Episode 22: Experiential Learning: How to Change the World
Ryan Lufkin (00:01.235)
Hello and welcome to Educast 3000. I'm your cohost, Ryan Lufkin.
Melissa Loble (00:06.124)
And I'm your other co-host, Melissa Loble. And I am so excited by our guest today. This is really not only somebody that has inspired me since the first day I've met her, but she's got some really great insights into education, experiential education, experiential learning, sustainability education, and a whole lot of other things. So we're gonna have a good conversation today.
And with us, just to get that going, is Alana Heath, co-founder of How to Change the World. Now, Alana and I met through Transcend Network. It's an incubator focused on ed tech organizations that are really trying to help shape the future of learning and work. And we had instant chemistry, so I know you're gonna love hearing from her today. And I'm excited for us to dig into...
so many really rich areas of things that can impact how we think about learning well into the future. So Alana, welcome.
Alana Heath (01:03.554)
Thank you so much. It is really a pleasure to be here and I'm just excited to be invited. Thank you for having me.
Ryan Lufkin (01:11.435)
It's funny, I always talk about our podcast and say, you know, people ask to explain what's it about. I'm like, it's the smartest people in education who make Melissa and I smarter. And so it's, I love every time we do it. so, Alana, tell us a little bit about your background, because I think it's amazing.
Melissa Loble (01:21.442)
Yes.
Alana Heath (01:29.176)
Well, I actually started my first career when I was three years old. And that's when I started studying to become a classical ballet dancer. So a little different from where I am now, but that's a personal tidbit that has impacted my career and my entire background. throughout my youth and teenage years, my parents traveled around the U.S. as artists and my brother and I traveled with them and we were both homeschooled.
Melissa Loble (01:35.02)
Cool.
Alana Heath (01:57.826)
while I also trained to be a ballet dancer. And in many ways, that whole process was actually my first exposure to experiential learning, both through my ballet training and also how my parents approached exposing my brother and I to the real world as we were learning. And they intentionally integrated experiential learning approaches at that time. So fast forward a little bit at 17.
Ryan Lufkin (02:06.81)
yeah.
Alana Heath (02:25.768)
I was honored to be offered a trainee spot in one of the top American Ballet companies. But even after those 14 years of training, I decided not to take the opportunity. And the reason was really simple. I wanted my professional career to have positive social and environmental impact, and I didn't see dance fulfilling that aim. So I went to university and graduated passionate and ready to launch my career, but the entry level jobs
Melissa Loble (02:46.435)
Mm-hmm.
Alana Heath (02:55.096)
that I saw just weren't engaging and I didn't have the skills or experience I needed for the jobs I wanted. It quickly became clear that my university career was not preparing me with the skills I needed for the work I was committed to doing. So at that time I chose to co-found a nonprofit and this entailed basically a crash course in gaining skills and experience through learning by doing and
Ryan Lufkin (02:57.042)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (03:01.827)
interesting.
Ryan Lufkin (03:20.164)
Can you imagine? Yeah.
Alana Heath (03:25.26)
that is not nearly as effective as properly structured experiential learning. But I'll share more of that later on across the across the podcast. But after a couple of years getting this nonprofit off the ground and through a successful pilot stage, I expanded my experience into microfinance and energy access. That eventually led me to getting experience working across northern India.
East Africa and the US. And these are both high tech sectors where the products and services are designed for rural and low income communities. And I found myself working at that interface, which I just loved. was between these communities and the technologists trying to build tech for them. That on the ground work I was super passionate about. I also quickly found that a big barrier for these sectors was the flow of capital. So I pivoted into impact investing.
Melissa Loble (04:03.779)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (04:20.161)
Okay.
Alana Heath (04:22.582)
eventually working with several fund managers to deploy debt and equity into those sectors. I got an impact focused MBA along the way, which had a really strong real world project component. And that was another aspect of this tie with formalized experiential learning that was this thread across my background. My transition to co-founding How to Change the World came in 2019.
Melissa Loble (04:32.099)
you soon.
Ryan Lufkin (04:40.679)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (04:50.478)
And I was in London working for an impact investment fund focused on energy access when my co-founder Jason Blackstock was starting to spin how to change the world out from University College London. And I realized then that empowering and equipping thousands of students with skills to make a positive impact throughout their career could be the most impactful thing I could do at the next stage of my career. And so I jumped on board and here I am.
Ryan Lufkin (05:18.215)
That was not an easy time either to be part of a startup. That was right, you know, in the months prior to COVID hitting.
Melissa Loble (05:23.529)
Yeah. yeah.
Alana Heath (05:26.498)
Yes, definitely a lot of change happening at that period in the world.
Ryan Lufkin (05:28.391)
hahahahah
Melissa Loble (05:32.452)
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So one of the things that we like to ask our guests is, you've alluded to this at various points in sort of your journey, but like a favorite learning moment or moments. And it could be when you were a student, it could be when you were a teacher, it could be something you observed, could be through the, you know, through how to change the world and something that you've seen happen. But like, what's sort of a favorite learning moment somewhere in your journey?
Alana Heath (06:04.12)
Wow, I feel like I learn on a daily weekly basis. So it's hard to pick just one moment. About a year ago, we really started to clock the transformative potential of the technology we had developed simply to deliver our how to change the world programs. And I was part of a conversation.
Melissa Loble (06:11.149)
Yes.
Ryan Lufkin (06:12.325)
Mm-hmm.
Alana Heath (06:32.178)
And one of the people in this conversation asked, so tell me about the technology you've built. And my co-founder, Jason, answered along the lines of, well, our main aim is to take the technology and make it fade into the background so much that people forget about the tech entirely. And they are a hundred percent focused on the interactions with each other. And for me, that was a key
learning moment, because as technology becomes more and more an aspect of our everyday lives, and not just the everyday lives, but the every minute by minute lives, we really need to ensure that the human connections and the interactions remain at the core of what we're doing.
Ryan Lufkin (07:12.007)
Hahaha
Ryan Lufkin (07:21.339)
Love that answer. Yeah.
Melissa Loble (07:21.645)
I love that. I love that. yeah, that, you know, we'll get to this a little bit later on. Ryan always asks great questions about AI, but that's such a theme with particularly the technologies that surfacing right now is making sure that human, a lot of losing that human connection. Absolutely. Well, let this, you just led beautifully into our listeners may not know anything about how to change the world. And I, I'm going to read its vision because this is just to me, so compelling and inspiring.
Ryan Lufkin (07:34.683)
A lot of fear around that right now. Yeah.
Melissa Loble (07:50.468)
We envision a world in which every person is empowered and supported to create positive, sustainable impact throughout their careers. Amazing. Amazing. Tell us about how to change the world and what you do and where does experiential learning fit in?
Alana Heath (08:07.416)
Thank you. So at the core, How to Change the World is actually an experiential learning organization. So we run experiential learning programs for hundreds, even thousands of learners at a time. And to do this, we leverage two main things. First, we leverage the experiential learning at scale pedagogical approach that my co-founder developed and honed at University College London. And second,
we leverage the insights and technologies we've built to take that pedagogical approach entirely online, making it more affordable, accessible, and even more scalable. Building on that foundation, all of the programs that we currently run focus on developing the mindsets and skills that people need to positively impact the social, environmental, and economic challenges that they care about.
So one of the most valuable aspects of our approach to experiential learning at scale and online is that it can be applied across subject areas and disciplines. But we originally developed this because we were motivated by the goal of helping people learn to tackle complex social and environmental challenges. And you just can't learn to tackle these messy real world problems from reading a book. You need to develop the mindsets and skills
Ryan Lufkin (09:21.885)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lufkin (09:28.488)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (09:33.038)
through guided hands-on experience. So today we've really integrated this. And so we currently partner with dozens going on hundreds of universities and colleges around the entire world to run global experiential learning programs for cohorts of their students. And we're now in the process of developing the technology to enable other education providers to design and deliver experiential learning for their tens of thousands of learners.
Ryan Lufkin (10:01.713)
Yeah. And I love what you said about students coming out of college and university, not necessarily having the skills they need for the jobs that they want, right? And that the experiential learning or the skills gap, was what we often refer to lot written about that. And one of ways to address that is this experiential learning. But if you're not a learning nerd like Melissa, who keeps me smarter on these things, but what is experiential learning at its core?
Alana Heath (10:31.17)
To be honest, if you asked 10 learning nerds that question, you are likely to get at least a couple dozen different answers.
Ryan Lufkin (10:33.845)
Hi.
Melissa Loble (10:35.331)
That's so.
Ryan Lufkin (10:38.227)
Yeah. And sometimes people say, sometimes people say, well, it's an internship or it's an apprenticeship or, like, I hear that thrown out as well.
Melissa Loble (10:38.942)
Yeah. yeah.
Alana Heath (10:46.424)
So in experiential learning comes in different flavors. There's real world project based or challenge based learning. There's work integrated learning. There's community engaged learning, just to name a few. What all of these different flavors have in common and what we mean when we say experiential learning is the idea of learning by doing with a safe and supportive guiding structure. And I think
Learning by doing can easily be misinterpreted as meaning the same thing as just learning on the job. But the,
Ryan Lufkin (11:22.151)
Yeah, yeah, I didn't hear you say throw you directly into the fire. That's the, that's what I, and I think some people think that's what experience learning is, right?
Melissa Loble (11:26.263)
Yes.
Alana Heath (11:31.35)
That exactly, and I think that misinterpretation is challenging because the difference with good experiential learning is in the safe and supportive guiding structure. And that's really key. And that is different than learning on the job.
Ryan Lufkin (11:44.317)
Yeah, yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (11:50.202)
yes, exactly. Having been thrown into fire more than once, I do believe that a safe and supporting guiding structure would have been a much different experience.
Melissa Loble (11:51.267)
yeah.
Melissa Loble (11:56.141)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (12:00.424)
Exactly. And I think one of the incredible things about experiential learning is that it's already known to be highly effective at delivering skills. So when we, when you mentioned the skills gap, well, there's over a hundred thousand academic articles written on how effective experiential learning is at delivering skills. And that doesn't even include the many, many more written on variations of experiential learning, like challenge-based learning or problem-based learning.
Melissa Loble (12:09.869)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lufkin (12:19.976)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lufkin (12:26.844)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (12:30.446)
community learning like it's
The writing is on the wall that the outcomes speak for themselves.
Ryan Lufkin (12:37.106)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (12:41.597)
So if, I mean, it seems like we've got a body of evidence there. Why aren't we doing more of this? Why is this a challenge?
Alana Heath (12:52.194)
Well, it is a challenge. Less than a third of higher education actually delivers any form of experiential learning. And that even includes kind of those really light touch examples. And that's higher education. When we think about corporate training and development, that's often based on higher education models. So it really tends to be more content focused.
Ryan Lufkin (12:54.771)
You
Alana Heath (13:20.814)
Conventional approaches to experiential learning have a few really big problems. They have traditionally been very expensive because conventional pedagogies tend to require a low teacher to student ratio. So one educator per 20 students. That's great. But how do you do that with a university of 20,000? The second is there is little training available for educators to learn.
Melissa Loble (13:30.114)
us.
Ryan Lufkin (13:34.269)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (13:38.323)
It's hard to scale that.
Melissa Loble (13:40.471)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (13:43.005)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (13:48.846)
how to teach through experiential techniques. And paired with that, there are a few, any, tech tools available to support educators who do want to teach experientially. So this trifecta of problems has really put in place barriers to experiential learning being used a whole lot more. And that's why we're finding there's such a large interest.
in our approach to experiential learning at scale online because those three problems are exactly the three that we had to overcome in order to design our pedagogy and technology.
Melissa Loble (14:28.024)
home.
Melissa Loble (14:31.534)
Yeah, yeah. Well, you started to answer what was going to be my next question was, correct me if I'm wrong, but you started as curriculum, right? And then you expanded into a technology offering. I'm curious your thoughts on like, why that path, right? How did this start and how did it then expand into, okay, it's not just...
our curriculum or our content that we have, it's also this idea that we can enable others to start to use technology for experiential education.
Alana Heath (15:05.782)
Melissa, you have pinpointed the process that we went through, the stages that we went through exactly. And it also relates to a couple of the previous answers or questions that we went through. The short answer is that experiential learning is the only way to support people learning how to solve messy real world problems.
Melissa Loble (15:12.981)
I love it. Okay.
Melissa Loble (15:22.818)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (15:33.868)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (15:34.478)
So we were originally motivated by that goal. We want to help people learn how to tackle these complex social and environmental challenges. And book knowledge just isn't enough to learn how to tackle these. So.
Melissa Loble (15:47.245)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (15:48.081)
Yeah, and really the problems respect the specific program you came out of, right? Like, it's that cross-knowledge.
Melissa Loble (15:52.996)
Well, and no one else is doing it, right? Like there's no other, I can't think of technologies out there that are doing this online.
Yeah. Yeah.
Alana Heath (16:05.582)
And that's where kind of in the stages that we went through, we developed the pedagogy and curriculum. that's what Jason, my co-founder did as the founding head of department at UCL across half a dozen years engaging 7,000 students along the way. It was that how do you develop the mindsets and skills you need from that guided hands-on experience?
Melissa Loble (16:22.339)
channel.
Alana Heath (16:36.066)
And then when we spun out from UCL, and the reason we spun out is because other institutions were asking for versions of this program, we really quickly realized that there were no tools available that met our needs and enabled us to truly scale that pedagogy and curriculum. And so we had to develop our own technology. And only after we built it up to scale did we realize that the approach that we had developed for
Melissa Loble (16:44.994)
Yeah
Alana Heath (17:03.768)
experiential learning at scale and online could be applied much more widely than just learning to solve messy social and environmental challenges. And we also received that feedback from a lot of brilliant and really talented people along the way who helped us realize that.
Melissa Loble (17:22.659)
That's really cool.
Ryan Lufkin (17:22.737)
Yeah. The one of the basic challenges to of that skills gap that we've talked about is the pace of change, right? And, and, educational programs and, and university programs being able to keep pace with that change. Now, I'm going to, I'm going to say, ring the bell, cause I'm going to say AI, we throw AI into that mix and the pace of change is even greater. So it is, it, it creates problems, but also actually
create some of the solutions, right? And how do you see AI impacting both your technology and the pedagogy and your approach overall?
Alana Heath (17:56.174)
couple of different thoughts. I'd love to comment on your reflection at the pace of change. so I will get to AI in just a moment, but I think that pace of change is a really important aspect. And the reason is that I think I'm probably stating the obvious to say that the world has changed dramatically in the past 60 years.
Ryan Lufkin (18:02.95)
Yes, yeah.
Melissa Loble (18:03.639)
Yes.
Ryan Lufkin (18:07.688)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (18:25.676)
When we look at the technologies we use and the skills that the modern workforce requires, I mean, it's not even similar.
Melissa Loble (18:25.767)
yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (18:31.389)
Yeah, I mean, what's a VHS tape? What's a cassette? Right? Yeah.
Melissa Loble (18:31.778)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (18:35.254)
Right. But I think the more surprising aspect is that the model of teaching in higher education through the lecture based model has stayed almost identical during the same 60 year period of time. And so with that, along that same spectrum, content is becoming easier to access, cheaper. It's been going that way for years and now AI is only accelerating.
Melissa Loble (18:36.129)
Yes, yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (18:47.163)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Melissa Loble (18:49.347)
Absolutely.
Melissa Loble (19:04.887)
Mm-hmm.
Alana Heath (19:05.218)
So this is an example that blew my mind. One of our students shared this. Why would a student today spend 90 minutes listening to an assistant lecturer when they could instead watch the best professor in the world on that subject at 3x speed and have AI provide a summary in less than five?
Ryan Lufkin (19:23.987)
Yeah, yeah. we've got, mean, having, I always reference my kids on the show, but their attention spans are actually getting shorter. They're used to those more bite-sized elements. So a 90-minute lecture or a 60-minute lecture, those are really difficult for them to even stay focused on, right?
Alana Heath (19:25.771)
It's
Alana Heath (19:41.26)
Well, and I think it demonstrates that content alone just isn't enough. And so that's where experiential learning comes in, where people learn to work together, collaborate on real world problems and apply the content that they can access. And to us, that's the future of learning. And when we think of AI specifically, there are a lot of benefits. has been, it makes generation and consumption of content faster, easier, cheaper.
Ryan Lufkin (19:46.097)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (19:46.721)
Yes.
Ryan Lufkin (19:49.607)
Yeah
Ryan Lufkin (19:56.701)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (20:00.221)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (20:09.885)
Mm-hmm.
Alana Heath (20:11.15)
It's becoming a great coach for individuals and even able to support people with social and emotional skills and help teams with team dynamics. And we are exploring how to integrate these applications into our technology and our platform. And we encourage and support students and learners to leverage AI tools. But going back to a comment at the beginning,
Ryan Lufkin (20:21.032)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (20:22.083)
Mm-hmm.
Alana Heath (20:40.758)
What AI cannot do is replace the human experiences and interactions that are fundamentally at the core of experiential learning. And I would argue are critical to the future of work across all sectors, especially as AI tools automate away more mundane tasks. So those human experiences are essential for successfully tackling the future of work.
Ryan Lufkin (20:44.435)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Melissa Loble (21:01.229)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lufkin (21:09.394)
Mm-hmm.
Alana Heath (21:09.858)
but also simultaneously our global social, economic, and environmental challenge.
Ryan Lufkin (21:14.503)
Yeah. Love it.
Melissa Loble (21:15.469)
Yeah. Well, I, gosh, yeah, me too. So much. Yes. So much that I know Ryan and I feel passionately about. I know we also feel passionately about just sustainability education. So if you don't mind, I know you're expanding beyond that, but I just want to like kind of talk a little bit about that for a second. it's really cool to see higher education adopt sustainability education. Cause I think about my MBA.
when I did mine or even my master's degree, did an educational policy. Sustainability was nowhere in my curriculum. Now this was quite a while ago, but still, and then I think about like, I'll ask you, Ryan, is your daughter, is sustainability anywhere in her curriculum in, you know, she's studying communications, am I right? Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (21:59.602)
Yeah, yeah, and she is. at this point, I don't know that it is. I'd have to double check with her. We haven't gotten into that depth, but it's certainly not reflected in the course titles and things like that that she's taking.
Melissa Loble (22:05.013)
Yeah. Yeah. Prominent. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was guessing. She's also a dancer, by the way. But anyway, I had to say that.
Ryan Lufkin (22:17.555)
She is, she still teaches. She doesn't dance as much, but she still teaches.
Alana Heath (22:18.092)
Amazing!
Alana Heath (22:24.898)
that's incredible.
Melissa Loble (22:26.819)
Sustainability education, of just talk to us a little bit about that and how you're seeing more higher education institutions focus on that and sort of why that was your first area. There's a lot in the social realm where we could be really helping change the world. Why to focus on sustainability education and where you've seen higher education go with it.
Alana Heath (22:51.18)
Our focus on sustainability really came from the motivation of wanting to empower and equip students to know how they can use their skills to tackle sustainability challenges. I think there has been incredible progress across the last decade or so integrating sustainability content into courses, curricula, programs. This is an embedded widespread awareness
about sustainability and that's been huge.
has shifted the needle.
I think, and this is really where our focus on sustainability pairs with that content and why we are partnering with so many universities and colleges around the world, many of whom do have a lot of sustainability content, but there are not nearly enough opportunities for students to gain experience applying that knowledge to actually tackling real world sustainability issues. And
That is the exact challenge that I faced at the start of my career. I had a lot of book knowledge about sustainability. I was one of those students who I was seeking that out in my courses, the programs I chose, but it wasn't until I was going through the steps of setting out my sustainability focused nonprofit that I began to develop the mindsets and skills I needed to really make an impact. those skills, I think,
Alana Heath (24:28.11)
are really important to sustainability education. Those skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication across disciplines, across generations, across cultures, resilience and adaptability, kind of all going into the entrepreneurial and design thinking mindsets. Because sustainability issues are complex,
Ryan Lufkin (24:37.69)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Loble (24:41.239)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (24:42.248)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (24:57.794)
They're interdisciplinary. They require innovation and creativity. So the sustainability content alone is tricky because it doesn't quite meet that goal. It has to be paired with the sustainability content or education, paired with the experiences so that students know how to apply it. And so
One of the questions that is really high on my mind is how can education provide opportunities for young professionals like me years ago to come into the workforce with the knowledge and experience they need to start having impact from day one. And of course, that's the entire reason how to change the world exists, because we really see that pairing because designing those experiences is hard and we know that. And so that really
Melissa Loble (25:35.499)
huh.
Ryan Lufkin (25:42.439)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (25:42.946)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (25:46.341)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (25:46.733)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (25:55.884)
I think is the next step in education and sustainability education is how do you take that foundation of content and pair it for learners with opportunities to apply and experience how to use that content because then you have learners graduating and being able to hit the ground running.
Ryan Lufkin (26:20.283)
Yeah, and even then, as we look at the job world, as those students move into the job world, right? They value employers that are doing, have sustainability programs, are focused on that. They're even choosing potential jobs largely based off of, or in many ways based off of, who is doing those sustainable accounts. What can you say to business, are businesses doing enough? You hear the terms like greenwashing and things like that. Are they really having an impact? Are they really setting up these programs? And what can students do?
to actually impact that.
Alana Heath (26:56.504)
tying a little bit to that previous question around sustainability education within higher education. And it's also relevant to, or applies to, corporate learning and development. Sustainability education is only as powerful as the mindset and behavior change it stimulates. And not meaning to be pedantic, but I think the framing of sustainability being
Ryan Lufkin (27:02.301)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (27:10.372)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lufkin (27:17.905)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (27:24.898)
delivering core business value instead of being an initiative with an impact or CSR is really, really important. And I love to use an analogy with a digital transformation when we're thinking and talking about sustainability within business.
Ryan Lufkin (27:27.411)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Loble (27:32.291)
Hmm
Ryan Lufkin (27:32.583)
Yeah, yeah. Yep.
Melissa Loble (27:35.223)
Yes.
Alana Heath (27:46.742)
Early in the digital transformation, were trainings on digital tools and companies had chief digital officers whose responsibility was to integrate digital across the company. But it wasn't until digital became integrated into each business function that the value was truly gained for those companies. And now, of course, digital is so integrated and core to business functions, we can hardly remember a time that it was treated as a separate digital initiative.
Melissa Loble (27:53.207)
Bye.
Melissa Loble (28:01.677)
Right? Yes.
Ryan Lufkin (28:12.121)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Why would it be? It's so it's a thread that runs through everything, right?
Alana Heath (28:17.248)
Exactly. Sustainability is the same. It has to be the same. All employees need to have a five to 10 % sustainability lens on their job because that starts to do three things. It starts to empower the employees to be part of the impact that they want to create. It gets sustainability out of the box checking exercise, just meeting compliance and actually creating value for the company while
Melissa Loble (28:40.493)
Yeah. Yes.
Alana Heath (28:47.008)
making tangible progress on the social, economic and environmental challenges. And I think that sustainability lens, that's my framing when I think about this in the private sector, the world of work. And I think gaining that sustainability lens is foundational. And I believe you gain it through educational experiences.
Ryan Lufkin (28:49.703)
Yeah, yeah.
Melissa Loble (29:03.939)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (29:04.659)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (29:12.637)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (29:15.874)
that enable and equip those employees to learn how to apply their disciplinary skills to the aspects of sustainability that are appropriate for their job. Whether they're an engineer or an accountant or an analyst, those are going to require different lenses on sustainability and how they integrate it.
Ryan Lufkin (29:25.053)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (29:35.139)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (29:35.43)
It's interesting, that's a very similar answer. We've recently been talking about accessibility. Melissa is a big advocate for accessibility and it's the same kind of, it requires a mindset shift, right? So that accessibility, sustainability, these become just intrinsic to every effort of the organization and not a bolt on afterwards, but something that, from the first line of code that's written, from the first implementation of technology, this is just part of how we think baseline.
Melissa Loble (29:41.047)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Loble (29:47.416)
Yeah.
Alana Heath (29:57.998)
Exactly.
Melissa Loble (29:58.724)
Absolutely.
Melissa Loble (30:04.609)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's not that just checkbox, right? Yeah. It's not just that checkbox, right? It becomes, I now have the skills. So I think about teaching and, know, how few teachers, how would we incorporate sustainability in just our own way we deliver learning, let alone weaving it into a curriculum where you create that lens, right? That's, that's
Alana Heath (30:06.135)
I completely agree.
Ryan Lufkin (30:08.711)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (30:30.049)
like mind blowing to me and also we're early on in that journey, but it's exciting to think about how we, how we can make that transformation. And this leads me to a question, maybe not specifically about the technology or curriculum, but just more broadly. As you reflect on your journey with how to change the world so far, what's something that you're most proud of?
Alana Heath (30:58.051)
I am most, let's see, I'm most proud of...
Alana Heath (31:04.952)
how we took our, yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (31:04.967)
And if you want to think about it, yeah sorry, if you want to think about it for a second too, we can cut out that pause. I always love when we throw curve balls sometimes, but yeah, you just be like, I need a second on that.
Melissa Loble (31:10.487)
Yeah, yeah.
Alana Heath (31:10.861)
Okay.
Melissa Loble (31:15.083)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alana Heath (31:18.478)
Thank you. Maybe I'll start over that answer. I am most proud that we took our original understanding of experiential learning at scale and developed that into something that has already enabled, empowered and equipped thousands of students around the world with sustainability focused experiential learning and can enable experiential learning pedagogies and techniques.
to scale to millions of learners globally and impact the transformation of education to better inspire and equip learners all around the world.
Melissa Loble (31:59.662)
Yeah, you got a twofer. If I can call it that in like a very US slang way, it's like, you're having a double impact, right? It's about bringing the kind of curriculum and education in meaningful ways so that people can have an impact on day one, just like you said. And at the same time, you're introducing the world to experiential learning, which is a big reason why. I I love all the work you're doing. I love you as a human.
Ryan Lufkin (32:02.195)
Hahaha
Alana Heath (32:07.032)
haha
Melissa Loble (32:28.407)
But I also love, I'm very passionate about, we've got pedagogies that we've relied on for many, many years, and then we've got more modern takes on top of those. And we have to learn as educators how to take those modern approaches because that's how we're going to have a more exponential impact as opposed to relying on those, you know, such traditional methods and practices.
Alana Heath (32:51.912)
Absolutely. That was beautifully said, Melissa. couldn't agree more.
Ryan Lufkin (32:55.22)
Well, and so like any journey, there's speed bumps. You know, it sounds easy as we talk about, know, what you've built in kind of in a vacuum. I'm sure there are many, many speed bumps and roadblocks along the way. But based off of that, what kind of advice would you give to listeners looking to either build an organization focused on impact or wanting to infuse impact practices with their current organization? Where do they start?
Melissa Loble (32:58.116)
Thank you.
Alana Heath (33:24.75)
So many thoughts about this question, but I really, want to keep it concise. So the advice is helpful and actionable. Three things. One, use human design thinking principles as the foundation for designing and developing the impact you want.
Ryan Lufkin (33:26.352)
Ha ha.
Melissa Loble (33:32.788)
Love that.
Ryan Lufkin (33:41.338)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lufkin (33:46.023)
Love that.
Alana Heath (33:47.278)
Two, ensure that you are bringing diverse perspectives to your organization and the design of the practices. And this really means intentionally seeking out perspectives that come from different disciplines, different backgrounds, different generations.
Melissa Loble (33:52.215)
Mmm.
Ryan Lufkin (33:54.225)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (33:59.027)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (34:03.633)
Love that. Yeah, that's something that we don't always do instinctively, Yeah, yeah.
Melissa Loble (34:08.033)
Or we don't see. I'm thinking of all of the companies I've seen. You just that, that both of them hugely already great advice. And that number two, that's just not being done.
Alana Heath (34:08.694)
It's hard!
Alana Heath (34:19.022)
Well, and number three is impact is messy and complex. So a resilience mindset, develop a resilience mindset that will help you stay the course when the going gets tough. Cause it's not always easy and it's hard sometimes to see the impact you're having or even progress towards what you designed and are aiming towards. So that resilience mindset will really bring you through the tougher times.
Ryan Lufkin (34:23.323)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lufkin (34:33.585)
Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (34:46.397)
person.
Melissa Loble (34:47.525)
I love that. Such incredible advice. And maybe I can end on, because this has been such a great conversation, I could ask a hundred more questions. But maybe I can end on just more of a futurist question. Maybe you can put that futurist hat on. Where do you see the future of education going in the next three to five years?
Ryan Lufkin (34:59.304)
Hehehehehe
Alana Heath (35:05.934)
wow. high quality content is now becoming a rapidly digestible commodity.
Ryan Lufkin (35:09.523)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Lufkin (35:15.325)
I like that. I'm stealing that actually. I will borrow that from you.
Melissa Loble (35:15.391)
Yes, I like that. my gosh. We're going to use that quote in presentations. I totally agree.
Alana Heath (35:19.854)
Well...
Alana Heath (35:24.302)
And it is one with decreasing margins. So I think the future of learning has to be based on the design of learning experiences. In a utopian future, I think this means that the boundaries between education and professional learning would become so fuzzy that they stop to matter. And there would be a well-structured experiential
learning or a set of well-structured experiential learning opportunities from from K to gray. In three to five years, that's probably a little ambitious. So on that timeline, what I see is that students will increasingly demand real world experiences as part of their education. Companies will
Melissa Loble (36:04.771)
I'm
Ryan Lufkin (36:04.818)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alana Heath (36:21.656)
shift their L &D programs towards experiences that change mindsets and change behaviors. And employees will choose to stay in or move to companies that provide experiences that develop their abilities to make a positive impact in the world.
Ryan Lufkin (36:38.002)
Yeah, I love that. That's awesome. And I think we're starting to see that already, right? I love that, but like nothing happens. We were just talking about back to the future and where is our flying car and our hoverboard, right? Like nothing happens as fast as we think it's going to, but it's nice to look at the possible outcomes.
Melissa Loble (36:40.195)
my gosh
Yeah.
Alana Heath (36:52.034)
Hahaha
Melissa Loble (36:52.247)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (36:55.586)
Yeah.
Melissa Loble (36:59.022)
Yeah, that is just incredible. Alana, thank you so much for your time. There's so much incredible insight that you've shared with us. And I know I'm leaving inspired. I suspect Ryan is too. And I know our listeners will too. We'll make sure to include in the show notes for all our listeners information on how to change the world. Super secret, Alana and I are gonna work on some.
Ryan Lufkin (37:12.561)
Yeah, absolutely.
Ryan Lufkin (37:20.573)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Loble (37:24.704)
some experiential learning, white papers and some things like that together. So we'll make sure as those come out, we include those and all sorts of really great information. So Alana, thank you so much for being here and thank you for the work you do. Yeah.
Ryan Lufkin (37:27.699)
Excellent.
Ryan Lufkin (37:35.933)
Thank you so much. This has been incredible.
Alana Heath (37:39.199)
wow. Thank you, Ryan, Melissa, for having me, giving an opportunity for me to share my thoughts. I really appreciate being here.
Ryan Lufkin (37:47.667)
Thanks again.
