About the Getting Smart Podcast
The Getting Smart Podcast covers trends, innovations and insights in K-12, higher ed, lifelong learning, leadership, investing and more. You can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Every other Friday we publish an episode called “Catching Up” where Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia try to make sense of what’s going on in education, learning and human flourishing. Check it out.
If you’re on Spotify, we have built some great playlists to help you jump into some conversations we’ve been having over the last few years. You can go long on the following topics:
- Student Voice
- Pathways to Postsecondary
- Green Skills & Schools
- Microschools
- What’s Next in Learning
- AI in Education
- Next Generation Leadership
Interested in placing an advertisement in the podcast or sponsoring a series of conversations? Check out our sponsored content page to learn more.
Know of someone who would make a great guest on the podcast? Email Mason to pitch your suggestion or learn more about being on the podcast.
Subscribe to Our Podcast
This podcast highlights developing trends in K-12 education, postsecondary and lifelong learning. Each week, Getting Smart team members interview students, leading authors, experts and practitioners in research, tech, entrepreneurship and leadership to bring listeners innovative and actionable strategies in education leadership.
Find us on:
Catching Up: Can AI Help Students Connect With People?
In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia braid together data and design thinking across four urgent topics: Arizona's ESA spending report, the mechanics and limits of PISA, the pro-social possibilities of AI tools, and the stubborn reality that fewer than one in ten students report feeling both agentic and engaged. If you care about what it actually takes for learners to thrive, and not just score, this conversation is essential listening. The insights on witnesses, warm handoffs, and social capital alone are worth the full runtime.
The Problem With Letter Grades Isn’t the Grades | Bill Zima & Michelle McCann
What does it actually take to implement competency-based education with fidelity, and why do so many systems stall before they get there? In our latest podcast episode, Nate McClennen sits down with Bill Zima and Michelle McCann of Marzano Resources, alongside Getting Smart's Rebecca Midles, to explore the research, the roadblocks, and the real-world strategies behind CBE, anchored by their new book, Competency-Based Practices: Factors for Successful Implementation. From proficiency scales to the stubborn persistence of letter grades, this conversation names the invisible barriers that hold systems back and offers a grounded, hopeful path forward for education leaders ready to do the work.
Live at the Uncharted Learning Summit: Why Entrepreneurship Is for Everyone
What if a single class could help a burned-out teacher find her spark, turn a student's grief into state policy, and make a first-generation business-minded young person feel like she finally belongs? In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Victoria Andrews and Shawnee Carruthers bring back voices from the Uncharted Learning annual summit in Chicago, weaving together stories from students, alumni, community champions, and educators at every stage. For school and district leaders searching for programs that build durable skills, dissolve hierarchies, and connect classrooms to real communities, this conversation is essential listening.
Transformation Journey: Bostonia
What does it look like to build a high school entirely around what students need, inside a district that was never meant to have one? In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Rebecca Midles talks with Bostonia Global CEO Nerel Winter, Principal Johanna Simko, and alumnus David Rios about designing a dependent charter high school grounded in competency-based learning, a K-12 world-of-work curriculum, and an advisory model where every adult is also a life coach. From a Committee of 100 that shaped the school's Portrait of a Graduate to a growth transcript that helped a first-generation student gain admission to UC Riverside, this is a story about what radical, community-rooted change inside public education can actually look like.
What Is the Future of School Design? | Mike Posthumus
What if the building itself was the lesson plan? In this week's Getting Smart Podcast, Nate McClennen sits down with Michael Posthumus, Learning Design Principal at Fielding International, to explore why $113 billion in annual school construction is either education's greatest untapped opportunity or its most expensive missed one. From Singapore American School's research-backed campus transformation to a single renovated wing in Cranston, Rhode Island, Mike makes a compelling case that when vision drives design, the architecture itself can make great teaching more probable. If you're a school leader, teacher, or policymaker with any stake in how learning spaces are planned, built, or used, this conversation is essential listening.