Season 3: Episode 14 - Transforming the Factory-Model of Learning

The Learning Future Podcast with Louka Parry

How much of our education is still entrenched in a factory-style model? How do we step back and take what we've learned 150 years of understanding about humanity in challenging our assumptions and values?

Ulcca Joshi Hansen is a mother, educator, researcher and advocate whose two-and-a-half decade career has spanned classrooms, non-profit leadership, philanthropy and consulting. She is driven by a vision of education that attends to and supports the development of young people’s humanity and creates learning experiences that help them realise their unique potential - the place where who they are and what the world needs intersect. An internationally-recognised expert on educational transformation at the level of instruction, assessment, organisational design and policy systems, she brings a diverse set of experiences working with educators, funders, policymakers, researchers, legislators, business leaders and community advocates in the US and internationally.

Her work is aimed at helping transform the foundational values of our educational, cultural and social systems, and building the capacity of educators, families, communities and advocates to work with young people toward new ways of being in the world.

A two-time TED speaker, Ulcca holds a BA in Philosophy and German from Drew University and a certificate in early childhood and elementary education with a focus on special education. She earned her PhD from Oxford University and a JD from Harvard Law School. She has been recognised for her leadership as a Harry S. Truman Scholar; a British Marshall Scholar and a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.