We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tricia Friedman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tricia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned in school and why that lesson is important to you?

Being a critical researcher will bring you so much power. My grad school experience really opened my mind up to how useful it can be to make it a sustainable practice to engage with ‘what the research says’ as it pertains to your specific industry.

Recently AI powered tools like Consensus have made it much easier to access and engage with research. We need to be evidence backed in education, and we know that leaders need to blend storytelling with data. So how can we integrate research more readily into our media diet?

I’ve made it a goal each week to dig into three different research articles. I find my work as a podcaster links up well to this–I try to take my research for a guest further as a researcher. Essentially what I am trying to do is learn more, but also model curiosity.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been in education for over two decades. I’ve worked and lived in seven different countries. What this has taught me is that many of our challenges in K12 education are the same despite geographic and cultural difference. We all want learning to be engaging, relevant and transformative.

What’s set me apart as a consultant is that I believe literacies are interwoven and underneath them is a deep need to do identity work and think critically about what communities can do to foster real belonging. I’m a big believer that our media literacy, information literacy and AI literacy work has got to think about inclusivity, equity and diversity first and foremost.

There is no more ‘human’ industry than education and learning that centers humanity first and foremost is going to help us in this deeply challenging time. What my partners often tell me about my approach that feels different is that I value the context and expertise of the community I partner with. For far too long educators have been underappreciated. Every single time I get to work with educators I want them to know I see them as remarkably talented folks.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met my business partner Jeff Utecht at a Learning2 conference in Milan. Jeff is one of the founders of Learning2, and he’s always been a huge advocate for fellow educators.

During the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, Jeff invited me to help him with a state-wide initiative to help upskill educatators to provide high quality online teaching. What I instantly liked about working together is that Jeff trusts his team and he knows how to listen deeply. He is keenly aware of what strengths others bring to the team and he loves to encourage others to lean into those strengths.

When you partner with someone you really want someone who will compliment your skills. I am a huge introvert and Jeff is massively extroverted. I think that partnership works surprisingly well. I also have to say that my partner sees me as a human first and foremost, he always takes the time to check in on how I am doing, how my wife and dog are and I know it matters to him in an authentic way. I know not everyone gets to work alongside someone who puts the personal first, and I will say in the longrun I wish more people did that because it does have the added bonus of making for a much more productive team.

How did you build your audience on social media?

We know educators do not have time to waste. So when it comes to our social media for Shifting Schools we do not waste the time of our followers. We try to make sure we offer a geniune added value. We provide a lot of protocols, a ton of free resources, and we stay laser focused on timely support.

I think at the end of the day the most crucial piece of advice is to notice and pay constant close attention to what people connect with. Your social media is about what your audience needs, not necessarily what you want to share. Value your audience consistently and creatively and you will grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shiftingschools.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tricia-friedman-allyed/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tricia_fried
• Other: https://pod.shiftingschools.com/