Getting Students Out of the Textbook with Hall Davidson

In this episode, Dave sits down with Hall Davidson from Discovery Education. Hall tells us about his long career in education and about his current passion, the free California Student Media Festival challenge for students worldwide. They also discuss the autonomy that classrooms often have compared to the limitations imposed by rigid assessments that don't end up serving the student's futures. Hall goes on to discuss the importance of "getting out of the textbook", grabbing the attention of your students and turning them into thinkers that can problem solve! He is excited and passionate about the fact that he sees students every day taking ownership of the planet and coming up with real solutions to some of this world's biggest challenges!

Hall's session from ScIC9: https://www.thepocketlab.com/video/scic9/discovery-education 

Discovery Education Virtual Field Trips: https://tinyurl.com/symposiumft 

Venture Valley Game: https://venturevalleygame.com/ 

Media Festival: https://www.mediafestival.org/ 

Discovery Education: https://discoveryeducation.com/ 

Hall’s document of resources link: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceFreeDE and https://tinyurl.com/hdhandouts 

ABOUT Hall

Hall Davidson has worked from think tanks in Turkey to classrooms in Tennessee. He has collaborated with thought leaders including teachers, superintendents, and departments of education. A former K-12 bilingual math teacher and college faculty member, he left the classroom to become part of an Emmy-winning team, creating math and technology integration programs. For forty years, he has been an educational innovator in important waves of change, first in broadcasting, then computers, and now digital learning. His talks blend humor, deep insight, and data from both education and industry and illustrate the big picture with nuts and bolts examples. He has worked with transformational industry groups, education ministries, and with thousands of students through the guidance of the nation’s oldest student media festival. Across four decades of work with education, he identifies right now as the most transformative and important time for teaching and learning.

As the Senior Director of Global Learning Initiatives for Discovery Education, Hall uses his passion to work with students and teachers to create effective and engaging curricula. Hall holds the deep belief that both students and teachers learn best by being content creators, not consumers. Hall's esteemed career in education has led him to work with resources, award programming, technologies, and experiences that help learners gain insight by reflecting and becoming creators.

Get in contact with Hall at https://twitter.com/HallDavidson