The Secret to Designing Powerful Learning Experiences
With guest Margaret Honey
What’s been the most powerful learning experience that you've had? Dr. Margaret Honey has helped build remarkable learning experiences–starting with the television show, The Voyage of the Mimi, through her work at the New York Hall of Sciences and most recently with the Scratch Foundation. Through it all, she’s held fast to several principles, starting with: Never fake it. And center activity around children’s curiosity not around rubrics or assessments. In this episode, Margaret shares with Jeremy and Betsy the triumphs, challenges and hard-won lessons learned of building memorable experiential learning environments–along with what changes in an AI-saturated world. (And, we also learn why actor Ben Affleck knows so much about humpback whales!)
Margaret Honey
Dr. Margaret Honey became President and CEO of the Scratch Foundation in January 2024, bringing over 40 years of experience in advancing digital learning for children. Throughout her career, she has helped to shape the best thinking about learning and technology with special attention to ensuring that all young people have access to high-quality creative learning opportunities. Prior to joining Scratch, Dr. Honey led the New York Hall of Science for 15 years, where she leveraged the museum as a platform for innovation in STEM education and developed NYSCI’s distinctive Design-Make-Play approach to STEM learning. That hands-on approach to STEM learning and engagement was infused into everything from Design Lab, one of the largest design and engineering spaces in the nation, to the long-running World Maker Faire that NYSCI hosted, to the Playground Physics app and curriculum, to Connected Worlds, one of the first and largest digitally immersive exhibits in the world. Dr. Honey holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Columbia University. She serves on the boards of Bank Street College of Education, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Post University, and Sphero, and is a member of the National Academy of Education.
Further Exploration
To dive more deeply into designing powerful learning experiences, start here:
The Voyage of the Mimi (with Ben Affleck) was a 13-episode television program created in the mid 1980s. (Here’s episode 1.) A crew of the ship, Mimi, explored the ocean, to carry out a census of humpback whales. In The Second Voyage of the Mimi, archaeologists searched for a lost Mayan city.
Here’s a video short on the Connected Worlds exhibit at the New York Hall of Science. (Better: Check out the exhibit at the museum!)
Scratch, a free, nonprofit coding community and environment for children, is supported by the Scratch Foundation. (Start here if you’re considering a family membership; here if you’re an educator.)
Xperiential, a collaboration between Pixar and Khan Academy, is a project-based learning approach aimed at inspiring students to explore careers through storytelling and design.
Jeanne Bamberger’s 1995 book, The Mind behind the Musical Ear, explores how children develop “musical intelligence.”
Creative Acts for Curious People: How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways, by Sarah Stein Greenberg (2021) includes both stories and innovative exercises to build creative leadership.
