#17 Supporting Every Learner: Understanding Developmental Coordination Disorder with Caroline Huron
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) affects roughly one child in every classroom. As common as dyslexia yet far less recognized, DCD can significantly impact a child’s daily school experience.
In this episode, Caroline Huron sheds light on the unique challenges faced by children with DCD and explores practical ways to support their learning and inclusion. Drawing from cognitive science research and real-world classroom practice, she highlights how collaboration between researchers, teachers, and children themselves leads to more inclusive and effective educational environments.
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#16 Beyond Education: Building the Future of Learning, with Nathan Roberson
The jobs of the future are uncertain, and education is evolving fast. As we move beyond the industrial model toward competency-based learning, how can we empower human-centered education?
In this episode, we explore with Nathan Roberson how advancing 21st Century Competencies - like creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking - can make education truly transformative. He shares insights from Beyond Education’s development of innovative tools to assess and support these future-ready skills.
While the path ahead is full of tensions, it also holds immense opportunity. Together, we imagine an education system that not only prepares learners for work, but helps them shape a more sustainable and compassionate future.
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#15 A New Paradigm: Healing Centered Engagement, with Shawn Ginwright
In this episode of R&D Unplugged, we explore together with Prof. Shawn Ginwright how institutions can better support young people who have experienced harm. While trauma-informed care is a vital framework, he shows why it can be incomplete - often creating blind spots that limit healing. Blending research with personal stories, Dr. Ginwright highlights how racial and social inequality compound trauma and why a new vision is needed.
He introduces Healing Centered Engagement, an approach that expands beyond trauma-informed care by shifting systems from harm, discipline, and punishment toward restoration, hope, and well-being. This episode invites educators, practitioners, and policymakers to reimagine institutions as spaces not just of intervention, but of renewal - where resilience, joy, and thriving become possible.
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#14 Why We Fear Ugly Fruit—And How to Unlearn It, with Carina Castagna
Why do we reject fruits and vegetables just because they look imperfect?
Let's explore the invisible biases in our brains that drive food waste—and how learning can help shift them.Drawing from six psychological experiments and a neuroscience study using eye-tracking, Carina Castagna shares how aesthetic imperfections trigger risk aversion in the brain’s more primitive regions, leading to the unnecessary disposal of edible produce.
But there’s a powerful insight: when people are encouraged to think abstractly, this wasteful bias drops significantly.
What does it means for education, behavior change, and sustainability transitions? The talk offers practical implications for teaching sustainability and reframing how young people—and adults—learn to care about food and waste.
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#13 Bridging disciplines: process-oriented co-design approaches to complex challenges, Olga Kokshagina
Tackling complex challenges—whether in healthcare, education, or climate change—demands breaking down disciplinary silos and actively collaborating with diverse stakeholders. Traditional approaches often fall short, making it crucial to adopt longitudinal, process-driven methods.
This episode dives into how action-based research and co-design methodologies can deepen our understanding of complex problems and drive meaningful change. Through real-world, multi-year collaborative projects—including partnerships with the WHO on health guideline design, studies on managing online communities to advance cancer epidemiology, and challenge-based learning initiatives—we explore how to effectively bridge research and practice in dynamic, interdisciplinary settings.
Welcome to "R&D Unplugged", a podcast from the Learning Planet Institute that delves into the real-world impact of research. Each episode features an insightful conversation with a leading researcher who shares their journey, key findings, and the practical implications of their work.
Our aim is to make complex research accessible and relatable. How research addresses critical global challenges, providing concrete examples of its impact on society? Listen to us and gain valuable insights into how research bridges the gap between theory and practice, transforming lives and communities!
Through engaging stories and clear explanations, "R&D Unplugged" demonstrates the vital role of research in solving real-world problems. Whether you're a student, a professional, or simply curious about the world, our podcast offers a unique perspective on how research drives positive change. Join us and be inspired to see how research can make a difference!
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