Zach sits down with Guide co-founder Mike Yates to discuss the future of learning. Mike shares what he thinks are the top three things that are changing within the world of learning. He also lists a few ways he thinks organizations will need to adjust for future workforces.

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TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach, and you're listening to Living Corporate. And today we're talking about the workforce of the future, okay? So you've heard some conversations that we've had with Tim Salau a few times about the future of work, and, you know, it's just a really prominent topic because the workforce is changing, and the dynamics and the cultural makeup--not just from an ethnic perspective or sexual orientation, but from a generational perspective--is shifting, so we're really excited to talk about the future of learning with Mike Yates. Mike taught in a traditional school setting for five years before entering his current role, where he designs curriculum, plans projects, and motivates students to break all of the rules. His passion is in change and finding the next set of large innovations to the classroom through the use of adaptive learning technology and artificial intelligence. The world is rapidly changing and innovating, and it is his belief that schools must follow that trend. So with that being said, Mike, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?




Mike: Thank you so much. I'm really good. I'm excited to be here. I'm actually a pretty--I'm a regular listener, so I'm excited to be on this podcast.




Zach: Stop playing. You listen to Living Corporate?




Mike: Yeah. I'm a listener. I listen to it through Apple Podcasts, and I love the--I love the podcast. I actually saw stuff about Living Corporate via LinkedIn or Twitter. I cannot remember where I saw it first.




Zach: Okay.




Mike: Yeah, yeah, but I started listening a while ago. So, like, I've recently listened to the one--like, Ramadan at Work.




Zach: Whaaat? Stop playing.




Mike: Yeah, yeah. Respectability Politics, yeah.




Zach: That's awesome. Okay, well, hey. First of all, we're already--we're honored, but definitely certainly flattered and happy about the fact that you enjoy the show. So look, we gave a little bit of an intro for you from the top. For those of us who don't know you, what would you mind telling us about yourself?




Mike: Yeah, yeah. So one of the things--like, I just saw this meme on the internet that said, like, "I wish I loved somebody the way that people from Houston love being from Houston," and I'm one of the people that makes that true. I love being from Houston. That's where I'm from. So, you know, NBA Finals time I'm a little hurt, 'cause I thought the Rockets should have played better, but--




Zach: Yeah, man. It was tough, right?




Mike: Yeah, yeah. But I'm from Houston. I'm from a family of educators. My mom is a teacher. I basically grew up in school. I grew up in the classroom. I am married. I have four amazing children, an amazing wife.




Zach: Oh, man. Congratulations to that.




Mike: Thank you, yeah, yeah. Our house is nuts.




Zach: I'll bet.




Mike: Yeah. [laughs] It is. But that's one of my favorite parts about my life, the grind that I have for them. And so my passion is education. I have tried to avoid the career field for as long as I could, because when growing up I thought to myself "Oh, you know, educators don't make any money," but the gravitational pull of education was too strong for me. I became really curious about it after I graduated from college and I got into planning education programs for the United Way in-between Austin and San Antonio. Once I started doing that, I entered the classroom as a teacher and fell in love with the field. I'm also an educator that is convinced that everybody is lying when they tell you that you can't make money in education, things like that. "You can't be happy in education." "You can't have work-life balance in education." I am seeking to create trends within education that show you that all of those things are possible.




Zach: Man, that's incredible. And, you know, I really respect--first of all, you know, there's articles--I feel like you see articles every other month about the importance of even having just black male teachers in the classroom, so shout-out to you, shout-out to educators. Shout-out to my wife who's an educator, as well as my--




Mike: Your wife?




Zach: Yeah, man. My wife is in education. She's been teaching for some years, and then my mother is a principal of an elementary school. She's been in education for 32 years.




Mike: Wow, that's great. That's phenomenal.




Zach: Yeah, man. And then, you know, my in-laws, they come from a--there's a deep family of educators there as well. So yeah, man, shout-out to educators. Shout-out to those who, like, reach back and are really trying to shape the future of the world. Like, it's so undervalued and just underappreciated. So yeah, definitely a shout-out to you, and a shout-out to your family, man. That's awesome. So look, let's talk about this. Let's talk a little bit about the future of learning. So in your profile, right, like, when people look you up, you know, you talk about the world changing and, by relation, learning methods along with it. So what would you say are the top three things changing within the world of learning?




Mike: So that's a great question, and I think that the #1 thing is--the way I would describe it is the urgency. There is going to be a shift in the way that people attend school, and that's what I mean when I say urgency. Like, how you get information and how quickly it comes to you. So right now, especially through K-12 education and even into college, education is sit and get, right? It's like, you trust that this person has the content knowledge to teach you, and so you sit and listen to lectures and take notes, and hopefully you retain enough to prove that you should get a job later in the future. The future of learning is different. The future of learning is gonna be on-demand. Learning is going to come to the person. The execution that you can see today would be, like, a Western Governors University where all of their courses are online. You can take them at your own pace. You have one mentor that you interact with your entire time, whether you're in undergrad or grad school, and you can get your college degree that way. The second thing that I think is changing in the world of learning is quite honestly students. One of the saddest things to think about in education is the idea that, like, education is the last frontier in the United States of America that remains without innovation. You walk into any public school, you will see desks in rows, you will see--you might even see chalkboards that have been there since the '60s, '70s, '40s in some cases, right? It is a model that is antiquated and has not responded to the change in people, the change in interest, the change in, like, you cannot educate students the way that you used to, right? And then the last thing that I think is changing in the world of education is technology, technology in and outside of the field. You know, artificial intelligence, machine learning, like, we have figured out how to make machines and devices do more for us today than ever before. When we were in school--I don't know if you remember this, but my teacher used to always tell me, "Mike, you have to show your work when you're doing math, because you won't always have a calculator with you."




Zach: Yes. [laughs] Wow, wait a minute. Pause right there. Yo, that was a lie. Like [inaudible]--




Mike: Right?




Zach: The teacher definitely said you're not always gonna have--they'd be like, "What are you gonna do if you don't have a calculator with you?" Like, there's nowhere--you always have a calculator with you now. You have a phone.




Mike: Always, yeah. I have a calculator, a media company, a personal assistant. I have [inaudible].




Zach: Everything, yes.




Mike: Everything, right? And that's what's so beautiful about the future of learning, right? Because up until now teachers tried to prepare students for the existing work world, but now you have a movement of educators and a movement of schools that are trying to prepare students for jobs that don't exist yet, right? And the calculator--you know, the iPhone is the perfect example. Like, no teacher in 1995 would ever believe you if you would have told them there's gonna be a flat glass device that you're gonna touch, and you can call, it can talk to you, it can be a calculator, right? They would never believe that. So I am fortunate to have been raised by an educator, you know, being my mom, who would tell me, like, "We don't know what the world's gonna look like when you go to work, so you have to be in your head. You have to imagine. You have to always look forward." And my mother very much so made me a futurist, so all I do is think about "What's the world gonna be like 10, 15 years in the future?" And that's why I think technology is so exciting, and it's--you know, if I'm talking about, you know, the last major change, you know, adaptive learning technology is going to do more for students than the best teacher ever could, and I--you know, adaptive learning tech is--if you don't know, it's technology that--like, let's say I'm in a math application. If I'm in 6th grade, it will give me a set of questions that are at a 6th grade difficulty. If I do well on those questions and prove to the app that I know 6th grade content, it will automatically move me up to 7th grade math. If I don't know a 6th grade concept, it will move me down to 5th grade until I master that concept, it'd move me back up to 6th grade and let me keep mastering and moving up. That is so much more efficient than even your best math teacher that it will change--in the future, tha