Education design, from classroom tools to culture.
Design Cast treats education as something built, tested, and redesigned. Jason speaks with educators and guests about ethical AI planning, STEAM materials, critical thinking, leadership, justice, and the culture behind innovative school spaces.
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Design Cast approaches teaching as a designed experience, not a fixed routine. Jason leads conversations shaped by years in design education, STEAM spaces, workshops, robotics, coding, app-building, and hands-on classroom work. The show’s center of gravity is practical imagination. It asks how learning environments, materials, leadership habits, and school cultures can be shaped for students who do not all learn the same way. Some episodes stay close to the classroom. A Lego activity becomes a way to show students that there can be more than one right answer, then expands into English, science, math, Braille bricks, fractions, atoms, and 8-bit circles. Other episodes widen the lens. AI is discussed as both powerful and demanding, with attention to ethical use, sustainability, energy costs, and the pressure schools face when they lack time or expertise. Critical thinking appears through controlled misinformation activities, lesson plans, worksheets, and courses that parents, homeschooling families, teachers, and alternative schools might use. Educational justice enters through curriculum connections, including geometry and social studies work around gerrymandering and representation. Leadership episodes focus on trust. They are less interested in titles than in whether people feel known, respected, and connected to the person making decisions. The show also spends serious time on learning spaces. Its view of innovation is not centered on buying tools. Three-dimensional printers and cutters matter, but the deeper concern is the ethos, culture, team, and community that keep a space alive after the equipment changes. That gives Design Cast a grounded rhythm: enthusiastic, reflective, and more curious than prescriptive. It often sounds like one educator thinking aloud with another, following the thread until the classroom implications become clear. The result is useful for teachers, school leaders, consultants, authors, and design or STEAM educators who want ideas they can adapt rather than scripts to copy. It rewards listeners who care about purpose as much as process. Design Cast is at its best when a small classroom move opens onto a much larger question about what school is for.
Made for: Design Cast is for educators, school leaders, design and STEAM teachers, consultants, and curriculum-minded parents who want thoughtful conversations about how learning can be shaped. It especially fits listeners interested in practical classroom moves connected to bigger questions of equity, technology, leadership, and space.
What sets it apart: The show connects hands-on design education with schoolwide culture, treating tools, spaces, AI, and leadership as parts of the same learning ecosystem. Its conversations are reflective and practical without reducing innovation to equipment lists or trend-chasing.
Welcome to Design Cast, a podcast where I use nearly 30 years of educator experience and ask, “How do you design education?” Why is this important? Students all learn differently and need varied teaching methods to be successful. I chat with guests from all around the world, from classroom teachers to authors, consultants, and beyond.Check out bonus content at https://www.youtube.com/@reagincreativeConnect with me at https://www.speakpipe.com/designcast Support Design Cast by visiting https://www.buymeacoffee.com/designcast Communicate with me @ https://app.zaap.ai/dashboard
Six Lego bricks, thirty seconds, no matching ducks: your cure for the one-right-answer reflex.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded discussion of ethical AI, energy demand, and the school-level choices behind preparing for change.
Educational AI is treated here as a school issue with a wider bill attached. Rita Bateson makes the case for approaches that are ethical, sustainable, and durable, while the conversation keeps returning to energy demand and the renewed interest in nuclear power.
A six-brick duck anchors a practical case for open-ended learning across the curriculum.
DesignCast makes a compact case for open-ended learning through six Lego bricks. A 30-second duck built on the first day of class becomes more than an icebreaker: it shows how quickly students can loosen their hold on a single correct answer.
A grounded conversation about helping learners question misinformation before someone else does the thinking for them.
Critical thinking becomes a classroom practice as Jason and his guest consider how learners might learn to spot misinformation for themselves.
A grounded discussion of trust, visibility, and staying close to staff while leading with clear responsibility.
DesignCast treats school leadership as a matter of proximity: close enough to understand staff, but still clear about the responsibility of the role.
Psychology teaching, one career story at a time.
Honest school talk with practical stakes.
Rita Bateson says schools need “ethical AI, sustainable AI,” not just rules about reference lists.
Design Cast with Jason and Dan Thomas centers on tech ed at Jamestown, New York, and Dan's 33-year run teaching seventh grade STEM, robotics, coding, woodshop, metal shop, and CAD.
Host Jason explores innovative educational design strategies and teaching methods through conversations with educators and thought leaders.
Design Cast with Jason and Darrin Peppard focuses on school leadership, coaching, and the "Road to Awesome" work Peppard now does through books, speaking, and consulting.
Educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons helps schools co-create feminist, anti-racist, civic-action curriculum that connects classroom learning to students' immediate communities.
Host Jason Regan interviews educators and experts about design and STEAM education to explore diverse teaching methods.
Host Jason Regan interviews educators and experts about design and STEAM education to explore diverse teaching methods and build a global community.
Host Jason Reagan interviews educators and experts about design and STEAM education, exploring diverse teaching methods to improve student learning.