The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 080: The Path to Deeper Learning with John Spencer
There's a powerful moment in our conversation with John Spencer when he captures what so many educators are feeling: "It's like you're designing for depth while the system keeps dragging everything to the surface." This sentiment strikes at the heart of teaching today – fighting against a culture of distraction to create meaningful learning experiences.
Spencer, whose journey from middle school teacher to professor and influential education content creator began with his own transformative project-based learning experience as a student, offers a refreshingly honest perspective on student engagement. Moving beyond simplistic advice to "make class more engaging" or "remember your why," he presents a nuanced framework for understanding the difference between compliance and true engagement.
What makes Spencer's approach so valuable is his practical wisdom about building student ownership gradually. "Ask yourself what am I doing for students that they could be doing themselves," he advises, suggesting educators build a year-long plan for incrementally releasing responsibility. This might mean starting with simplified choice activities before progressing to more complex, self-directed projects – creating a pathway for developing the skills and habits students need to engage deeply.
Spencer also challenges common misconceptions about creative learning: that it takes more time (it actually allows for layering standards together), that it's impossible to assess (formative assessment works well), or that it leads to chaos (structure remains essential). His concept of "vintage innovation" – the productive overlap between traditional and progressive approaches – offers a refreshing alternative to polarized education debates.
Ready to fight back against the "dopamine casino" of constant digital distraction? Spencer's insights provide both the understanding and practical strategies needed to help students develop focus, resilience and self-direction in a world that increasingly pulls them toward shallow engagement. Listen now to discover how you can create conditions for deeper learning in your classroom.
Buy The Minimalist Teacher book from ASCD+ISTE.
Follow on Instagram @PlanZEducation and @minimalist_ed_podcast.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Education Services adventure.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator podcast, where the focus is on a less-is-more approach to education. Join your hosts, christine Arnold and Tammy Musiawski, authors of the Minimalist Teacher and your School Leadership. Edit a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem each week, as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose and joy.
Speaker 2:In this week's episode, we speak with John Spencer. John is a former middle school teacher and current professor. He enjoys writing articles, making podcasts and making YouTube videos. He is also the author of books such as Empower Vintage Innovation and the AI Roadmap. Such as Empower Vintage Innovation and the AI Roadmap, john Spencer's Pair Down Pointer for us today is all about a gradual release of responsibility.
Speaker 3:Welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today, Christine and I are looking forward to talking to John Spencer, who is all over the networks in education with his creative videos around all the topics that we talk about. So welcome to today's show, John. It's good to have you.
Speaker 4:Thanks, glad to be here.
Speaker 3:So, before we get into some of our discussion points, we are always curious about how Thanks Glad to be here teachers podcasting. You've got some books out that we'll talk about. So what kind of brought you to that point and to talk about the things that you talk about?
Speaker 4:So I I first experienced what I would say is like creative, authentic, engaging learning, whatever you want to call it project based learning In the eighth grade, when I did a National History Day project, and that rocked my world, that changed my world forever. It's where I learned how to communicate, how to collaborate, it's where I learned how to develop resilience and self-direction and all of those things, and I fell in love with history, and so I minored in history. And so I minored in history, majored in education, um, but also was working for a non-profit and really thought I would stay in a non-profit world. And then it wasn't until student teaching that I was like this is what I love. I love teaching, um. It just felt like a good fit. But I was never one of those kids that, like, taught my stuffed animals as a kid. Or, you know, like there's the teachers who are like I've wanted to be a teacher since I was nine. I was like I've wanted to be a teacher since I was, you know, 22 or 23. You know, I think I was 23. That's when I decided I wanted to be a teacher, and I do think teaching is sometimes something you choose, or something that you discover at the same time, something you choose or something that you discover at the same time. And for me, that was really what it came down to. And so I started out teaching with the goal of wanting to really teach in a more project-based, authentic way. But I was worried about pacing hitting every standard classroom, getting loud, managing a group, this and that um. And so I launched project-based learning in my own class during testing week, when I had all of the kids who were more energetic, um, and so they wouldn't just silently read a book when they were done with testing, and it was this free chance to do whatever I wanted. I didn't have to teach new content and that started me out on this pbl journey and um, and I say pbl but authentic learning, deeper learning, whatever you want to call it because it was all of the above and it really was the start of my journey toward more authentic, student-centered approaches. Um, and now, how did I start out with, like, the content creation side?
Speaker 4:I started out, uh, by doing a blog, my, actually while doing student teaching, and I still regret this that I gave up the domain name johnspencercom. So I coded a blog on johnspencercom, let go of the domain name, and, and it was called at the time a web blog, and so my weblog was more like a journal. I mean, it was like 300, 400 words and I just invited teachers that I taught with student teachers to read my like here's how things are going, kind of stuff. Um, it was called musings from a not so master teacher that was my original blog name and, um, and yeah, it just grew from that to eventually videos and podcasting, professional development stuff like that, um, but it was. It was never a uh, strategic or anything. It was always just kind of messy and accidental very cool.
Speaker 2:Um, john, I was reading something that you wrote recently and it just felt like it slapped me in the face, this part. So I'm going to read a little section back to you here, john. Okay, it's from a text that you wrote recently, I think, about around cultures of distraction, and you wrote it's not that students are incapable, it's not that you didn't plan enough, and it's definitely not that you've stopped caring. This isn't a moment to remember your why. You're doing thoughtful, responsive, engaging work, but something still feels off. It's like you're designing for depth while the system keeps dragging everything to the surface. And so, yeah, first of all, what are you doing in my classroom, john? First of all, what are you doing in my classroom, john? But that really resonated with me because I was like that is literally what it feels like right now. It really does. So can you tell us a little bit about your writing there and what you're thinking?
Speaker 4:about. Yeah, I just, I think you know we've seen a trend for a while of just challenges that teachers are facing, and it's distractions, it's a lack of resilience, it's a lack of self-direction. Some of it is from social media, some of it is just the role of TikTok and attention spans, and we're seeing that. Some of it is, I think, larger cultural shifts around consequences and things like that, and so teachers are are are stepping into the situation where to do deeper work, to do something that lasts longer, to ask students to focus, things like that it really is different, it's countercultural. And I just see a lot of keynote speakers and stuff like that. They're like just remember your why, make class more engaging.
Speaker 4:You're like, actually, I think it's more than just entertainment, it's more than just remembering your why. It really is recognizing that when you are doing those things that work, when you're doing those meaningful, relevant activities, that it takes time for them to develop the skill and then the habit and then the mindset, and I often think it moves in that sequence. And so when you're comparing where kids are in terms of focus and engagement and whatever it may be right now to say six years ago, you're going to feel like you failed. But if you're comparing the success of now versus August of this last school year whatever it may be I think you can really say I'm fighting a really negative cultural trend. I'm paddling upstream, but it is working, you know, and so I think that's where that kind of came from. And I just see teachers honestly I mean teachers are some of our own worst critics See the successes, because they are there. I promise you they are there successes because they are there.
Speaker 3:I promise you they are there. That's really powerful and so relevant right now. When you are talking about you know it's more than remembering our why. It's something Christina and I just wrote about, and it could you know that could bring some like people to push back when. But you have to remember yes, you do have to remember your why, but it really is much more than that. And so can you talk a little bit about one of the videos that I often use in my workshops is one of yours, and it's the one on. It's a short video on the levels of engagement. It's from Schlechti, right, and so it's really important, I think, for us to fully understand that range of engagement and what it really looks like in classrooms, because a lot of times we do just see compliance from students and from teachers, and so we can kind of shift that like how that changes everything. So can you talk a little bit about those levels of engagement and how that plays a part in what we do?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So if we think about it this way, we have, you know, philip Schlechti defined engagement as one part commitment, one part attention, and and. And what we often think of as engagement is what we are observing when we walk into a classroom, and that's high attention, but that can be low commitment, you know, and what that really is is still compliance. So he talks about moving from strategic compliance up into true engagement, and I think, if we look at those two factors of commitment and attention, you know our goal with deeper learning is we want to boost that level of attention and focus, and that is a habit to be developed. That involves things like developing endurance. It is a challenge I want to recognize, like it's not an easy piece, but if they can develop those things, then they can move up in terms of engagement. At the same time, we have to give them that reason to learn.
Speaker 4:And so what do we do to boost commitment?
Speaker 4:We make it meaningful, we make it relevant. We make it relevant, we provide challenges, we incorporate critical thinking, and so I really think that to me, like one of the benefits of selecting these levels of engagement is we can think about what are those structural things that we do as teachers on both sides and for attention, it could involve reducing cognitive load, it could involve having better visuals, giving directions where it's a step and then practice a step, and then practice a step, and then practice Could involve providing more cooperative learning activities during a lecture. Whatever that may be on the attention side. But we really have to focus on that commitment side, because if all we do is ban cell phones which schools do, and I'm fine with cell phone bans I want to be clear If we ban cell phones and we focus on getting their attention and even building endurance, but we don't give them a rationale for it, the best we can go to is strategic compliance, and that's good because it'll move them from retreatism to strategic compliance. But really what we want is engagement.
Speaker 2:When you're talking with teachers and educators about creativity, the importance of being creative and focus on these problems and creating projects and so on. Is there a common misconception about this sort of work? That comes up a lot in the work that you do.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I think there's a lot of misconceptions and I'll just share. I'll kind of tick them off quickly, if that's okay. One is it takes more time and they don't understand the role of layering standards together, connecting them together, and when you teach for mastery you're going to move slower but you're teaching more at the same time. You could, like we teach in a way that's almost like here's flour, here's eggs, here's like instead of making a cake, right, like we do this weird thing, it's like here's this and then here's this, and so that's one misconception, I think, is the time piece. Another one is it's impossible to assess. It is actually, I think, very easy to assess once you see how the assessment process can work in terms of a formative way.
Speaker 4:I think there's sometimes an assumption that it's just like arts and crafts and not understanding that creative thinking doesn't even always have to have a physical product, right? I think there's a belief that it's going to be total chaos and actually structure is a part of it, right, that everyone who does creative work uses protocols and structures and things like that. So I think there's a lot of those misconceptions and I want to be clear. I've fallen victim to all of those misconceptions myself. Right, I assumed that every time a student was confused I'd done something wrong and I didn't understand the role of strategic confusion. Or I assumed that at one time that if I break things into phases and have deadlines, that that was somehow less authentic and kids just needed the space and time. That's not true. Adults, we all work within deadlines. So I think you know, we, we all fall victim to these things, these misconceptions ourselves, and I think it's okay for us to own that. We're on a learning journey too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure I. I was wondering, just thinking about my own learning journey. I read your book empower, didn't realize that you had one called vintage innovation. I read your book Empower, didn't realize that you had one called Vintage Innovation. What does that mean and how does that fall into? How does that fall into like authentic learning.
Speaker 4:Because I know that's what it's all about, but what does that look like? So it's interesting like Vintage Innovation comes from for me. I've always been in this ed tech zone and I want to be clear like my reason for embracing technology was for authentic learning and for that meaningful deeper learning opportunity and I never fit in the ed tech community like I didn't enjoy like app smashing. I don't know if you remember when that was a thing you know and like it just wasn't my, it just Like I didn't enjoy like app smashing. I don't know if you remember when that was a thing you know and like it just wasn't my, it just wasn't. I didn't get excited about AV equipment the way people do, and like I just was never like that. I like Neil Postman and Wendell Berry and I just don't fit that. And so you know I started thinking and so you know I started thinking what was that?
Speaker 3:Like lowbrow tech right, like you just kind of yeah.
Speaker 4:And so I was thinking about this idea of vintage innovation as what I want to see, to say. What does it mean to be innovative? And it doesn't always mean new tech. Sometimes it's the overlap of the old tech and the lo-fi tools. It's duct tape and cardboard and a 3d printer. It's hand sketch sketches and then putting them into a sketchnote video. It's it's all of this back and forth, it's using creative constraints, and then it's also that overlap of old ideas and new ideas.
Speaker 4:And I think we get stuck in this thing of like classical education versus progressive education. It's like, well, it's both. You know, like a Socratic seminar and I is very old, that's been around for thousands of years, and so, if we think about it this way, vintage innovation for me was this mindset or approach that we can take as educators that really embraces that overlap of best practices and next practices. And, just to be honest, when you know, often I write a book with the goal of like addressing a big challenge that's happening right. So it's like how do we make creativity work? That was a launch and how do we solve the engagement challenge? That was in power. Vintage innovation was just like a book I wanted to write for myself, and so I don't know if it makes any sense, but it ended up being the most fun book that I ever wrote and it really was focused on let's have a different definition of innovation, because it's not always just being future forward.
Speaker 2:And while we're talking about your books, you've got a new book out this year, in 2025, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that one?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So that was a book that was more on the side of like addressing current challenges, and so I have been in a lot of classrooms as a cohort leader and I've seen changes and a lot of it. You know, in fact, the subtitle of the book is your deeper learning in a distracted world is about distraction. But I think it's bigger than distraction. I think it's a lot of these things that we're seeing a lack of resilience, a lack of self-direction. And as I was thinking about this, I was, um, I was thinking like where are the spaces that buck the trend? Like where, where am I seeing kids not distracted, not whatever. Where am I seeing kids not distracted, not whatever? And it was.
Speaker 4:You know, I'm a volunteer coach for mock trial, it was. It was the mock trial group where they are literally memorizing pages. Kids these days can't memorize. They're doing it, they're being resilient, they're giving feedback, they're collaborating, they're communicating.
Speaker 4:Um, and so I started thinking about that, and then I was already working on another book on this topic of deeper learning, because I was really thinking like, what is it that I'm all about? It's not just project based learning, what is it deeper learning? I'd been doing some, some, some keynotes and conference sessions. Um, and I had been just slowly plugging away at an outline of a book and then I realized like, oh my gosh, this is it.
Speaker 4:We are facing huge challenges and we can either move into being reactive and just banning everything and going hyper-traditional and I didn't want't want to see that right or we can try to compete with the culture, with. I've seen all these programs where it's like kids on the computer non-stop with an ipad, getting badges, getting instant feedback every 15 seconds. There's a new stimulus and I was like that's just feeding into this dopamine casino, right and um, and I remember reading anxious generation at the same time and it was like, oh, this is so true. And so I thought what is the solution? It's not just one of those two. It really comes down to deeper learning, and so that's where it came from. And, um, I had so much fun writing it. I mean, I enjoy writing and making my visuals and stuff like that and the book just came out last Friday, I think awesome congratulations.
Speaker 3:Thanks, dopamine casino.
Speaker 4:I mean that's definitely a phrase I'm gonna use, because I mean absolutely true, right yeah, I mean, and and we had an open conversation in the car with the kids. They brought it up first, first my oldest, just like it was like I feel like my attention span is falling. I feel like when I'm having conversations with people, I'm getting impatient with them. I'm, you know those types of things. He's an avid reader, but he's like I feel like I'm stopping reading after three, three or four minutes instead of really leaning into it for hours, and so, even when, when we find reasons why and stuff, it is a constant battle in terms of a habit. And so I think you know one of my goals is the book is written for teachers, but one of my hopes is that parents can also embrace this idea of like. What does deeper learning look like? What does it mean to develop those essential skills and habits and mindsets? And my children I mean my oldest is 20 and setting parameters for himself we have a device called a brick which, when you turn it on, we all have to agree as a family to do this, but when we watch a movie, we turn the brick on and that turns off the ability of any of our phones to get email or social media. So you select which apps. We can still get that emergency text because my wife and I have older parents and so we both, you know, we, we don't want to be cut off from the world, but we do want to be cut off from social media, and so we're literally using this device and, um, it's one of the best things around, like, and we've agreed to it, and so, um, I think it's a, I think it's a very real.
Speaker 4:I'll also add one more piece to that. A lot of it gets labeled as adolescence or kids these days, or there's the anxious generation that I mentioned. Love the book. Don't necessarily love the notion of labeling a whole generation as blank right, because millennials were all labeled as narcissistic and then studies prove that they're actually, in terms of clinical levels and studies of narcissism, they're actually the lowest of all generations. So we want to make sure that we're not like labeling the whole generation. I would argue that that lack of attention I see it with every generation. I see it with my parents. My parents show up and they use like, the iPad and they're getting news alerts nonstop and worrying constantly. You know I'm living that with an additional generation. So I think it's more I wouldn't say generational, more of a cultural trend that we really have to address, and I think schools, fortunately, are one of the best spaces where we can cultivate that deeper learning, deeper work, deeper engagement in a culture that often pushes shallow and instant amusement.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for this conversation, John. We're going to have to have you back at another time.
Speaker 4:I would love to Um, we're going to have to have you back at another time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Um, this is the point. In the show we ask our guests for a paired on pointer, just a quick tip or strategy to just help people you know, pare down in the things that they're doing. Could be something you mentioned or maybe something you do. What would you offer to our listeners?
Speaker 4:You know, one of the things that I would say is I would recommend a quick strategy on the self-direction piece, and so I'm just going to share a little strategy. Take a gradual release of responsibility towards student empowerment, and so I'm going to walk you through kind of what I have done myself. So step one is ask yourself what am I doing for students that they could be doing for themselves? And make a list of all those areas that students should be owning and then build in a gradual release. So in week one we're going to focus on this.
Speaker 4:In week two we're not going to get students owning the assessment process until week four or whatever, and really take a gradual release approach to student ownership.
Speaker 4:Or, in the same way, we're going to do a mini project first and then a full-blown PBL. We're going to do a tic-tac-toe style choice menu and then move into an advanced choice menu and then move into something a little bit deeper like a genius hour project choice menu and then move into something a little bit deeper like a genius hour project. And the reason I say that is, as we think about these challenges, if they really are skills to develop and habits, that's really challenging for a student and can feel overwhelming in terms of building in self-direction and choice, and so taking incremental steps and building on those easy wins helps students feel more confident and it gives you signs of success that you then can build on yourself as you teach, and so I would say that would be my thing, that you could pare down in. I'll just focus on one area, that self-direction piece, and really figure out how to build a plan year long, of how you're going to gradually add more and more voice and choice.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Thank you so much, john, and thanks for being a guest with us today.
Speaker 4:Thanks, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Today's episode was brought to you by Plan Z Professional Learning Services forward-thinking educator support. Find out more at planzplservicescom.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit planzeducationcom and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.
