In this episode of MEP, Justin Ballou joins me to discuss about competency based education and his education startup, Socrademy. Don’t miss it!
Guest Bio
Justin Ballou teaches social studies at Campbell High School in Litchfield, New Hampshire. With a focus on competency-based education and personalized learning, he is constantly pushing the envelope in the current educational environment in order to foster the abilities of students on their journey to becoming life-long learners.
He is the founder of education startup Socrademy, a personalized learning platform that delivers a highly qualified and targeted diploma focused on a student’s future aspirations.
Justin is also an entrepreneur engaged in skateboard equipment and apparel, and independent music production and distribution.
He graduated from Plymouth State University with a B.S. in Social Science and minor in Education.
Show Notes
(01:50) Justin’s background
(06:00) What does competency-based education look like in your classroom? Can you paint the picture – there’s the student picture and the teacher picture.
(10:50) Can you focus on Social Science, what a competency would be and how you test a student on that?
(14:45) How long has Campbell been using competency based education and who started it?
(19:13) Is there any specific student information system or LMS that the school is using?
(21:00) Talk about what Socrademy is and what problems it’s trying to solve.
(25:16) How’s the progress been so far? What has been the positives and negatives of the experience so far in this venture?
(31:00) If you could have dinner with one person, past or present, who would it be and why?
* Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Links
For more episodes featuring thought leaders in education visit MeetEducationProject.com, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and follow Nick DiNardo on Twitter.