The Pedagogy of Game-Based Learning with Louisa Rosenheck of Kahoot!

Louisa Rosenheck is the Director of Pedagogy at Kahoot!, one of the largest and most influential gamified edtech companies in the world.

Louisa is also an ed tech designer with a passion for game-based learning and playful pedagogies, and teaches educational technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she earned her Master’s degree in the Harvard TIE program. Previously, she was the co-founder of MIT’s Playful Journeys lab, and a researcher at the MIT Education Arcade. She was also a classroom teacher, having taught preschool and teaching English in China.

Recommended Resources

• Resonant Games: Design Principles for Learning Games that Connect Hearts, Minds, and the Everyday by Eric Klopfer, Jason Haas, Scot Osterweil and Louisa Rosenheck  
• Lego Foundation Reports
• Learning, Education & Games: 100 Games to Use in the Classroom & Beyond by Karen Schrier
• We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics by Karen Schrier
• Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need by Sasha Costanza-Chock
• Lifelong Kindergarten by Mitch Resnick

Transcript

Alexander Sarlin  0:04 
Welcome to Ed Tech insiders. In this podcast we talk to educators and educational technology investors, thought leaders, founders and operators about the most interesting and exciting trends in the field. I'm your host Alex Sarlin, an educational technology veteran with over a decade of work at leading edtech companies. Louisa Rosenheck is the director of pedagogy at Kahoot, one of the largest, most influential gamified edtech companies in the world. Louisa is also an edtech designer with a passion for game based learning and playful pedagogies and teaches Educational Technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she earned her master's degree at the Harvard TIE program. Previously, she was the co-founder of MIT's Playful Journeys lab, and a researcher at the MIT Education Arcade. She was also a classroom teacher, having taught preschool and English in China. Louisa Rosenheck, welcome to Ed Tech insiders.

Louisa Rosenheck  1:07 
Thanks for having me.

Alexander Sarlin  1:09 
It's great to have you here. Louisa, your background is so interesting. You've spent most of your career working in academia at world class institutions, like Brown, MIT, Harvard, and you've recently made the move into a tech industry and not just anywhere in the industry, you've made the move into Kahoot, which is one of the most popular and most used tools and companies in edtech. In the world, it's used billions of times worldwide. So give us an overview of your journey into edtech.

Louisa Rosenheck  1:39 
Sure, yeah. So I cannot say that I knew where I was headed when I started out on this journey. But I started as a CS major in undergrad. And then I also did some teaching. And I really knew that I wanted to combine those two things. And so then in grad school, and after that, working in public media for a bit, I would say I really recognized the need for technology to transform learning and, you know, enable different kinds of teaching and learning rather than simply replicating conventional approaches. So with that kind of passion and interest, that kind of motivated me to switch to academia, very different context, but a lot of the same goals and same principles. So in academia, it was a chance to be really innovative and exploratory. But then what comes along with that is, of course, less reach, right? You're never gonna have the same number of users and viewers, as you know, something like a public media organization, or, or a big ed tech tool. So working in academia, really kind of, I would say, developed my ideas and aesthetic of what makes good edtech, what makes it, you know, really good for learning, and the differences between tools that are developed for research and for commercial products. And there's so many merits to both of those, but they are, you know, they are quite different. And then also in academia, there was the, there's so many wonderful things about working on research projects, you get to really know, really know your users and understand how are they learning? And how is it working and for who and what ways. But of course, there's also the frustration of grant cycles and projects that you work on not really being sustainable and not getting out there. So that was, then my motivation to try out the edtech industry. And here I am today at Kahoot.

Alexander Sarlin  3:25 
It makes a lot of sense, I really appreciate your take on the university systems can know exactly what works but often they just can't get the reach or the sort of funding to do things that would work at a commercial scale. Some products have made that leap, but surprisingly few over the years. And you know, it makes sense that commercial products like Kahoot, are everywhere in the world. They're designed for consumers from day one. And it's a very different kind of product.

Louisa Rosenheck  3:52 
Yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot of great things about both. And part of what I hope to do in my career going forward is bring both of those things closer together to try to you know, improve outcomes and impacts for learners everywhere.

Alexander Sarlin  4:08 
Yeah, that's a really important call. I've noticed that one through nine of your career at both good and in your academic research is that you've always been interested in the intersection of learning and play. Well, how did you first get interested in those topics, learning and play? And what are some of the areas you focused on in your research over the years?

Louisa Rosenheck  4:28 
Yeah, so I think when I first got really excited about using games for learning was when I was teaching English to little kids. I was teaching abroad and you know, when you're teaching language, there's, there's so much you can do. I mean, you can teach about anything because it's all using active language skills. So at that time, I wasn't using digital tools, but I always incorporated little games into the lessons because of course they worked and they were fun for all of us, not just for the students, but for me too. But there's you know, there's so many ways to include repetition and different scenarios and different contexts and to practice language in a meaningful context. And that was also social. So I think that's, you know, even before working on digital games, that's where I just really saw the potential. And I've always loved playing games, as everyone does, because it's very human thing. And so I really wanted to explore that more, and also combine it with my interest in technology. So then I mentioned, I worked in public media at WGBH, here in Boston for a time, and I got to work on a number of flash games that were on websites for, you know, that went with different shows or other properties. And so and they are, I got to do a lot of play testing, very important part of the tech design process. And I just saw so much excitement, I mean, I would bring a game into, you know, an after school program, or wherever I was doing the play testing, and they were so excited about it, and just really wanted to engage, and not only wanted to play, but wanted to talk about what they were doing in the game, and what was their strategy. And, you know, did they find the cheat or the hint or the, you know, which really meant, they figured out the concept like they had figured out how the system worked, and they were engaging with the content then. And then later on at the MIT Education Arcade, I learned so much about good game design and the four freedoms of play from Scott Osterweil, a friend and colleague there, and worked with, you know, folks from the MIT Game Lab, and all of these different people that had real game design background. And so combining that with my background in education and pedagogy, and edtech production, I think it was just, you know, really seeing that these things can go together so well. And the best part I think about that work was getting to really dig deep into the game mechanics and aligning them with the learning mechanics. So really looking at how does this game and the the interactions that we have here, how does it embody good pedagogy, the pedagogy that we really care about. So thinking about the affordances of games, and how games can make learning better, and how learning can also make games more more engaging and interesting. And then also beyond that is what it takes to implement learning games in classrooms. So that was a focus of a lot of our research at the arcade, because it's not enough to just have a great game. But you know, teachers have to understand how to integrate the game into their curriculum and how to support students in that learning. There was a game that I worked on for a while called the Radix Endeavor, which was an MMO styles, a multiplayer online style game for math and biology. And it was very inquiry based. So you had to explore and make discoveries and collect data from the environment and all these fictional species, and then use it to solve problems in the world. And, you know, what we saw there, which we saw with a lot of different games, is it's not enough to just say, here's the game, have your students play it,. They have to have an inquiry mindset, right? They have to understand that it's not just about getting the right answer that they need to support students to explore and figure stuff out on their own, which is not the same as all kinds of teaching, especially in schools. So a lot of the research has also been about kind of how to support teachers in this mindset shift towards playful learning and game based learning and how that aligns with not just content knowledge, but with, you know, future ready skills. So all of that work culminated in a book that I had the opportunity to co-write with others from at Arcade called Resonant Games. And in there, we talked a lot about what makes good games for deep learning. And then from there, I would say my work kind of expanded into playful learning more generally, and how that could support creative student centered learning, and what play can bring to assessment and you know, how playful assessment could be thought of in schools and in different contexts. And also how play looks different for different ages, there's so much about playful learning for young kids, it's kind of easier to think of that, but playful learning is so important for high school, for higher ed, for adult learning, for sure, it just looks different in those different contexts. So that is, yeah, a handful of things that have been, you know, parts of my research and design work.

Alexander Sarlin  9:28 
Yeah, you know, you've mentioned a couple of different names, playful learning, game based learning, educational, you know, we can call it educational gaming. And I think some people think of the term gamification of education as one of the ways that people think about this. And, you know, I think that I'm a big fan of game based learning and I have been following it for quite a long time. But I think for the general audience, it's been something of a roller coaster over the last few years of its sort of hype cycle. I think, on some level, everyone agrees with what you just said that you know, everybody would love of education to be more engaging, more student centered, more motivating, more fun for both the students and the teachers. But there's also some who believe that, you know, educational games don't always fulfill that promise, and sometimes can be the worst of both worlds. I'm not one of them. But I want to channel them here a little bit for my question. You know, some people feel like, you know, educational games may not be as educational as other forms of education, but not as fun, as you know, games that don't have an educational bent. So I wanted to ask you, as someone who studied this in depth over years, I'd love to hear your pitch for why educational gaming, game-based learning when done right, really, really can succeed and being both educational and motivating for students?

Louisa Rosenheck  10:42 
Yeah, well, of course, doing it right is really the key. So, you know, learning games can be very powerful. But that doesn't mean they all are, right. So it's really the I think the key thing for me is it goes back to what I said about aligning the learning mechanics and the game mechanics, and embedding the pedagogy that we really care about. And believe in embedding that into the design, it's very easy to say, Okay, I want this to be inquiry based, or I want it to be student centered. And then there's sort of a slippery slope, it's easy to kind of fall back into, you know, games that end up very much on rails, like everybody's actually doing the same going on the same pathway, or things that do have one right answer, because that's, in some ways, those things are just easier to design, or it's what we've seen so much of. So it's hard to really design a great learning game. But when we can do that, we know that there are affordances of games that are so powerful, you know, in, like I mentioned about the Radix Endeavour game, where students have to figure out what to do--that is very common in MMO type games--you're given a task or a quest, and you don't exactly know where to go or what to do, but you figure it out. And in a game, you expect to do that. But in school, that's just not really how it's set up. So it's just a different expectation. So when we make games look more like school, or more like what we think, you know, what many people expect education to look like, that's when it's not a good game. And it's not good learning. But when we can really combine in meaningful ways, the game systems that have an interesting choices in the games, combine that with, you know, systems thinking and conceptual ideas beyond just content knowledge. That's when games are really powerful, I think. So going back to the the idea of resonant games, the book that we wrote, that was really the main theme: that the games need to be resonant and connect experiences in the game with other parts of your life and help you think more deeply, they give you a place not just to practice, but to really explore and, and a safe space to fail, right, that's another affordance of games in the game, of course, you're gonna die and lose a life and then try again, that's what you do. And that is realistic to the real world. Also, right, you never get something right on the first time. But there isn't really enough of that in schools. So all of these things, make games, you know, potentially really good. And then another aspect that I think is really important to get the best learning out of games, whether it's a game design for learning intentionally, or if it's a commercial game that's being used in various educational settings, an important element is building reflection into the experience or around the experience, we know that reflection is really essential for learning. And so finding ways to you know, have students share their strategies, notice that different students had different strategies, even different ways to succeed, what process they took, how their thinking changed over time, you know, all of these things can be they can be built into a game experience, but they can also be outside of the game when you integrate it into your teaching or the curriculum. So there's a lot more that goes into game based learning than just the game.

Alexander Sarlin  13:54 
Yeah, you know, I wanted to double click and ask about that distinction between those who are trying to build or create their own learning games, and educators who might want to use commercial games or even existing educational games in the context of their classroom. And I really liked your point about setting up the right mindset and including reflection in the experience so that it's not just putting a game in front of the student and saying, Good luck, you should learn something from this. It's really wrapping the experience in something that allows the student to get the most out of the game. I'm curious how you think about, you know, developing new learning games versus using commercial games off the shelf?

Louisa Rosenheck  14:36 
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I think both are really valuable and important. After you know, some years developing, designing and developing learning games. I do sort of have a question in my mind about whether it's really worth it to develop new learning games. And that's mainly because in a way we just can never catch up to entertainment games, right? The learning games are the organizations that are creating and they're never going to have the budgets and the resources and you know, fast moving production teams to create games that are really good for learning and as engaging and as, you know, well developed and polished, and all of that as commercial games. So, I do sometimes ask myself, Is it really worth it still to create new learning games? Or should we, as the education field and game based learning people, should we focus more on, you know, utilizing commercial games for education and building in all those scaffolds and reflection points that I mentioned, because there's so many great examples out there about how commercial games can be used as great contexts for learning. There's, you know, there's so much great stuff with Minecraft EDU. And there are people who have amazing lesson plans using a whole variety of different narrative games and other commercial games. And Roblox is one really interesting example of this. They are starting to put more support towards learning games on their platform, which I think is really exciting, because they're bringing in the collaborating with people who have a deep background in education and learning games. But using, you know, leveraging this game platform that is already so well developed and robust and that kids already love everybody. Every everybody in schools love Roblox. And so why not use that as an environment for learning, but intentionally. So that's the kind of thing that I think could be really exciting collaboration.

Alexander Sarlin  16:29 
Yeah, I agree. I've seen you know, there used to be a portal for education movement, the game Portal, or people do these events in Fortnight for education, and other kinds of learning games. And it is a really interesting option to be able to use commercial games, as you say that students already love, and then wrap them in an educational and meaningful, a meaningful and effective educational experience. I really like that. So you recently joined Kahoot as the director of pedagogy in just last year in 2021. And I wanted to give a very brief overview of Kahoot for our listeners, before we move on, I'll try to keep this really short, just for those who might not be familiar with it. It is really a juggernaut success in edtech. So it's really good as a breakout success story. It's a Norwegian company. It was founded in 2012, 10 years ago now, that started with its own signature product, it's the Kahoot game based learning platform. And they have these online quizzes that they call Kahoots that can be delivered in classrooms or on phones, or, and on phones or asynchronously. And it's gotten so popular that they have been acquired a lot of other edtech companies, including other nordic edtech, companies like Motimate and Dragonbox Learning, Poio, Whiteboard.fi recently, and a gamified language company called Drops. And famously, the San Francisco based company Clever, which is a single sign on solution for schools, which is you can see that synergy there to be able to allow students to get into multiple products very quickly and simply. So it's become really a juggernaut. It's one of the top 10 education apps that certainly one of the top 10 education tools in the world and boasts billions of games played. So my question for you, Louisa, well, you know, you mentioned that you've been working in academia where the projects are relatively localized, Radix Endeavor, as you mentioned, I'm sure it was incredibly well designed, but it probably didn't reach nearly as many students as you'd like, to an industry leader that is absolutely global. What does that experience been like for you? And what excites you about working in a company and on products with so much reach and potential impact?

Louisa Rosenheck  18:37 
Yeah, well, that potential impact is really the thing that I'm so excited about. So, you know, at tech companies like Kahoot, I think we are really in a position to say something about what good learning is, and what kinds of tools we think the schools of the future should be using, you know, at Tech is in it's such an [?] field is in such an interesting place right now, there, there are, in some ways, it's still new and growing and experimental. But in many ways, it's a lot of these companies have established themselves, right. And it's so exciting being at Kahoot, where, you know, the recognition is really there. I mean, teachers and students, they love Kahoot. So, I feel like, you know, we've sort of established that these kinds of playful learning can be very widespread and well loved. And so now is the time to say, Okay, what more can we do? How can we use this platform, both the tech platform, but also just the, you know, communication platform, to say, what is good learning? And how can we use technology in incrementally more innovative or progressive ways to you know, empower learners and help teachers create, you know, more student centered learning? So that's what's really exciting, I think about about being in a place like Kahoot, especially coming from such a different context. But there is a pattern that you sometimes see with the incumbent mindset and you know, there are sometimes companies and tech and otherwise, that kind of fall into this where they keep doing what they've been doing. Of course they do, because it's working so well. And it's what sells and you have to stay, you have to, you know, you have to stay sustainable. But sometimes that incumbent mindset makes it very hard to innovate and push practice. So Kahoot definitely has a spirit of continual improvement and staying fresh, which I've really appreciated. And so one of my goals is to make sure that that mindset extends to learning design as well. So that, you know, we're never satisfied with the status quo in the classroom, but that we can use our recognizable brand and, and the, you know, simple, easy to use platform to then go a little bit further and say, Okay, what more can we do for learning because the world is changing, education is changing, the skills that students need are changing. So how can we support that that's what students and teachers really need. So going back to, you know, some differences with academia, whereas in academia, we can really do things that align with what we know about good learning, everything, of course, is research based, in industry, I think that is sometimes harder to do. But if we can move the needle on that, then it could have such a big impact. So that's really what I hope to bring to Kahoot. And the challenge, of course, is that it's very hard to do that, while constantly pushing out new products and supporting all the existing products. You know, there's just there's so much that goes into keeping products current and up and running, which in my research work was, it was a blessing and a curse, really, I mean, it's like we didn't have to worry so much about things working for thousands of concurrent users. But also, that meant we were never going to have thousands of concurrent users. So, you know, it goes both ways. And so like I said earlier, my big picture career goal is to find ways to bring the benefits from all of these areas and fields closer together.

Alexander Sarlin  21:55 
Yeah, that's a terrific answer. And it makes a lot of sense. So you know, in my personal past, I had a sort of moment where I had to decide whether to go into academia or go into industry. And I sat and made some pros and cons list and really thought hard about it. And at the end of the day, for me, I wanted to go somewhere where the work would be as applied as possible, as fast as possible. And I sort of afraid of that siloed effect, where you can be doing the best stuff in the world, but not enough people see it or use it, I just really admire that you've been able to bridge these worlds, because I think you've gone very deep at, you know, the MIT Education Lab, and all sorts of places. But now you're bringing that research and that expertise to an enormously impactful and widespread product. So you know, as the director of pedagogy, you're working to ensure that the suite of products that's Kahoot, and Dragonbox, and Poio, and all of them are as effective as possible from a learning perspective. And you know, I know this is a new position for Kahoot. And I'm sure it's still being defined, but tell our listeners a little bit about what it's like to be the Director of Product pedagogy at Kahoot. What is the role entail so far? And where do you think of maybe going in the future?

Louisa Rosenheck  23:04 
Yeah, so I am in my first year here, and it's a new role. So the role is, of course, evolving in lots of exciting ways. In my time, so far, I've been really learning about all the different use cases in the different segments. And Kahoot is, you know, it's really interesting in that it's used in schools and home and at work. So there are, you know, very different use cases, but that have certain things in common. So I've been really, you know, kind of gathering ideas and planting seeds for how we might start to expand how we think about game based learning. And like I said, What can we do next to support more future ready skills? Now that, you know, it's very well established? And it's pretty clear some of the most common ways that it's used and implemented in education settings, but you know, where can we go next. So I've started with some different angles, like working on content and user research, collaborating with teachers, because those are places where we can kind of experiment more quickly, and gather a lot of input. And then my vision is that, you know, working with the various product teams and all the new features and everything coming down, is that I hope that we can take what does really well, which I think is the social experience, this you know, we often call it the campfire experience, there's the screen upfront. But then there's everybody also has their own input device. And they have their own say, and they're, they're playing on their own, but it's also exciting that you're doing this as part of a group. So I have kind of a vision of taking that what is so special about Kahoot and building on it to create experiences that have opportunities for more critical thinking and more student voice and to support future ready skills, like I said, and I think that that could be through the core product. It could also be through larger learning experiences, you know, curriculum and PE and other resources that can support teachers to teach in these new student centered ways. It could be through smaller R&D projects with some of the group companies or some new things going on, and my hope is that it will be a combination of all of those things, you know, bringing together how people already use Kahoot. And teaching approaches, whether it's in K 12, schools or higher ed, or workplace learning settings, putting those together with, you know, posting games and content creation, and some codesign and all these things to create a rich experience that at the same time maintains the principles of being simple to use and easy to create with.

Alexander Sarlin  25:32 
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think it's really so interesting, because Kahoot is such a successful and large company, because as you say, it's simple to use, simple to create new Kahoots and quizzes, simple for students of all ages to use, and it can be used online or in person. It's a very flexible tool, I personally use Kahoot over the years, for a number of different purposes, sometimes educational, sometimes just for fun, especially during the pandemic, it's a great way to connect with people. I've noticed, you know, the last time I went to the Kahoot site, there were some amazing developments, they have made a partnership with Disney and Marvel to have a whole set of incredible sort of preset Kahoots around those really popular topics. And what I'm hearing you say is that Kahoot has already found the sort of the popular appeal, it's simple to use, it's easy to create, it's found product market fit in a very big way all over the world. And now you can use your role to find the sort of leverage points to improve the actual educational experience, not that it's not there already, but to make it better and better and more and more research back without losing the magic that everybody, everybody loves that campfire experience.

Louisa Rosenheck  26:45 
Yeah, exactly. What makes it so great for learning so far, I think is really the engagement. It's, you know, that's always the priority. And it does for so many students that gets them to sit forward, you know, students asked for Kahoot. So that is wonderful. And then how can we how can we take that, and maybe, you know, put more student voice into it, give students a chance to, you know, create and lead their own Kahoots, which is, that's a practice that is happening, but there are ways that we could support it even more, how can we sort of, you know, expand from whether it's different question types, different game modes, so all of those things are in the works. And just as you say, you know, bringing in more learning science principles, what we know about good learning, and all the things that go into that, I think we'll be able to create some really interesting experiences.

Alexander Sarlin  27:32 
I'm sure it will, I'm really excited. Dragonbox learning, by the way, is also such an incredible tool, when you know, as somebody who was into learning games for a while, that was one of the most successful learning games in my mind that came out with math game design, to where you sort of do algebra through these really interesting sort of Dragonbox experiences where you're opening boxes with dragons, it's so so fun. I want to keep going on this topic for one more moment because I think it's just so unusual your background of, you know, taking the research experience having publications in academia at MIT, at Harvard, and you still teach at Harvard Graduate School of Education. And now you're actually working inside a major edtech company, not as a consultant or an advisor who can sort of stop by and provide some ideas, but they can sort of turn around and do what they want with them, but you're actually really within the walls. And the reason that's so exciting to me is that those worlds of academic learning, science research and edtech industry are often so far apart, even though they're thinking about some of the same things that they don't even connect. And so my question to you is, you know, why do you think that academia and education in academia, and education tech are so often disconnected when there seems to be such huge mutual benefits and then working together, you know, academics could test their ideas at scale, and not have to build and maintain their own products? And industry gets to leverage this amazing research to improve their offerings? Why doesn't it happen more?

Louisa Rosenheck  29:03 
Yeah, I asked myself this a lot. And there are so many reasons. So I would definitely say one of them is the speed that we work at. So you know, in academia, you're doing research and methods that are really good for for learning sciences research, like DBR, design based research, they happen as a part of the development. So it does take longer to be really thoughtful and reflective in every iteration. And, you know, really take into account the voices of the participants, the voices of the designers, all of those things. So that, you know, sort of by definition, because you're doing research in parallel with the design and development, it's more involved. So of course, it takes longer. And then, you know, companies, on the other hand, feel this pressure to put out new features all the time. Sometimes even if those features don't necessarily support better learning, but if everyone else is doing it, you have to keep up with the competitors. You know, that's just the reality of it. S they have to always be putting out new things. And it's very hard to build in the time to really do careful user testing and research on those. So there tends to be a disconnect there, I think some of the successes that we've seen are, you know, something is, is developed in research and then spun out to become its own company. So at least it already has that foundation. Another underlying reason, I think, for the sort of disconnect, is the different motivations. So, you know, for a lot of edtech, companies, they don't necessarily have a lot of incentive to make things that really work or are innovative in terms of the learning design, and pedagogy. There's a lot of motivation to make things easier for teachers, which, of course, is a very important goal, but the deep learning and future ready skills that doesn't necessarily fit with making things easier. And, you know, end users also are not often the stakeholder are the decision makers. So it's so often it's district level decision makers, and we know that the the buying cycle, the purchasing decisions are have take a long time. So that can be you know, can be hard to kind of match up what teachers want to work on and how they want to improve their practice, the technology tools that are being purchased. And then, you know, it's not even easy to see what it means to work or for an edtech to work well or to have an effective ad tech. So when we think about, you know, is this a tool that kind of makes things more convenient to solve the pain point? Or is it a tool that really pushes learning forward? It's even very hard to have evidence that those things really push learning forward, it's just a really hard thing to measure. And again, you know, doing that research and efficacy studies, very involved, time consuming and resource intensive. Yeah, so I think they're kind of different places that they're coming from different goals. And there's not going to be as many edtech companies that are really able to be invested in this deeper learning, which has so much capacity building and PD and teacher mindset shifts that has to come along with it.

Alexander Sarlin  32:04 
That all makes a ton of sense. They you know, academia and industry work at different speeds, they have somewhat different incentives. There's a more sort of thorough and thoughtful research based approach to in academia, where sometimes industry just has to move quickly and keep up and easier. Yeah, I think that's a great point about that easier for teachers and students doesn't always mean deeper learning. So sometimes they're at odds even in that way. But, you know, I still hold out hope that there is some way for these two worlds to connect. And one thing that always strikes me as a sort of missing piece is that there's often not an economic incentive for edtech companies to prove that they are better for learning, you would think there would be they're kind of in a very abstract way there is a lot of companies do third party research and can sort of publish studies to show that, hey, this tool really works. And, you know, those studies allow people to sort of check the box and say, okay, it sounds like it works. But within it works, there's very little really deep understanding of, you know, who does it work for? When does it work? Why does it work? And, you know, I wonder if there's some policy or some structure that's missing, where, you know, if a company had a true and financial incentive and making a product that worked better than they'd also be incentivized to bring in the academics and the learning researchers and all the people who make that who could actually make that happen. Is that a crazy vision or Is that something you think may happen in our lifetime?

Louisa Rosenheck  33:35 
I think it should happen. Yeah, I think it will more and more. You know, one thing that I notice is, I think a little bit of a mindset shift will be required on both sides. So I've definitely worked with researchers who don't want to give up their idea for fear of it getting kind of watered down, right. And that I think that's a very valid concern. They don't want to this is their baby, they've developed it in research that they see a risk that if entrepreneur kind of takes it and runs with it, that they might not stay true to the vision. And I think that, you know, that is a risk. And then similarly, a lot of entrepreneurs, they don't always want to work on something that isn't their own idea, their own baby. So I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs, doing edtech startups, that they're coming up with their it's their own idea, but they are not necessarily the person who has spent years in the classroom or has the learning sciences background. So I think what you're saying about more closer collaboration is very much needed. And I think both roles need to have a little bit more understanding and trust of the other person's side's expertise. I do think it'll gradually develop I think there is more and more of this, you know, there's so many as the edtech industry grows. There's so many, for example, PhDs who are finishing their research focus degree and then they are going to work in edtech companies and a lot of them I think, end up In, you know, user research or UX research and things like that, but that's great. They're in there, and they're collaborating, and they're bringing some of these perspectives. So I kind of wonder I, you know, as more ad tech companies grow bigger and bigger and are able to have these roles and departments, maybe that's an opportunity to have more collaboration.

Alexander Sarlin  35:20 
That's a very positive take on it. And I really hope you're right, I think it is possible, you know, I've worked with some brilliant, brilliant academic researchers as sort of partners at times in my edtech career, and then I watch what they do after they work with us. Some, some of them have gone into edtech, like you say, and others have gone the academic route and become tenured professors at universities where they get to study and do research. And, you know, that's wonderful, too. But it's interesting how, you know, it feels like a fork in the road, there's not that many opportunities to, to do both. So as the rare person who has now worked sort of on both sides of this, this academic industry divide, have you seen any big differences in how ideas sort of get chosen or collaborated on or promoted from these, you know, you mentioned that these two sides have different incentives, I'd love to hear you a little bit more about why something happens inside a academic institution and gets chosen to really be studied and move forward on versus, hey, you know, a future idea and an edtech company when it gets the green light? How does that process differ?

Louisa Rosenheck  36:28 
Yeah, well, I think they do have a lot in common, but ultimately, it's those motivations, that kind of, you know, cause them to make different choices. So, for example, in research, there's a motivation to do things that are innovative, that no one has ever done before, partly to, you know, generate knowledge and try new things so that you can research it. But also, there is that motivation of writing papers about something and publishing in journals, which is a reality of research. And so that's also not always the best motivation for good edtech. But that is there that you have to do something that, you know, combines things in new ways, or that no one's ever done before, so that you can, that you can publish on it. And then in industry, you're always, you're always thinking about not just what's good for learning, but what users will pay for. And especially in K-12, it's so hard, because we know that so much of the edtech is subscription costs and things like that it's coming out of teachers own pockets, and they don't have a lot of money. So you know, thinking about what appeals not only what appeals to teachers, but what appeals to districts, or, like I said, what a lot of times, teaching is so hard. And we're seeing that this in the last two years more than ever before. So, of course, things that solve pain points and make someone's life easier, whether it's at the teacher level, or school or district, of course, that's going to be one of the priorities to purchase. And therefore, having those kinds of features in your platform will often get prioritized, right, more things that make the tool run smoothly, and integrate with other tools and those kinds of things. So those are super important. And they also, you know, like I said before, those are the things that enable a technology to be sustainable. But it also means you have to put so many resources into those things, that that often feels like there's a little bit less leftover for really changing the learning experience. But at the end of the day, I do think, you know, whether it's in research or in industry, that most people do have the same ultimate goal of improving learning and supporting teachers and students. But the ways in which they're able to do that are quite different.

Alexander Sarlin  38:43 
They do have the same goal. I think that's really true. And it's, it's interesting to hear that, you know, innovation is a core incentive for researchers, they need to do something no one's ever done before, because that's what makes it you know, worth researching, and in many ways, but education companies often have to do something that has exactly been done before they have to make things integrate with other systems or be have single sign on. And you'll see why why Kahoot would acquire a company like Cever or, you know, basically take care of the smoothness of the experience, rather than make new things that might actually be harder to use, or more prickly or more tricky, or take a lot of training. So yes, they can go in different directions. It's really, really an interesting point.

Louisa Rosenheck  39:27 
Yeah, and another thing I think, is with in research projects, a lot of times you do have the capacity to support teachers, you know, there's, it's a lot of times that's part of the research project is, you know, capacity building and helping change their practices and including some coaching and things like that. Whereas at a company, in order for it to stay in existence, it has to be profitable. And that usually means doing things at scale. And then some things like PD and changing changing mindsets that that's very hard to scale. So I think some of those kind of supporting pieces are part of the reason why companies end up prioritizing things that can be replicated easily.

Alexander Sarlin  40:09 
Absolutely. And, you know, it reminds me again, of Kahoot. Kahoot is such an easy tool for those out there who haven't tried it, you know, the time between, you know, learning what Kahoot is, and standing up your first quiz. And being able to send it to people or run it live with people is very, very short, it's very easy to set up, it's very easy to understand, it has actually some constraints in it that make it easier, but maybe less flexible, which is, you know, natural, but it allows it to go completely viral within schools, if you see one classroom using it, and the kids love it, the next teacher over is going to use it, and then the next school over is going to use it. And then kids transfer and ask their new teachers to use it. Because it's fun. It's viral. One more super quick question. Before we finish up, I'm curious about your take on this. One of the aspects of instructional design that I've always found it really interesting is the idea that, you know, assessment, the testing effect that, you know, it's much more effective to consistently test yourself or to be tested on the material you're trying to retain in order to actually internalize it, rather than just reading it. And one thing that always strikes me about Kahoot is it's a way to make formative testing, incredibly fun, such that students can do it over and over again, and as much as they want without it feeling high stakes. I'm curious if that's something that is sort of on your radar as one of the learning science ideas within the Kahoot pedagogy thinking?

Louisa Rosenheck  41:33 
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's one of the major use cases, I think of Kahoot. And something that teachers love about it is it can be used for formative assessment. And students, you know, students love to do it. And also with the reporting features, it makes it very easy for teachers to look back and see, okay, who did what, and you can give, you know, practice questions on the ones that they got wrong. And so all of that is great. What I would love to, you know, eventually work on expanding to is how Kahoot might be used as a tool for assessing more open ended kinds of work, right, because with future ready skills, and you know, hands on learning, project based learning, all these kinds of things, there's so many more skills being built, and who does have the potential to be used as a good reflection tool, there are more and more teachers using it, especially with some of the open ended questions and word club kind of features. But I think there's a lot more that could be done to bring this, you know, playful experience that kids want to do together with other types of student centered learning. So I think it has, that's one of the things that I'm excited about to be at Kahoot is it is known as a great formative assessment tool. And so from there, you know, when I think of all the things that we can do,

Alexander Sarlin  42:50 
Yeah, that's a terrific idea. When you say that I'm envisioning like, an exit ticket at the end of a class that says, based on what we've learned today, which of these would you be most interested in learning next? And you know, of course, there's no right answer there. But you get an instant poll about where the student's interests are as a class and individually. And it can be used in exactly the same way with the same tool. But there's a million use cases that teachers are thinking about. Fascinating, fascinating conversation. I'm so appreciative of you being here to give this unique perspective about academia and industry. We finish up the podcast with two questions. One is what is the most exciting trend that you see in the Ed Tech landscape right now that you think our listeners should keep an eye on?

Louisa Rosenheck  43:35 
Yeah, well, I'm actually going to start with a trend that I'm not seeing enough of I feel in edtech, that there really needs to be more of which is equity centered design. So how do these design processes and learning design principles? How do they serve equity, we know that there are so many inequities in education. And a lot of that comes through the design process. And you know, we can design to solve that as well. So there's lots of great methods out there for this that are sort of getting more attention. And there's more and more people researching them and writing about them. So I really want to see more of that applied to education and edtech, specifically. But then another exciting trend I see is not sure what the best word for it is, I'm gonna call it app smashing, because that that's one term that I do like app smashing is generally when teachers kind of use multiple edtech tools together, but I'm thinking about it on a little bit bigger level. So, you know, there's so so many edtech tools out there now. There's new ones coming on all the time. And there are lots of acquisitions. And there are lots of integrations across tools. So I think we're really seeing this need to think about not just what each tool does, but think about how we use them and how they connect to each other and to the pedagogies we care about. So anything you can think of there's probably already an edtech tool for that. How do they work together to really empower learners and have more student centered creative kinds of learning that we know is needed in the future? So I think, you know, we're definitely seeing that at Kahoot, which is one reason why it's an exciting place to be putting together kind of the game based learning from Dragonbox and the reach of Kahoot. And the ease and convenience of the single sign on that Clever has. So how I think it's an open question for Kahoot. And for many big companies, you know, how are we going to integrate these together in meaningful ways?

Alexander Sarlin  45:31 
That's a really, really good point. I've never heard the term app smashing, I'm going to totally use that. I love that. It's like a sort of picture atom smashing together. When interesting before the very vital question when interesting use case for that also, is that some of the apps that are getting smashed together are ones that are also used by adults in professional work, things like, you know, Google Drive, and Miro and, you know, data visualization tools. So I think there's a really interesting opportunity in this app smashing world to actually combine edtech tools with productivity tools that are also have use as edtech tools. And that can be really interesting way to get to that those future skills pretty directly.

Louisa Rosenheck  46:11 
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Alexander Sarlin  46:12 
So the last question is, what is one book--and you feel free to name more than one--or Twitter feed or newsletter that you would recommend for someone who wants to dive deeper into some of the topics we've discussed today, play based learning, game based learning, all of that great stuff?

Louisa Rosenheck  46:27 
Yeah, and so many. So Resonant Games, of course, the book that I wrote with my colleagues, and that is available for free online. Another one, you know, on the we didn't talk about this so much today, but on the topic of designing for equity, a book I would definitely recommend is called Design Justice by Sasha Costanza-Chock. And it's not focused specifically on EdTech, but so many of the ideas in there are really illuminating. And I think speak to some of the ways that we need to improve design in edtech as well. I always recommend the reports and research coming out of the Lego Foundation. They are all about play and creativity and playful learning frameworks and different types of playful learning and evidence for why it works. They are mostly focused on younger kids, but there's so much stuff in there that I think we can all apply to all different age groups as well. And then one other thing I will suggest for people who are interested in game based learning, particularly thinking about how to incorporate different games into curriculum and teaching, there's a researcher named Kat Schrier, and she has a wonderful book that has a hundred games to use in the classroom. So they're like small case studies really quick and usable, that really show the breadth of different ways to use games for teaching and different kinds of things that you can learn from games. And she has a new one coming out about inclusive games. So connecting back to, you know, how can games support equity in education as well.

Alexander Sarlin  47:56 
That's fantastic. As always, we will put links to all of these resources, as well as any others that Louisa may have in the show notes for this episode, so that you can find them. That Design Justice book sounds really interesting as to all of these. Louisa Rosenheck, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure speaking with you today.Thanks for being on.

Louisa Rosenheck  48:16 
Thanks, Alex.

Alexander Sarlin  48:17  
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