Listen "Rethinking Higher Education"
Episode Synopsis
This episode of The Educator's Lens follows Dr. Olaby reflecting on how a Harvard Graduate School of Education course reshaped her views on admissions, evaluation, and teaching. Key ideas include Kahn’s critique of democratic inequality, Freire’s problem-posing alternative to the banking model, and Yosso’s community cultural wealth.
She describes concrete changes she made revising participation criteria, expanding access to mentorship, using pulse check-ins and peer circles, and introducing the H-U-M-A-N framework (Honor lived experience, Understand context, Motivate meaning, Adapt feedback, Nurture growth), to support first-generation and working-class students in technical fields.
The episode closes with a call for equity audits and policy redesign to lift standards in ways that recognize students’ assets, foster belonging, and dismantle hidden hierarchies in higher education.
She describes concrete changes she made revising participation criteria, expanding access to mentorship, using pulse check-ins and peer circles, and introducing the H-U-M-A-N framework (Honor lived experience, Understand context, Motivate meaning, Adapt feedback, Nurture growth), to support first-generation and working-class students in technical fields.
The episode closes with a call for equity audits and policy redesign to lift standards in ways that recognize students’ assets, foster belonging, and dismantle hidden hierarchies in higher education.
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