Rebecca Winthrop | The Disengaged Teen - Transcript
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Jeremy Singer: Rebecca Winthrop is a globally recognized leader in education and a senior fellow and director of Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, as well as adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Her work focuses on ensuring all young people, especially the most marginalized, develop the skills they need to thrive in work, life, and as engaged citizens.
She leads innovative research on transforming education systems, including the role of families, communities, and emerging technologies in accelerating student agency, engagement, and learning. Winthrop currently leads the Brookings Global Task Force on AI in Education and has co-authored a book on student engagement, The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better, and this will be, the basis of a lot of our discussion today.
She's a trusted advisor to governments, schools, parent networks, international institutions, foundations, and companies. Her expertise has informed efforts at the United Nations, the White House, state and school district leaders, and Fortune [00:01:00] 500 firms. Rebecca, welcome
Rebecca Winthrop: Lovely to be here. Thanks for having me, Jeremy.
Jeremy Singer: thank you. so look, I wanna start finding a data point to demonstrate that, many, most students are not engaged in their learning is actually an easy task. what was hard is choosing which one, so I defaulted to Brookings. and there was a survey of over 65,000 US students that found in third grade 75% of students say they love school.
When you survey them again in 10th grade, that number has fallen all the way down to 25%. So at College Board, we've been tracking this for a long time. students struggle to see the relevance of what they're being taught in school and what they need to learn. it was around clearly before COVID. I think it got demonstrably worse once COVID hit and, it's further, deteriorated when, LLMs generative AI has become more present.
So in that texture,what led you and Jenny Anderson, your co-author, to decide to write this very important book? [00:02:00]
Rebecca Winthrop: we decided to write this book, A, both of us had teenagers and were, sharing notes about that. But really what happened is during COVID, I had this parenting aha moment when I realized I misjudged which of my two kiddos were super engaged in school.
so I had thought before COVID my oldest one, who was in sixth grade, loved school and was super engaged. I wasn't gonna have to worry about him during CO- during COVID. He got straight As, li- really liked school. My little one, right before COVID, had just been diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, and that made a lot of sense 'cause he hated school.
He internalized this idea that he was stupid, and I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna have to put all my attention on this kiddo to make sure he's okay." The opposite happened. School went pass-fail. It went online, and my older kiddo said it doesn't matter. If it's not counted, it doesn't matter. So you know, it do- who cares, mom?
And I said, "No, it's about the [00:03:00] learning," and my little one totally blossomed. He was into learning, he just needed a different context. And I figured, we ... I had such a hard time seeing that myself as an e- well, as someone- Yeah ... who studies education for a living and runs education programs, it must be really hard for other parents.
And Jennie, is a wonderful journalist. and so I really did actually go on bended knee to ask her, "Please, why don't we do this book together?" And so it was really from this desire to help parents and, frankly, educators be able to see engagement b- better. How can we- Yeah ... it's hard to see disengagement, actually.
We see a tip of the iceberg, but not the full thing.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. and it, y- in some ways I'm, relieved that you, with your expertise still struggled, and we'll get into that a bit 'cause I definitely, I, could relate. so it's a perfect lead-in. It, was an important book. I, I think most of my listeners will either have heard of it, read it or, heard an interview around it.
but I don't wanna assume everyone knows it cold. So I really wanna start,you d- [00:04:00] you do a great job of describing four types of how,of learners. so why don't you walk through each, each case and, give some background of what it is so that we're all starting from the same square?
Rebecca Winthrop: One of the main things we found was that it's not just i- students are engaged or they're disengaged. It's not this binary. So that was really an aha moment for us in the research process, and we found that kids show up in these four different modes of engagement: achiever, explorer, resister, and passenger.
And at first we organized them as a hierarchy, like resister, the worst, and then passenger, medium, achiever, better, and explorer, great. And we realized it didn't end up quite playing out that way because what you have is passengers and achievers. passengers are not engaged, but they might like to go to school to see their friends, but they are coasting, doing the bare minimum.
A lot of times they're getting good [00:05:00] grades. Sometimes they're really struggling, but a lot of times they're getting good grades and they're just not challenged. Then you've got kids in achiever mode. They are really engaged in following instructions and doing what the teacher says to get an A, and they're much more indexed on the end result.
There was high incidence of cheating before AI came along and ChatGPT. There's a really high incidence afterwards, and this is where you see some of the mental health issues coming about trying to be perfect and, we can dive more in there. But w- we thought, oh, initially achiever mode is the top of the engagement mountain, but they weren't, because really the number one thing that, that Students said that really frustrated them about school when they spent a lot of time in achiever mode is when their teacher doesn't tell them exactly what to do to get an A.
And so they're, again, really becoming great followers . So neither passengers nor achievers [00:06:00] have much initiative or agency they're taking to influence their flow of instruction to make it more interesting or, better for themselves. and I should say one thing that, you know, the other interesting part of kids in achiever mode were super risk-averse.
"Oh, I love that. I'd love to take that class. It looks so exciting, but I heard it's a really hard grade or I'm not gonna take it. I'm not gonna get an A." Or, "Oh, what an interesting essay question. I have a strong opinions. I'm- I wanna write this, but I don't think my teacher is gonna grade it well.
That's not what she wants to hear. I'm not gonna write that." So they're constantly- self-checking. Whereas-
Jeremy Singer: Yeah, and you also talk about, when I was reading it, the, whether it's e- extrinsic or intrinsic motivation and, achievers are, it's less, less intrinsically motivating, Right
for how they do the work. Also, I think if I, recall, passenger mode is the lar- you'd say about 50%-plus learners live in passenger mode, is that
Rebecca Winthrop: right? Middle school [00:07:00] and high schoolers, yeah.
Jeremy Singer: Okay. Yeah.
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah. Okay. And, then what the sort of other ends of the spectrum, resister and explorer, they actually had a lot more in common when we started diving into the data.
They both have- Fascinating ... a lot of, agency and initiative. Resisters are pointed away from their learning. This is the sort of typical kid who we say is, a disengaged student. They might not turn in their homework. They might be class clown. They may skip school. They might be disruptive, causing problems at school.
It can be very hard to parent and teach a kid in resister mode. And they are, they really are taking a lot of initiative and a lot of agency. It's just pointed totally away from learning, and they're trying to make things more interesting for themselves. It's just often not terribly constructive towards the project of school.
Whereas explorers, that sort of initiative taking an agency is pointed towards learning. So that's where they're really excited to dive in. They're excited about the process of learning, not just the outcome. They're [00:08:00] really resilient. So if they get a B minus, kids who spend a lot of time in achiever mode often melt down.
That's the end of the world. "Ah, I'm a failure. I can't..." Kids in explorer mode will be like, "Oh, I wonder what I did wrong. Let me see. Let me try again." So it's that sort of l- sort of intrinsic interest, curiosity-driven ability to one student told us, "mold my schooling experiences to fit what I'm interested in," is really explorer mode.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. No, that's great, and a perfect overview. Thank you. I love the depth of the book, and there's so many, we all knew students or we all know ourselves that lived in these various modes at times in, our learning, and we have-- those of us as kids can see that as well. So a great foundation here.
I wanna get into some, different nuances of it. you point out that, that,individuals can move between these modes, and so not y- an individual may be, a resister in- Yeah ... in their [00:09:00] classwork, but they may have a music passion outside of school- where the, they're, not, where they demonstrate explorer mode.
and so I was wondering, like when you looked at students that were-- A- and again, when you look at students that fundamentally shifted- between modes, and I think for our listeners, I, think you'd say we want-- Our goal would be to-- No one's gonna be in ch- explorer mode all the time, but and you even make a case that in explorer mode sometimes it's, g- okay to be in passenger mode at times.
But- but we're trying to push, we're trying to figure out ways to get students, hooked on being explorers. And so what's the trigger that you see that most helps move people towards
Rebecca Winthrop: explorer?
Jeremy Singer: is it adult intervention? Is it something that their peers do? Yeah. Is it just maturation?
Like what, what drives that, that evolution? Yeah.
Rebecca Winthrop: before I dive into that, I just wanna surface really briefly a couple of things that you said that is super important. One, these are states, not traits. These are not [00:10:00] personalities. Every kid can be in explorer mode, and in fact, we found a lot of the kids who were in resister mode were doing explorer, incredible explorer stuff a- in out of school time.
Like we had one kid who would skip school constantly in middle school to go to the public library and watch old movies 'cause he wanted to be a film critic, and, he had his own annotation. We had another kid who kept getting thrown out of school 'cause he wasn't-- he was disruptive and not doing his homework and stuff.
But outside of school, he was 3D CAD designing, r- buildings left, and center, right? So every kid can be in explorer mode, and it's really up to us, the adults- To curate a learning context that gets them into explore mode. And we're not saying you need to be in explore mode 24/7. That would be exhausting.
But the baseline we're working from is less than 4% of middle school and high school students say they're regularly in explore mode. This is my, w- the Brookings, we, at Brookings partnered with Transcend on a lot of these research and [00:11:00] great- That's right ... organization. And that's just not enough. So what we want is kids to be able to spend more time in explore mode so they build explore muscles, because that type of internal love of learning drive, ability to way find and navigate your way in the world is all the more crucial now with an, with AI coming onto the scene than it has ever been.
Jeremy Singer: And what, like again, like if you were saying, is it if you had to bet on one, is it the parent? Is it the teacher? Like what, would- the
Rebecca Winthrop: context. Yes Give
Jeremy Singer: one thing that could actually drive that- Yeah ... movement.
Rebecca Winthrop: families actually have a big role to play.
Jeremy Singer: Yep.
Rebecca Winthrop: It is one of the things where they, make a big difference all the way through adolescence, is basically kids' love of learning and motivation towards school and [00:12:00] engagement in school.
And it's things like not constantly asking kids how they did on their test when they come home, but asking, "What did you learn?" Being curious, and then modeling. "Oh, I learned this at work. I find that's really interesting." The other thing that families should be doing, is when they can, voicing over that they too fail.
It's okay to bite the dust every once in a while, as long as you get back up and you can ask for help, et cetera. So that really makes a huge difference. The other thing that makes a huge difference is, making sure the classroom learning environment is giving kids some, some choice, some agency, a little bit of autonomy to- Insert their curiosities into the lesson.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. And, and- And we'll talk a bit about- Yeah ... we're gonna, I wanna go deeper into that. I, what was interesting, so there's so much ways to go, but I- I found so many things fascinating, and [00:13:00] honestly, a lot, y- you connected a, a lot of s- things that I would guess that for most of our listeners are familiar with, but not always actionable.
And a lot of it, to me, was intuitive stuff, hey, praise the effort, not the outcome, the value of trying and failing, trying to get kids into the zone of proximal- development, developing, the importance of developing self-efficacy. but there were also things that were less intuitive or even counterintuitive.
to use the example, but what, I didn't realize is, someone's in passenger mode, and you can get them in explore mode in a topic. It actually transfers potentially to other topics. So it's get the hook where they explore, and then, that's not just, they don't have one passion, or I shouldn't use passion 'cause we'll talk about failure- Right But one interest, but then how do you move it to something else?
So I thought that was r- really fascinating. A, a number of other things, another thing you, mentioned, you just said, parents should share failures. I had learned, [00:14:00] y- I, of course I'd read, and when I was raising my kids was like, "Hey, you don't say you're bad at math," or, you know- "Don't, allow that." But, on the other hand, we, would share, oh, we were never good at X, and you say, "Hey, don't do that." you don't wanna- give them that. So, there's a lot of things. So I guess, you, this has been out for well over a year. d- can you help us think of things that were more counterintuitive where you're talking to- Yeah
people who've read or in conversation said, "Ah, that doesn't seem, but now it makes sense." Are there other examples that you could share?
Rebecca Winthrop: The, I think there's a family and teacher parallel, educator/school leader parallel, which is really around student agency. And that's very, old c- concept and construct.
Yeah. It's not new. But putting it into practice can be very hard. So the thing that seemed to move the disengaged kids more quickly into explorer mode, certainly b- sense of belonging and [00:15:00] safety, all that social stuff is important. Sure. But it isn't th- it doesn't necessarily magically do the trick.
They, really a lot of them blossomed and moved ve- much more quickly in our qualitative research into explorer mode than kids that, who are stuck in sort of passenger mode when they were given autonomy- Yeah ... and freedom. And it is very counterintuitive for a kid who is messing up and doing the wrong thing to give- To give
Jeremy Singer: them more room
Rebecca Winthrop: to- More room- Yeah
and more freedom. It's not un-scaffolded freedom. It's not, "Here's the keys to the school," right? So I'll give you an example. So one, that one student I told you about who was driving everyone crazy in high school, being very disruptive, and at home was doing,architecture design. Finally, his high school, it's one of the characters in our book.
Finally, his high school was like, "Look, we just, you, we..." He was a good kid. He wasn't- Yeah ... they just they're like, "We can't take you. You're driving me crazy, and my staff crazy. You can... But there's this new program called [00:16:00] Iowa BIG where you can be in your high school, you can go to the football games, you can, do the sports extracurriculars.
And then half the time you go to Iowa BIG," which is a different building And you do projects with other students or on your own that the, the, the leaders at Iowa BIG give to you, or you create, or people in the community come to you with. And his first project was, we have to redesign our common room.
they were gonna rebuild it, redesign. Yeah. Said, "Could you please help us do this?" And so that kid went from the pain in the butt student of this district in Iowa to the star student in, two months. Yeah. It wasn't, five y- So he was on fire. So they saw what his interest was, they gave him a scaffolded, section, and then he, to your point earlier about the spillover effect, then he earned his stripes.
He proved to himself that- Yeah ... he could be good, he [00:17:00] could be constructive, he had something to offer, and that he had something to learn from- Yeah ... the adults, because they were coaching on, how to do it. But he was in the driver's seat. And then that spill- He just, from that it got, contagious.
He wanted that feeling in other places, and he just kept going and going. So that is something that I think we get wrong a lot in education.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure in that case, also, other teachers, g- gave a second look or a second chance to that, that student- Yeah ... as well. So I have a lot of, quick ones but there's so much-
Rebecca Winthrop: Go for it.
I'll be,
Jeremy Singer: I'll try to be- Again,
Rebecca Winthrop: it's
Jeremy Singer: such a, there's so much I wanna talk about
Rebecca Winthrop: with you, Diane, here ... non-long-winded, which is hard.
Jeremy Singer: no, not at, it was not that. That was not intended at all of that. I just said there's so much. But so a- another thing, and I mentioned a second ago that, where I've, where I, y- I learned a lot, but, one was, this, we all, default, I defaulted a minute ago to finding your passion.
And, you make a very good case of that's not necessarily the way you wanna ... You wanna talk about finding, focus individuals on finding their strengths and their [00:18:00] interests. so I thought that was very insightful. Can you share for our listeners what, what that means and why finding your passion is probably not a great thing to be telling kids?
Rebecca Winthrop: if you've been wandering around saying, "Go find your passion," I don't think you're, ir- irrevocably hurting your kid, so, give yourself some grace. But-
Jeremy Singer: We'll talk about that later, but -
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah, basically, it's a lot of pressure. What if you don't find your passion? Yeah. Really what we want kids to know about and be self-aware about And have adults in their environment help kids spot is, what are they interested in?
What sort of makes them curious? What makes them dive in more deeply? It could be robotics class, and then they get excited. It could be, help at tutoring, helping their peers or their little sister. It could be cooking. It could be, it could be a range of things, and it doesn't have to be, like, a formal activity.
your purpose is to be an artist or to be the- Yeah ... best athlete. It c- you have a lot of interests, and adults play a really important role in s- [00:19:00] surfacing those for young people. "Hey, you seem to really like that," or really enjoy it, or be really ... People really respond to you when you help them out, et cetera.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah, I love it, and it's also not so singular, 'cause often with a- Yeah ... passion you have a passion versus you can have a whole series of strength and interests. Yeah. So it really, it really resonated. Another thing is, you talk about ability to motivate students, and obviously at College Board we think about this a lot, of "Hey, you do this now and it's gonna benefit you down the road."
my experience and the research I've read is, very hard for young people to connect their actions today- to five years, or this is gonna help you be this. and but you do wanna motivate them or connect their actions today or their, to try to motivate them for their own future.
what's the balance here? How do you do that effectively?
Rebecca Winthrop: Some kids, they're largely in achiever mode And a lot of them are grinding it out, are like, "I am so motivated to get into a good college 'cause therefore I will get a good [00:20:00] job, and therefore I will have a good life." And they're like, "Nose to the grindstone.
I know this is the right thing to do." a lot of kids aren't, to your point. it's just too- Yeah ... far away, and they're like, "I don't care." "That's no fun." So one of the things that helps is more proximal connections, and more proximal connections is often around relevance. this is really interesting.
you say chemistry is boring, but do you know that, your Aunt Suzy just got tr- I'm making this up, treated- Yeah ... by a new cancer drug that, just got discovered? This is chemistry. So we, schools don't always make the great connection between what kids are learning or everybody hates the Pa- Pythagorean theorem.
That's what I took away from all this research. That's the number one thing that students- Yeah ... told us. "Why do we have to learn the Pythagorean theorem?" yeah, it's important. We just don't, aren't connecting the dots for them, and one way to do that is to have a lot more applied learning where they're using their knowledge.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. and, yeah, I've taken those to heart. [00:21:00] So look, we haven't talked AI. it seems, irresponsible in today's age with everything, everything we see is AI, but we do need to cover it. And AI was around before you wrote the book, but it's, I think it has accelerated if anything and it's in the zeitgeist.
t- talk about how you see
AI affecting those modes, and is it, do you think it's gonna lead more people, learners into one of those modes? like in- on the explorer mode I see it on, two ways. Like one, it could, it, could give, people who wanna be explorers more tools to do the exploring. But the other way is it could substitute the exploring, by providing those answers so you never get to explore.
So how do you see AI? Yeah. And I know you're thinking about this a ton, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah. And in the w- ChatGPT came out halfway through the research process. We were at the tail end. Yeah. And we did take a moment and say, "Wait a minute. Does this change?" And we said, "No, it makes it more relevant than ever."
So really what I have been seeing, [00:22:00] particularly through our Brookings work on, and our AI taskforce work with my colleagues, is a potential new divide in equity, in education opening up between those kids in explorer mode who are, already using AI tools to go to great heights. I spoke to a high school student who was getting his master's in cybersecurity 'cause he had sort of AI jerry-rigged his way to
And he was just super into cybersecurity- Yeah ... like on the side. and making a lot more kids into passenger mode. and I- Yeah ... just think that is gonna be a new gap that we're gonna have to tackle.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah, so it's almost if I'm hearing you cor- if you have that sort of inkling or drive, if you wanna be explorer, it's gonna be potentially easier to be explorer, but it's also gonna
Those who are in passenger will make it simpler to stay in passenger mode. Yeah. I mean- Is that fair?
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah, and I think the tools that we have given students [00:23:00] with very little guardrails in many ways, in the United States at least, are such that the 4% of kids in middle school and high school who are in explorer mode are probably rocking and rolling.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah.
Rebecca Winthrop: And there's probably a lot more kids in passenger mode, you know- Yeah ... just, especially the achiever mode kids being like, "What the hell is this? I don't need to do anything."
I could
Jeremy Singer: just- You can give up your agency in it, and you-
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah.
Jeremy Singer: yeah ... just let it take over.
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah. Run it through three LLMs, run it through two AI humanizers, turn it in, I'm good.
Jeremy Singer: Yep, yep. scary thoughts. all right. So I wanna pivot here. There's a lot more to talk about, but, so I, have different audiences. I have,there are ... Many of the listeners are parents, happen to be parents. I have a fair amount of people who are teachers, and then I have system educators at the policy level.
So I wanna go to, I wanna go audience by audience- Okay ... and say, y- when I was reading it, there was like a myriad of examples of how I could've been a better parent. I have 25-year-old twins. ah, I wish I'd done that or did ... and it can feel overwhelming 'cause there's so much stuff, and we did
Y- you hit on a little bit [00:24:00] this earlier in, in, the podcast about a couple things. but I, was feeling like you almost need to be a PhD to be a good parent, and then it was good to hear you as a PhD struggled, so I was like, ah, you made me feel a little better. if, our listeners wanted, what are, a couple takeaways- Sure
for parents, and we can re- talk about what- So- ... some of the ... that you'd say are most important from this.
Rebecca Winthrop: So there's two ways to think about it. One is things that are good for all kids, and two is which- kid do you have at the moment? Or is it a kid- mainly in passenger mode, achiever mode, resistor mode?
So we do have a toolkit in the book that's, you need to do slightly different things if kids are stuck in- Yeah ... resistor, passenger, or achiever, and they can't get to explorer. That's the goal is like, how, do we help our kids get into explorer mode? So good for everybody are the things we already talked about, modeling curiosity, talk about the content of your learning, of what they're learning.
definitely, yes, check in, have an eye on grades, [00:25:00] once a week minimum. Don't be asking about their fricking, performance- Yeah ... on their every single quiz. And
Jeremy Singer: is that the most common mistake? I would assume for a lot of parents it's, you mentioned that if you're overbearing or, you're managing, you're asking them, "Did you do your homework?"
constantly, they never gain the agency. is that, would you say that's what you think is the most common?
Rebecca Winthrop: I would say for kids in passenger mode, that's the, number one thing you really sh- do need to help them do. So w- what happens is you get into this sort of, nagging procrastination cycle from hell, basically.
You're like, you see your kid isn't doing their full, up to their full potential. They're never, like, when is... And I had, I changed my parenting style with my two boys. my son would get home, I'd be like, he's a self, was self-avowed passenger mode kid. "Did you do your homework?" "No, I'll do it."
And then, after dinner, "Did you do your homework?" "Did you do your homework? Did you do your homework?" And then finally it's like, okay, forget it. ask them for a plan. "What's your plan to get your homework done?" And sometimes they don't know how to make a plan, and then you have to [00:26:00] say, "Oh, it's, what you have to do- Yeah
how long it's gonna take, and when you're gonna do it." And for kids in passenger mode, s- that's a lot of what we saw, and then we have to back off and let them try the plan, and they might fail, and we are not saying fail, your close to, near and dear to your heart, your AP test or your SAT or out of, freshman year b- bio or whatever.
But, you need to give them some, there's a lot of days in the year where they can try. So for kids in passenger mode, that's, definitely it. For kids in achiever mode, they need to know that their, worth does not come from their grades.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah.
Rebecca Winthrop: sadly, a lot of young people who are really stuck in achiever mode believe that their parents love them more when they get As.
And and it's not anything that any parent will have directly done. It's like putting the report card on the, fridge and saying- Yeah ... "My oh, she's doing so great and we're so proud of her. She's in honors," whatever, right? So it's subtle hints. And then for kids in resister mode, the [00:27:00] number one thing parents have to do is really figure out what is at the core of the resistance.
Yeah. 'Cause there is always something. Sometimes it's peers. Sometimes- Yeah ... it's bullying. Sometimes it's, an undiagnosed learning difference. there is just, it's a mix of things, but there's always a reason, and i- it takes a while to peel back the layers of the onion. But that-
Jeremy Singer: Yeah, and I thought m- my biggest thing was, like, really hard, and you mentioned to, to di- you know, you said you struggled to diagnose- Yeah
your own kids. Diagnose is probably the wrong word, but, you know- Yeah ... determine what, where, they were, and I, think that is, a challenge. let's shift to teachers. So-
so, one theme,is, giving the student more control of what they're learning. And, you mentioned earlier, you used the phrase I like a lot, curated learning experience.
Yeah. if you went to any teacher, they'd say, "Yep, agree," and would say, "This is relatively easy in some cases." but when most teachers all say, "I have so much stuff I need to cover," Yeah ... the curriculum- Yeah ... yada, yada, yada, and it's quite [00:28:00] hard to give the level of agency.
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah.
Jeremy Singer: if a teacher came to you with that, like, how would you respond, or what would you advise?
Rebecca Winthrop: And we, really lift up the work of John Marshall Reeve, who has the seven nudges. They're literally behavioral nudges that a teacher anywhere, you do not have to shift your curriculum, your coverage, your school's disciplinary procedures- Yep ... or anything, can use that makes a big difference and really helps kids get into explore mode, and it's a host of little things.
So things like, opening up the topic of the day. I'm making this up. "Hey, we're gonna talk about the solar system today. This is what the solar system is." And before you dive in on what you wanna frame for students, you pause and you say, "Does anybody have any questions about the solar system?" Yeah.
"Are you, is there any curiosities?" The number one thing that teachers find is it takes two weeks of doing that consistently before kids actually-
Jeremy Singer: Take them up on that.
Rebecca Winthrop: yeah,
start telling you what they're curious about. Yeah, And when they say, [00:29:00] what happened to Pluto? Why is it no longer a planet?"
You do have to start there and then go back to your work and, to your original, plan. Another thing that teachers can do alongside that is exit tickets and feedback pla- you could just do a plain old sticky notes or whatever. what is one thing that could be done better next time?
And again, you have to look at them that night- Yeah ... and you have to come back, and you have to do it. And just that sense of having a tiny bit of input-
Jeremy Singer: Yeah ...
Rebecca Winthrop: it really, shifts the dynamic of the learner, and all of a sudden they shift into this agentic, engaged, explo- what we call explore mode.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. What I, like about that, by the way, is that you ... The idea is great, and then the idea that, you need to do it. My guess is a lot of teachers try things like this, and they try it for a week. They don't get any response. They give up, and it's almost
Rebecca Winthrop: like- you have to stick with it Yeah It probably, the research shows, and th- and this is not like a fly by night.
This might be a nice thing. It's been tested in, [00:30:00] over 35 RCTs, 20 countries, includes starting- Yeah ... in the US but in lots of other places. you, it takes about two to three months to really master these nudges. So it's not five years.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah.
Rebecca Winthrop: And any can, teacher can do it, but don't give up after the first three days and it doesn't go well.
Jeremy Singer: yeah. it's almost like the parent too. the first time you ask certain questions- Yeah ... you may get a blank stare, and, if you can do it consistently and show you're sincere, it eventually can change. Yeah. super helpful. Let me shift now. So we have principals who listen, superintendents, state chiefs of education.
so if you're at that level and you're trying to sort of- Yeah, the
Rebecca Winthrop: policy
Jeremy Singer: level ... design, yeah, either policy or programs at scale to, to, shift more people, of their students to explorer mode, like, what would you tell them? What would be your advice?
Rebecca Winthrop: So I'm gonna call out two things. We have a range of things in the book, but one is a, can easily do it tomorrow if you're a school leader, 'cause this is usually done at the school level, and it's [00:31:00] usually, something that exists in a lot of public schools.
Or, which is do not Take extracurriculars away from kids when they start struggling academically. Yeah.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah.
Rebecca Winthrop: you need a 3.5 to play on the baseball team or a 3.2 to be in drama club or UN club. No. Wrong measure, because the minute students start struggling academically and they get kicked off the baseball team or booted from drama club or w- can't be part of Model UN, they have lost their identity around what makes me special in this school, where can I shine, where can I contribute, and that just accelerates resistor mode.
Yeah,
Jeremy Singer: downward spiral. It goes the opposite- Yeah ... of what they're trying to achieve. Yeah,
Rebecca Winthrop: yeah.
And definitely, I'm not saying don't have, requirements. Attendance. If you don't come to school, you don't get to be on it. Behavior. If you're fighting with kids, you don't get to be on your baseball team, et cetera.
So that's one, and it's easy, and it's, a level of school policy usually or district policy, and would make a big, [00:32:00] difference. second, the big thing that we all need to do now, especially with AI, is we need to make sure we shift our teaching and learning experiences. If, an assignment can be hacked by AI, don't assign it You know, I'm a big advocate for, you could have it at the district level, I think you should have it at every school, student councils, focused on AI where students say, "This is how we get around your assignment.
This is the ..." work with teachers, 'cause one thing I've learned in all our research, it's f- both from the disengaged teen and, student agency perspective, but also from our AI research, students really wanna learn. They don't wanna be wasting their time doing stuff that can be generated by ChatGPT.
and then really introduce a lot more, applied learning. Any, type of pedagogy that both pairs knowledge acquisition, which is extremely important, even more important in age of AI to have judgment and discernment of what AI produces- Yep ... with knowledge [00:33:00] application, be it service learning, project-based learning, experiential learning, whatever.
as long as those two things are paired, you're gonna get, a lot more explorers.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. And that leads me well into this. So I'm not, I can't miss an opportunity with you and, all your research and expertise not to get some free feedback on, College B- Board's advanced placement courses.
our learning science team, our instructional team, they're grappling with, with all the concepts you talk about in your book, and how do we make AP, courses,how do we help students in AP courses, go toward explorer mode? Yeah. And I, what I wanna do is I think for the benefit of time, I'm gonna go through four things we're working on real quick, and- I'll try to be very quick. And then I want your just general reaction to all four, but also, which is the, is there a lever you'd recommend and is there- something we're missing that we should be doing? So first I'll talk about project-based learning. Yeah. I've talked before this on this pod, but, it's one of the few areas where there is an RCT, a randomized control [00:34:00] trial, that shows the impact on learning.
It's been done for AP. it makes sense, although- It's ... There are certain subjects or, areas within courses that are much more, project-based, easier to, integrate project-based than others. but as, as part of this, our view is, you're giving the student more agency in their learning because it's the way they're learning.
Then the second is we call it AP Career Kick Start. these are a series of courses we've recently launched. There's, AP Business and Personal Finance, AP Cybersecurity, AP Networking.
We're also exploring what courses in healthcare and engineering. The goal is to offer courses that, yes, they provide college credit, but they also more clearly connect to work and professions that the students may be interested in.
we worry that it's hard for some students to make the connection of why a certain AP course is important for their future- Yeah ... and we think these are just,m- more obviously connected for students. The third is something we call Teamship. in the past year, we acquired a nonprofit and, we're scaling it to introduce, a new service that helps high school students [00:35:00] connect with employers to do work-based learning projects.
So they have, we train a teacher to be a coach, and then a number of students then go- Yeah ... we, find a local employer and connect them. and we've, w- we've been, figuring out of are there ways to more directly integrate these into some AP courses, the thought that these experiences will help spark the learner's interest, but also to your point, build some of these durable skills- that you get in these type of projects. And the last one is micro-credential. we recognize that the traditional benefit of an AP course, which is college credit, can simply seem less relevant to some students. And so- in these new AP courses, we're actively including, the instructional time space and teacher professional learning to enable students to earn not just college credit, but career relevant micro-credentials.
I'll give you an example. we're gonna launch an AP Anatomy and Physiology course, and there's gonna be three micro-credentials that are being built, directly in the curriculum, like a, a stop the bleed, a CPR/first aid, and a basic- life support. So I [00:36:00] threw out a lot very quickly. I'm sorry. But I'd love to hear your reactions, and is there one that stood out?
Is there something we- should be doing that we're missing?
Rebecca Winthrop: So I would say I like them all. The last three the, the number two, the teamship and the micro-credentials seem like it's a w- potentially a way for you to expand the type of offerings you're doing. That's right. And so I guess my strategic question for you is, AP courses stand for rigorous academic mastery, which is important, so you don't wanna necessarily lose- yeah.
We don't wanna compromise that
Jeremy Singer: in the process.
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah,
Jeremy Singer: Trust us. You don't,
Rebecca Winthrop: yeah, you don't wanna lose that. to me, the thing that ex- hence the one that excites me the most is number one. what if every single AP course was a project-based learning course?
Jeremy Singer: Yeah.
Rebecca Winthrop: you guys have the, you have the muscle.
You are powerful, or you probably could figure it out. I think math teachers al- always struggle with P- with PBL. Yeah. But I just visited a really interesting school where they team taught, history and math, and they [00:37:00] were, like, this was, eighth, ninth graders. They, were in ... What were they doing?
They were learning exponents by mapping, diseases. So one kid had the Spanish flu. He was like, "I really wanted Ebola." one had a- ... And they went through history to learn all about these diseases, how it spread, the impact on, and then they were using the math, and that's how they learned exponents.
So you could, I would lean in there especially. what if every AP class was a project-based learning class? What if some of them were-
Jeremy Singer: Yeah ...
Rebecca Winthrop: dual taught?
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. Yeah. that's great, and then really helpful. and then y- love it. Love it. okay. Listen, I always wrap up, with a r- set of rapid fire questions.
Rebecca Winthrop: Okay ...
Jeremy Singer: there's no right answer, but, the first is if, what's one educational buzzword you wish we could retire?
Rebecca Winthrop: Oh my gosh, there's so many. I don't know. I'm gonna pass. I don't know. I'm blanking.
Jeremy Singer: Okay.
Rebecca Winthrop: What's one- And we can come- Wait, you answer it. What's one you hate?
Jeremy Singer: there's a lot, but I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna take one from my listeners.
What's [00:38:00] your favorite book, it can't be your own book even if it ... about education or one that deeply shaped your thinking?
Rebecca Winthrop: Oh, Democracy and Education by John Dewey.
Jeremy Singer: Great. I don't know if that's ever been named before. I think it may have been, but yes, it's a great one. name one thing that makes you bullish on the future for learners.
There's a lot of reasons to be bearish, but what's a reason to be bullish?
Rebecca Winthrop: I actually think that young people are doing some of the most sophisticated navigating on their own around when do I use AI, when do I not, what are the ethics behind it? They're not taking AI, d- just I'm, gonna use it for everything all the time, the vast majority of them at least.
and it makes me excited to see what, w- what they'll do in the future.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. it's the most volatility. It's gonna have a big impact regardless, I'm just not sure- which ways, both good and bad, and I know you're spending a lot of time doing that. okay, and finally, if you had one class that all students had to take, high school, college, that they- that isn't required today, what would it be? [00:39:00]
Rebecca Winthrop: Probably an ethics class.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah.
Rebecca Winthrop: How do we treat each other ethically? And, that, that also becomes- What is, acceptable, not acceptable? What kind of world do we wanna live in collectively?
Jeremy Singer: Yeah, it probably also becomes more important, today with the AI and all that.
Rebecca Winthrop: Yeah.
Jeremy Singer: listen, Re- Rebecca, thank you for your time. Thank you for writing this very important book. it is, it, I learned a ton. it made me realize all the mistakes I made in parenting, but also very proud of some of the moments.
Rebecca Winthrop: Oh, no. And,
Jeremy Singer: but thank
Rebecca Winthrop: you for- I hope it doesn't make anybody else depressed.
I'm sorry
Jeremy Singer: for that. yeah. No, it's great. And, thank you for the contribution, thank you for the time, and thanks for being on Educate.
Rebecca Winthrop: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having us.