Redesigning for Deeper Learning is a podcast in which we redesign lessons and units for deeper learning LIVE. Our goal is to model how we can start shifting our day-to-day instruction toward student agency, voice, and choice; critical thinking, problem solving, and depth of understanding; more real-world authentic work; and rich technology infusion. We believe that this might be the first podcast that actually redesigns lessons ON AIR. Thanks for joining us!
We are inviting teachers, coaches, and other school leaders to bring us lessons and redesign them with us on the show! Please contact one of the hosts below if you are interested in joining us.
Episodes are available at redesigningfordeeperlearning.org and on all major podcast platforms. Thanks for listening!
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Meet the Hosts
Julie Graber currently is in her first year as a PreK-12 principal in a small, rural school in Iowa. She has been using her knowledge and skills from working with PreK-12 teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators in several schools across Iowa and applying them in her current role. Julie has been an instructional technology and school improvement consultant for two Area Education Agencies in Iowa where she supports educators with effective teaching, learning, leading, and technology practices. She is a passionate educator who is most interested in seeing teachers and administrators improve authentic learning opportunities for students. Her many areas of expertise include deeper thinking with technology, authentic learning, curriculum design, and performance tasks and assessments. She spent thirteen years as a technology coordinator and business and computer teacher. Julie is an Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) coach and has coached elementary, middle, and high school teams of teachers on how to use the framework in order to increase the level of intellectual demand as well as the authenticity of the work that students are asked to do. She was one of four Iowa coaches to first be trained in AIW beginning in 2007. Julie is certified in the Instructional Practices Inventory and provides training for Defined Learning, a K–12 curriculum resource with engaging project-based lessons that are based on real-world scenarios. Jay McTighe, author and speaker, asked Julie to join his consulting group, McTighe and Associates, to conduct workshops for educators using the Understanding by Design curriculum framework. Julie is the co-creator of the 4 Shifts discussion protocol which has been used in a book that she co-authored called Harnessing Technology for Deeper Learning. She is a regular local, state, and national presenter focusing on instructional technology, authentic work and student-centered, personalized and project-based learning.
Lori McEwen, Ph.D., is a change agent committed to the belief that all students can learn deeply and joyfully. In her extensive educational career, Lori has served educators, students and families in urban, suburban, and charter environments as a leader, teacher, researcher, and consultant.
Lori’s recent roles include Assistant Superintendent of North Attleborough (MA) Schools, Chief of Instruction, Leadership, and Equity for the Providence Public School Department, and Director of Academics for Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral Academy, a network of intentionally diverse charter schools in Rhode Island. In those capacities, Lori led the creation of three personalized, mastery-based high schools, oversaw curriculum development and instructional initiatives, developed a USDOE grant-funded principal pipeline, established principal and teacher leadership opportunities, and crafted policy.
Lori currently consults with school districts across the country, supporting strategic planning and implementation for student-centered, equity-focused change. In addition, she teaches graduate courses in Instructional Leadership at Boston College. Some of Lori’s past achievements include selection as a Distinguished Fellow with the Students at the Center Research Collaborative and service as an elected school board member in East Greenwich, RI.
Lori lives with her husband (and occasionally their college-aged son and daughter) in beautiful Newport, Rhode Island.
A Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Colorado Denver, Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on P-12 school leadership, deeper learning, technology, and innovation. He is on a mission to make students’ day-to-day learning less boring and more meaningful and relevant. He is the Founding Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the only university center in the U.S. dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators, and is the co-creator of the wildly popular video series, Did You Know? (Shift Happens). He also is the co-creator of the 4 Shifts Protocol for lesson/unit redesign and the founder of both the annual Iowa 1:1 Institute and EdCampIowa.
Scott has worked with hundreds of schools, districts, universities, and other organizations and has received numerous awards for his technology leadership work, including the 2016 Award for Outstanding Leadership from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Scott blogs about leadership and innovation at Dangerously Irrelevant and is a frequent keynote speaker and workshop facilitator at regional, state, national, and international conferences.
Scott currently serves as a Getting Smart New Pathways Fellow, ISTE Community Leader, InnEdCO Ambassador, and on NAESP’s Professional Learning Advisory Council. He has written or edited 4 books and 170 articles and other publications, and is one of the most visible education professors in the United States. In Spring 2023 he is road tripping while on sabbatical to explore what deeper learning looks like in elementary and middle schools.
