Every year, SXSW EDU brings together educators, policymakers, entrepreneurs, funders and thought leaders to consider critical questions, provide practical solutions, and create important conversations about education, learning, and human development. And every year, you can have a say in what those conversations will be. Through August 20, you may vote for the sessions you would like to see at SXSW EDU which will take place March 4-7, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Pamela Cantor, M.D. has reached out to an amazing array of scientists, researchers, teachers, leaders and policy makers across the country for their ideas on how to unlock human potential. The result: 11 unique panels, fireside chats and workshops dedicated to the science and application of unlocking human potential in all settings where young people are growing and learning. Please cast your vote for the following sessions. Thank you!
11 Sessions Dedicated to Unlocking Human Potential
1 Hand Me the Keys: Together We Can Unlock Human Potential
New insights into the human brain and biology are challenging long-held but false assumptions about talent, learning, and human potential. For starters: 1. Talent exists everywhere, not on a bell curve. 2. The brain is malleable well into young adulthood. 3. No matter the starting point or how many obstacles get in the way, all humans can develop to their fullest potential, contribute to the world, and live fulfilling lives. Human beings are wired to develop, learn, and grow. Great potential is there. This session will share the keys to help all of us unlock and maximize it.
- Pamela Cantor M.D. / Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, author, founder of Turnaround for Children
- Jim Shelton / President and Chief Investment Officer, Blue Meridian Partners
- Ramona Pierson / Stealth Start-up
- Jenny West Anderson (moderator) / Journalist, Author
2 Putting Potential on the National Policy Agenda
For the last generation, education has worked within a national policy agenda of standards, assessments, data, and school improvement that was insufficient for truly unlocking human potential at scale. The glacial pace of progress was exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, rolling back a generational gain in learning outcomes. At the federal, state, and local levels, it is time for policy agendas to evolve to new approaches to existing policy pillars and to add policy pillars like resource equity, personalization, equitable learning environments (in and out of schools), and continuous improvement.
- Denise Forte / President & CEO, The Education Trust
- Roberto Rodriguez / Assistant Secretary, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, US Department of Education
- Carey Wright / Former Superintendent of Education for Mississippi
- Bethany Little (moderator) / Education Counsel
3 Do No Harm: Transforming Systems That Suppress Human Potential
Our education systems do not fully develop the potential of every young person and are designed in ways that actually suppress human potential. Research has long documented the myriad of ways young people from marginalized communities are shortchanged in education. New, cutting-edge research conducted in schools and communities across the country reveals that there is another way: Centering the wisdom and desires of parents, young people, and communities in schools and classrooms, and attending to the human needs and potential of children in the context of their community and cultural selves.
- Na’ilah Suad Nasir / President & CEO, Spencer Foundation
- Brooke Stafford-Brizard / Vice President, Research to Practice, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
- Megan Bang / Professor of the Learning Sciences and Director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research, Northwestern University
4 Moore Innovation: Centering Marginalized Communities
From his military service to his books to his philanthropy to his current role as the Governor of Maryland, Wes Moore has centered the needs and expertise of marginalized communities. When he led the Robin Hood Foundation, Moore helped create New York City's Blue Ridge Labs where developers and entrepreneurs come together to build tech-based, community-driven solutions for people experiencing poverty. Hear how as Governor, he continues to center marginalized communities with the Department of Service and Civic Innovation in an ongoing bid to unlock human potential.
- Wes Moore / Governor of Maryland
- Michael Smith / CEO of AmeriCorps
5 You are Invited to a Neural Cocktail Party
You know what makes me crazy? When people talk about schools and label relationships the “soft stuff”. The brain is an electrical structure, and its primary energy source is human connection. Trusting relationships produce the biological conditions for curiosity and exploration. It could be knowledge and we want more of it, it could be a new skill and a teacher helps us see it is within reach. In this talk, you will learn how to release the neurotransmitters and hormones—the neural cocktail—that power the highest levels of performance, make learning fun and inspire more effort from students.
- Pamela Cantor, M.D. / Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, author, Founder of Turnaround for Children
6 Whose Genius Idea Was That? Inclusive Education R&D
Unlocking human potential will require drawing on the genius of all people, especially of those communities that are least well-served by the current education system and best understand where it falls short. But those voices and research questions are regularly excluded from education R&D. The end users of research and development, like educators and students who lack power in the education RD infrastructure, also hold critical expertise and insight needed to make education R&D more effective. We need a new era of inclusive R&D, and these leaders are showing us the way.
- Jim Shelton / President and Chief Investment Officer, Blue Meridian Partners
- Katie Boody Adorno / Founder and CEO, Leanlab Education
- Katina Rae Stapleton / Education Research Analyst, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education
- Erin Mote (Moderator) / Co-Founder and Executive Director, InnovateEdu
7 A Whole-Child Lens: Future-Proof Fixes for Current Crises
How can we unlock young peoples' full potential in an educational setting—and how do we create the conditions for it to happen at scale? Bring your most pressing / entrenched challenges—the ones that keep you up at night—from mental health to rebuilding academic strength. Together with our panel of educator-developers and school leadership, we'll apply a learning science-backed, asset-based lens to offer tools & strategies to address them in real time, now and for the future, empowering practitioners & supporting the systemic conditions necessary for students to thrive.
- Tami Hill-Washington, Ed.M. / Center for Whole-Child Education at ASU’s MLF Teachers College (f/k/a Turnaround for Children)
- Alexei Nichols / Principal, P.S. 340, Bronx, NY
- Joel Scott, M.S.Ed. / Center for Whole-Child Education at ASU’s MLF Teachers College (f/k/a Turnaround for Children)
8 The Future of Education isn’t A.I. It’s Human.
A.I. may be the coin of today's realm, both exciting and alarming. But as we think about the future, we should pay equal if not more attention to human creativity and human potential. Innovation lies at the intersection of technology and the relationships that power learning. Today, a one classroom, one teacher model prevails even though one person can’t be all things for each student. Join this conversation between an education school dean and a K-12 superintendent to explore a new model of distributed expertise and a new kind of education workforce that places learners at the center.
- Carole Basile / Dean of Education, Arizona State University / Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College
- Andi Fourlis / Superintendent, Mesa Public Schools
9 Healing-Centered Engagement: Empowering Youth of Color
You can’t get to learning with young people and teachers who carry trauma and stress. Grappling with trauma, harm, and inequality is a critical step toward healing, well-being and ultimately flourishing. This talk will walk through a healing process with three critical elements: understanding what caused the harm, seeing the harm but not being defined by it, and reimagining the institutions that caused harm in the first place. In school settings, this means teachers well enough and self-aware enough themselves to foster the well-being and thriving of the young people they are educating.
- Shawn Ginwright / Jerome T. Murphy Professor of the Practice, Harvard Graduate School of Education
10 Wanted: A.I. P.D. that Improves Teaching and A.I. Itself
To ensure that young people are empowered to shape next-generation technology to their own values and the future they want to see, teachers today must be equipped to teach A.I. well. In this panel, we will discuss how artificial intelligence can be used to help prepare teachers across the country with evidence-based, student-centered, developmentally appropriate strategies. Only then will it be possible for students to become part of a highly diverse, capable workforce of A.I. designers able to lead the changes they want in the world.
- Joseph South / Chief Innovation Officer, ISTE
- Katy Knight / Executive Director and President, Siegel Family Endowment
11 The Future of Education Demands Skills Over Degrees
For decades, time in the classroom has been the primary indicator of learning progress, which has led to a system that awards credentials and has historically locked out millions of jobseekers from climbing the socioeconomic ladder. However, employers are embracing alternative qualifications over the traditional college degree and moving towards skills-based hiring. In this panel, education and state leaders will discuss the benefits and impact of shifting our current education model from requiring a set number of hours in the classroom to competency-based learning and assessment.
- Timothy Knowles (Moderator) / President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
- Amit Sevak / CEO of ETS
- Sydnee Dickson / Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction
- Angelica Infante-Green / Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, Rhode Island
SXSW EDU 2015