Cell Phones in the Classroom is a Microcosm of Education's Big Shift
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
Release Date: 12/28/2022
Building a Firm Around People Who Need an Advocate
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
What does it take to build a firm around the needs of people facing some of life’s most difficult circumstances? Tricia welcomes the founder of USA4ALL to explore the purpose behind its work, including serving survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking. The conversation begins with the firm’s origin story and the question of what makes its approach distinctive. For educators and community leaders, this episode invites reflection on how compassion shapes the organizations we build—and how we recognize whose needs deserve greater attention. As you listen, consider: What...
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When Should Students Use AI? Let Them Design a Game
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
What if your next assessment asked students to pitch a board game—and explain when they chose to use AI? In this episode, Tricia Friedman explores how game design can bring together research, persuasive writing, creativity, collaboration, and AI literacy. The central challenge: help students make thoughtful decisions about where AI supports their learning and where they want to work without it. You don’t need time to develop an entire board game. Tricia introduces a smaller game-pitch challenge, using the history of the Spokane River as an example that educators can adapt to their own...
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From Research to Collective Action: Dr. Camille Busette on Healthcare Advocacy
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
What happens when the cost of healthcare forces someone to delay a doctor’s visit, skip a prescription, or take on debt? Tricia Friedman welcomes Dr. Camille Busette, executive vice president of Programs at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to discuss One Nation, Overcharged. The nationwide campaign brings people together to call for more affordable healthcare. The challenge is widespread, but it is not shared equally. In this conversation, Tricia and Dr. Busette examine what the data reveals about healthcare costs, whose experiences are too often overlooked, and how sharing those...
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Beyond Screen-Time Bans: Student Safety in the Age of AI
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
School districts are reaching a turning point in how they manage classroom technology. After years of rapid device adoption and policies that often responded to one risk at a time, leaders are asking a harder question: How can schools protect students from cyberbullying, data theft, AI-enabled scams, distraction and online harm without cutting them off from the learning, creativity and connection technology can provide? In this episode, Tricia speaks with Harrison Parker, Executive Vice President at , about the shift from reactive restrictions toward a more coordinated approach to student...
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Why the World Has Always Been Weird — and Why That Matters
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
Uncle John’s All-Knowing Bathroom Reader, Curiosity, and the Weirdness of Human History Brian Boone joins the show to talk about why the world has always been weird—not just now. The conversation ranges from animal history and television oddities to fact-checking, collaboration, and why curiosity is the engine behind good stories and human wisdom. In this episode, Tricia and Brian Boone discuss how access to information can make the present feel stranger than the past, even though human behavior has always been full of surprises. They also explore the storytelling and editorial work...
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From Super Bowl Champion to Literacy Champion | Malcolm Mitchell
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
What if readers and writers received the same attention, celebration, and investment as star athletes? In this episode, Tricia speaks with Super Bowl champion, children’s author, and literacy advocate Malcolm Mitchell about his new picture book, My Super Duper Me. They discuss the lasting effect of a few encouraging words, the role librarians can play in helping children see their own possibilities, and why adults should never underestimate the power of simply showing up with a positive message. Malcolm shares his own journey from struggling reader to member of the Silverleaf Book Club,...
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Never Underestimate a Young Reader
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
What do young people understand that adults mistakenly believe they have hidden from them? Award-winning author Tiffany D. Jackson returns to the podcast to discuss Ghost in the Night, her haunting middle-grade novel set against the ghost tours, buried histories, and complicated beauty of Savannah, Georgia. Tiffany invites educators to take young readers—and their capacity to confront difficult subjects—seriously. We explore why children sometimes attach themselves intensely to a particular interest while processing grief, and what educators might discover if they look beyond the...
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The Humanoid Robot, the Headlines, and What Really Happened
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
When announced plans to bring a humanoid robot into its robotics program, the story quickly became something else entirely: “A school is replacing teachers with robots.” That was never the plan. In this episode, Jeff Utecht speaks with Superintendent Mark Beehler about what the district was actually trying to build—and what happened when an AI-generated image, alarming headlines, and social media outrage overtook the facts. Mark explains how students helped shape the project, why the district saw the robot as an opportunity to explore emerging technology, and how a locally controlled AI...
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Game Design Could Transform Assessment in the AI Era
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
What if students didn’t simply complete an assessment—but designed an experience for someone else? In this episode of Shifting Schools, Tricia Friedman pitches Jeff Utecht a new approach to assessment for the AI era: invite students to become game designers. Games are memorable, social, challenging, and full of consequential choices. Designing one asks students to think about systems, understand an audience, establish meaningful constraints, gather feedback, solve problems, and defend the decisions they make. Those may be precisely the capabilities that matter most when AI can help produce...
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What will be your anchor for wellness this school year?
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
The beginning of a school year often arrives with a familiar message: do more, organize more, and somehow become a brand-new person before the first bell rings. This episode offers a different invitation. Instead of attempting a total wellness overhaul, we explore four small anchors that can help educators, students, colleagues, and families start the year feeling a little more grounded: sleep, movement, attention, and connection. We talk about the habits that quietly shape how we show up—including where our phones sleep, how we build movement into an ordinary day, what helps us recover our...
info_outlineIn this replay episode from June, 2022 the number one listened to episode of the the year. Jeff reflects on the past year of shifting schools and how this conversation about cell phones is a microcosm for the educational shift at large we find ourselves in.
Jeff shares a snipet from his 2019 conversation with Microsoft around cell phones in the classroom and education at large. You can watch the full interviwe with jeff at this link.
This has been an incredible year for Shifting Schools. We went through a lot of transitions this year. From new album art and website logos from Chrissy to Tricia becoming a full time co-host on the podcast and taking on the role of Creative Content Extraordinaire. I’m happy to announce that Tricia and I will continue working together in 2023. How she finds time to do everything she’s involved in still blows me away. From her own podcast and newsletter Be A Better Ally to her new podcast Unhinged Collaboration. Her dedication to educators, education, students and the LGBTQ+ community at large is humbling to say the least. If you are not following Tricia on your social network of choice or have not added the Be A Better Alley and Unhinged Collaboration podcasts to your podcast app. You should do so as you start the new year.
Shifting Schools also became a top 10 podcast in K12 Education globally with Australia and Canada coming in at the top 2 countries our podcast is listened to outside of the U.S. We cannot thank you, our loyal listeners, enough for making this all possible. Thank you for your dedication to your students and to your craft as an educator.
That brings me to today’s reply episode. Our #1 listened to episode of 2022 will be no surprise I’m guessing to most of you as it deals with cell phones in the classroom. Episode 216 released on June 27th in which Tricia and I talk with our good friend Tyler Rablin about Cell Phones in the classroom.
Happy New Year Everyone!