the young people involved in them. The final years of high school is often the 'business-end' of formal schooling, where we often demand that young people just knuckle down and suffer the "rigours" of high stakes standardised exams and college entrance tests. But these conversations really show you that alternatives to this are not only possible, but happening! Too often, we can talk a great game of hyperbole and hubris about our apparently "paradigm-shifting" designs, but the young people actually experiencing them are telling a different story. What better way to get at the truth than by hearing from the young people themselves! So in this mini-series (5 episodes), you'll hear from 19 young people about their experiences of the kinds of competencies they feel they are learning and need to learn, what they find energising and enabling, and how they feel about the adults who are very often giving so much heart and hard work into this work, to support and guide them.You'll hear about five empowering high school pathways and curriculum innovations: the International Big Picture Learning Credential in Australia;the Greenstones at Green School Bali in Indonesia; the African Leadership Academy programme in South Africa;the IB Systems Transformation Pathway pilot programme at UWC South East Asia in Singapore and UWC Atlantic College in Wales;and the Global Impact Diploma, being run at a number of schools around the world including American International Schools in Lima, Peru, Budapest, Hungary and Bucharest, Romania.If you know of other innovations that you'd like to see featured on future mini-series, then please do share them with us at goodimpactlabs.com/contact.

In this first episode in this Innovative Student Pathways mini-series, I had the huge pleasure of chatting with Monty, Eliza and Lydia, three amazing graduates of the International Big Picture Learning Credential. There are few, if any, other new pathways and credentials that have been as successful in obtaining university recognition for such radical alternatives to the standardised exam factory system and credential capital monopolies! The phenomenon that is Viv White, the founder of Big Picture Learning Australia has joined me previously on the podcast so you can find out more about what they're up to across Australia in that episode. Previous episode with Viv White AM - https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/big-picture-learning-australia-a-conversation-with-viv-whiteLinkedIn: @viv-white - ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/viv-white-am-297642142/⁠Instagram: @bigpicture.edu.au - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/bigpicture.edu.au/⁠@bigpiclearning - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/bigpiclearning/⁠ (US)Website: https://www.bigpicture.org.au/

In Episode 2 of this Innovative Student Pathways mini-series, I chatted with Olivia, Farrah and Chrissa, current students at Green School Bali about their learning through their Greenstone projects. Greenstone are a capstone project that is a key part of the ‘living’ curriculum at Green School Bali that is educates young people for sustainability through community-integrated, entrepreneurial learning, The And the projects reflect young people's passion for important causes and desire to make a difference in the world. Greenstone enables students to have authentic, real-world learning experiences, taking ownership of their own learning journeys, and lights in them a fire for being continuous, life-long learners. You can also find a link to the Regen26 Youth conference that Olivia mentions in the shownotes here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScl5iKb64QBmcgS-igtzYHYuj4DJWImL58KCq9HIY3tsJiOpw/viewformhttps://bali.greenschool.org/regeneration26/Greenstone presentations from 2025: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLo3UtBdmnunAvG5Yb5cXtQgAk4TcWK3w&si=mWkYAraCkssRkYbh Website: https://bali.greenschool.org/high-school/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/greenschoolbali_what-is-greenstone-activity-6876068533479055360-tQ61?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACJvZTMBEdMREU-F2oP3G7TXlcHKmR1KvnkContact: Benjamin Freud - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminfreud/

In Episode 3 of this Innovative Student Pathways mini-series, you'll find a fantastic overview of all of the amazing work happening at African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa to build the next generation of young African leaders, innovators, laureates and artists. I had the pleasure of meeting with Ayira, Katleho, Mohamed, Fatima and Maimouna Régina to hear all about the core programme and the broader approach to nurturing passionate Africanist auto-didacts!Website: https://www.africanleadershipacademy.org/ Previous episode with ALA's CEO, Hatim Eltayeb - https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/hatim-eltayeb