156: My Favorite Failure with Laura McBain

aarmau@gmail.comDecember 20, 2022Uncategorized

In this episode, I speak with Laura McBain who is the K12 Lab Director of Community and Implementation and believes that we need to unleash educators to change the world. She is also a designer of experiences, systems-thinker and social justice advocate.

Laura McBain (@laura_mcbain) is a designer, educator and serves as co-managing director of the Stanford d.school and the co-director of the K12 Lab. Her work focuses on how human-centered design can be used to provide equitable and innovative educational experiences that will help all students thrive in a changing world. In this role she leads design challenges in education, designs new learning experiences for educators and serves as an adjunct professor at Stanford University. She is the author of My Favorite Failure: How Setbacks Can Lead to Learning and Growth which provides insights and narratives into how you can create the conditions to take risks and experience failure together. Prior to the d.school, Laura worked for 15 years at High Tech High serving as the Director of External Relations, principal of two school sites and a founding teacher. She has taught middle and high school students in both charter comprehensive schools. Laura has a Bachelors from Miami University-Oxford, Ohio and a Masters from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Direct Link: Episode: https://coffeechug.simplecast.com/episodes/156

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TOPICS WE EXPLORE

  1. Who is Laura McBain in case you don’t already know!
  2. How might we best deliver content to young people? AND…
  3. How do we bring an asset framework and mindset to our young people and educators?
  4. How do we solve the sticky issues that we not yet addressed in our education system?
  5. How do we separate the topic of failure from the larger issue in the education system that is so focused in a deficit framed mindset?
  6. What happens when a teammate of yours loses their way and fails in front of you? What is our responsiblity when each of us fail?
  7. Missed opportunity when we don’t have a process to unpack the moments when things don’t work.
  8. Michael Pryor story of compliant engagement (do as I say, and THEN we can have a great time)
  9. Misconception that when we pivot to a new idea means that our previous work is “wrong”
  10. Part of the mystery behind failure is this opportunity to surprise yourself. (one of many of my favorite lines in the book!)
  11. If everything is prescriptive, then the magical moments of learning and a strong sense of learning to learn won’t happen.
  12. Curiosity is what sustains us through moments of failure.

YOUR CHALLENGE

Share ideas you gathered from the conversation with us on the socials.

What resonated with you?

RESOURCE MENTIONED IN SHOW

 

 

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