With 4,000 students on campus and 180,000 online, President of Southern New Hampshire University, Paul LeBlanc aims to transform lives at scale by putting students at the centre of the education experience.

In this episode, we talk a lot about the power of love, the difference between belonging and mattering, and why competency based education is finally taking off.

Show notes:

• More about Southern New Hampshire University, https://www.snhu.edu/

• More about Gregory Elliot’s work at Brown University:, https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/people/gregory-elliott

• More about David Graeber’s work: https://davidgraeber.org/

• Favourite book about learning: ‘Death at an Early Age’, Jonathan Kozol

• Favourite book: ‘Anna Karenina’, Leo Tolstoy

As Co-founders of Class Dojo, Sam Chaudhary and Liam Don have built a community of 51 million teachers, parents and students, to share kids’ learning moments. They’re now building a virtual sandbox for kids who already know each other, to hang out, create and play. We discuss their recent funding, privacy and data and how they continue to make progress on the mission they defined in 2011: to give every kid on the planet an education they love.

Show notes:

• Class Dojo: https://www.classdojo.com/

• Article about their previous successes: https://qz.com/791388/meet-mojo-a-monster-stanford-helped-create-to-teach-your-kids-that-effort-matters-more-than-iq

• Favourite books about learning: ‘Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching’, Jo Boaler and ‘Theory of Fun for Game Design’, Ralph Koster

• Favourite books: ‘A Mathematical Theory of Communication’, Claude E. Shannon and ‘The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World’, David Deutsch

As co-founder and CEO of tiney, a venture capital backed social enterprise, Brett Wigdortz is looking to fix the very broken child care market. We discuss the exodus from the profession, the needed changes to government policy and how his tech platform provides support and a community for those caring for society’s smallest and most vulnerable.

Show notes:

• tiney’s website: https://www.tiney.co/

• Early years framework: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2

• Favourite book about learning: ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, Daniel Kahneman

• Favourite book: ‘Never Let Me Go’, Kazuo Ishiguro