Behind the Scenes

Behind the Mic: Exclusive Podcast Chats with BrainPOP Experts

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I live for a great podcast. I’ve got a handful on rotation across a range of themes: education, marketing, organizational psychology, world events, culture, and beyond. And because I love a great story, I deeply appreciate that the format enables thoughtful, animated conversation and the development of a rich narrative around individual experience and expertise. The best episodes open my mind to new ideas, expand my perspective on what is possible, and stimulate my curiosity to learn more. 

BrainPOPers (including yours truly) have spent quality time in the guest seat of some stand-out education podcasts. Read on and tune in for resonant sound bytes from our team’s recent interviews. Whether you’re listening in transit, on a run, or in your favorite cozy chair, you’ll get behind-the-scenes insights into the BrainPOP brand story, products, and impact from the vantage point of thought leaders across the organization. 

Most Recent Podcast Episodes:

1. Edtech Insiders: The Intersection of Video, Assessment, and AI in Education: BrainPOP’s Vision with Scott Kirkpatrick

Full episode

BrainPOP CEO Scott Kirkpatrick often speaks about his work in education as an extension of a life dedicated to service. A former officer in the Coast Guard, Scott’s career has spanned preK to grad school readiness, as well as adult learning, upskilling, and reskilling. His journey to BrainPOP reflects a recognition that the future of work and the future of humanity hinges on developing higher-order thinking and critical thinking among our youngest learners. In this conversation with Alex Sarlin of Edtech Insiders, Scott shared how BrainPOP, currently marking its 25th year, continues to innovate and impact by leveraging technology to meet the ever-evolving needs of educators while staying true to the spirit of learning that kids know and love.

  • “I always knew about BrainPOP, I knew this love, but I will tell you, I actually didn’t realize the power of the brand until I joined the company. And I’ll just say one of my first experiences, I went to one of the big edtech conferences, and immediately went to our booth. And when I saw a line over 100 deep to get a selfie with Moby, I realized, okay, there’s something really special here.”
  • ‘When you think about the problems of education, they’re big, and educators need support. But I think what we always want to do is do it in a way that brings joy. And unfortunately, in these days, joy is not as big as it should be in learning. And so, whatever problem we solve, whatever job we do, it is always going to be having joy as the way to succeed in that, versus, you know, pounding other ways to do it. So that is, I think that balance that will always do to ensure that we sustain and expand for another 25 years.”
  • “Everything is about choice for us, and student agency. And what our characters do is, their whole job is to model the joy of learning so kids can make their own evidence-based conclusions. And so, as we think about any enhancement we make, agency is absolutely critical to everything that we do. And I think one of the things that I’m very excited about for the future of education is the future of assessment. And really, when you think about assessment and AI, what I think we’ll see in the future is, is no longer having standardized tests where kids will fill in multiple choice questions. And artificial intelligence will allow us to assess and measure skills for each student. And so when you have that, everything can be about agency. And then you start measuring different skills, such as creative thinking, critical thinking, computation, things that are so important, but been very difficult to measure over time. So that impact of agency is going to be more and more felt as we can actually have different assessment capabilities.”

2. eSchool News Innovation Insights: BrainPop at 25—New CPO Jay Chakrapani Discusses the Past, Present, and Plans for the Future

Full episode

Leading up to the annual International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference, BrainPOP Chief Product Officer Jay Chakrapani shared back-to-school 2024 product highlights with Kevin Hogan, content director at eSchool Media. Jay has spent most of his 25+ year career devoted to technological innovation in education, driven by the desire to impact for future generations. Speaking about BrainPOP’s approach to creating products based on the notion “that ideas themselves are interesting,” he explored how techniques like storytelling and characters, coupled with advances in technology, enable more effective teaching and learning. 

  • “This year we are introducing some really new capabilities and new features that will just make teachers’ lives easier and will help students grow.”
  • [On BrainPOP] “We’ve been really on a mission to say, ‘How do we build and springboard off of our movies to really give teachers tools for differentiation and students a platform in which they can show what they know?’ And so, we’re introducing leveled readings, where we now have fiction and nonfiction passages, grade-leveled and Lexile-leveled, that can be delivered to students, that key off of the movies. We’re also introducing vocab builder that lets students practice their vocabulary with that grade-appropriate, leveled word bank that really align with our characters that they know and love. We’re introducing grade-leveled quizzes that go beyond multiple choice questions, really with these technology-enhanced items that mirror the format of what they’re going to expect in benchmark and state tests. It’s what teachers and students have grown to love with BrainPOP with now a rigor that will make it just really easy for teachers and students to grow.”
  • [On BrainPOP Science and AI] “We go back to the basics, and we just say, ‘What is something we can do, now that we have this really super duper general-purpose tool? What can we do then to connect that to solving a problem?’ And we know that in science, you can do physical labs, you can introduce scientific concepts, but really the thing that is required is to build curious thinkers that can take a methodical approach, a scientific approach to problem solving and then showing evidence that they have gone through sort of a scientific thinking process. […] What we’re using AI for is to provide grading on open-ended responses and natural language feedback. […] And then from there, we’re using generative AI, partnered with Google on this, we’re using Gemini 1.5, and we built our own prompt context on top of that to provide natural language feedback that the teacher can then deliver to their students.”

3. All Things Marketing and Education: The Role of Communication in Education and Beyond

Full episode

I sat down with Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, to take a deep dive into our shared passion for storytelling and brand building. From listening tours with colleagues and educators to evolving a brand while staying true to the core, we spoke about the importance of continuous learning, especially when you’re working in education and edtech. I shared my perspective as both a BrainPOP “insider” and a mom of an elementary schooler who has grown up with Tim, Moby, Annie, and the gang.

  • “I like to look at a brand as a promise, which means, every touchpoint and every experience that you have when you come into contact with that brand, what holds true? And for us, it’s about BrainPOP being the highlight of a student’s day. It’s about the long-lasting impact of that student and that learning experience and how they carry that with them. It’s about being a trusted partner to the educators that we serve.”
  • “I see BrainPOP through the eyes of a person who works at the company, but also through the eyes of my daughter, who’s almost 10. And she’s been using BrainPOP for as long as I can remember. And sometimes she’ll come to me and say a fact or some interesting bit of information, and I’m wondering, ‘Where did she learn that?’ In many cases, it’s BrainPOP.”
  • “We all have a story. We just need someone to invite us to share it. […] This is as true of your colleagues as it is of your customers, of educators, of administrators. Everyone brings knowledge and perspective and wisdom, and most of that is just living inside their heads, because they do it every day. And to them, it’s probably quite obvious, right? This expertise is just something that they activate, but it may not be as obvious to the outside world, and there are some gems there.”
  • “Everything I learned about education, I learned at BrainPOP. I learned from the people that I worked with. I learned from the teachers that I talked to. I learned from parents.”

4. Classroom Dynamics: A Teacher Podcast: Boosting Science Literacy with BrainPOP Science for Middle School Success

Full episode

Dr. Michelle Newstadt, product strategy director, science at BrainPOP, joins NYCPS educator Adam Todd as part of a special interview series with thought leaders in STEM education. Together they explored Michelle’s journey from the classroom to BrainPOP, the nuances of an evolving science classroom, and the educational imperative of becoming an equally strong scientific thinker and a communicator of one’s discoveries. Michelle also shared why trial, error, and reflection is integral to the engineering process, and how BrainPOP Science cultivates this approach.

  • “My goal as a teacher wasn’t necessarily for every learner that I had to become a scientist, but I wanted every learner that I had to see that they can think and be a scientist. They can think critically. They can analyze. They can write and have an evidence-based statement at the end. And I think that’s the evolution of the science classroom these days.”
  • “So, what we do in BrainPOP Science is we have our stimulus, our data manipulative, our simulation, our movie, and we actually ask questions that are very, very similar to what a learner might see on a summative assessment, but it’s super low stakes, and it’s also scaffolded, so a learner is actually practicing and getting ready for that assessment, or getting ready for high school.”
  • “If you asked me that maybe 20 years ago, I would have laughed and said, I picked science as a major because I didn’t want to read or write, and boy was I wrong. Really the most important skill that I have from the research side, from the science side, is the ability to write.”
  • “If there’s a single solution, it’s not going to be an engineering project for us. We want learners to approach it, and as I said earlier, the solution itself is not that important, but we don’t want to learn and think there’s a single right answer, because that’s really not how engineering works in the real world.”

5. Classroom Dynamics: A Teacher Podcast: Moby, Diversity, and Professional Growth

Full episode

Dr. Barbara Hubert, senior director of learning design, BrainPOP K–8 explores the powerful intersection of engagement and rigor in BrainPOP with host Adam Todd. With a passion for learner diversity and literacy, Barbara unpacks the buzzwords to explore why creating entry points for each learner should be the rule, not the exception.

  • ”I come from a special education and literacy background, and so, I’m constantly thinking about both learner diversity but also literacy—how we make strong readers and excited readers—and we know that background knowledge plays a really, really critical role in becoming a fluent and strategic reader. So, I also love to think of BrainPOP as giving kids, all kids, entries into building that background. So, we’re kind of all on this level playing field of, when we’re engaging with the text, when we’re coming up against new ideas, really all being able to be in conversation about it, regardless of where our learning paths have taken us to that point.”
  • “Rigor is holding a high standard for every student, but supporting them in meeting that high standard. And that high standard is a high thinking standard. Yes, it’s driven by standards—What am I supposed to be doing or knowing in that grade level?—but it’s really about creating tasks and lessons and just learning experiences that are at that right level of challenge, that, you know, that Zone of Proximal Development. I’m meeting you there, and I know where to go next. So, there is their struggle. It’s not frustrating. It’s productive. It’s exciting struggle.” 
  • “There is no one size fits all. Learner diversity is at the center of every human, every classroom.”
  • “The role of edtech is to make learning better and make your jobs easier because it’s embedding good learning into the product.”

6. Class Tech Tips: Building Background Knowledge and Learning New Vocabulary in Any Subject Area

Full episode

BrainPOP Chief of Staff Karina Linch—who began her BrainPOP journey as an intern while pursuing her masters in education, and went on to develop BrainPOP Jr. and voice the role of Annie—explored how BrainPOP continues to evolve to meet the needs of educators. In conversation with educator, author, and edtech consultant Dr. Monica Burns, Karina spoke about the product journey, from movies that build background knowledge to learning activities that empower students to apply their knowledge and enable educators to assess skill development. Karina also shared what her favorite days look like. Hint: Her heart is still in the classroom!

  • “We’re continuing to evolve as a platform that demonstrates learning outcomes. So we’re providing actionable insights that save teachers time while surfacing insights into students’ biggest areas of misconception and where they could use additional skills practice. And we’re also diving deeper into solutions that help teachers with hard to teach new standards.”
  • “Students need background knowledge to make sense of the text they’re going to engage with, but sometimes the only way that we provide in schools for them to acquire background knowledge is through texts. And that’s really where I think technology can come in and help level the playing field.”
  • “There’s this expression that every teacher is a literacy teacher, because literacy skills are really needed, they really need to be incorporated across the curriculum. You know, literacy is a communication skill, and students need to be able to communicate their thinking in math, science, social studies, every subject in the classroom, and then in the real world, right?”

7. Learning Can’t Wait: Edtech’s Sweetheart

Full episode

Drs. Michelle Newstadt and Barbara Hubert spoke with host Hayley Spira-Bauer, CEO of Fullmind (formerly iTutor), about their nonlinear professional journeys to become learning designers. They shared how their experiences as students and teachers directly impacted their drive to support educators and expand access and opportunity for the next generation. Barbara talked about BrainPOP’s enduring connection with kids through a unique combination of joy, playfulness, humor, and rigor. Michelle, who spearheads the pedagogy behind BrainPOP Science, shared why meeting kids where they are and encouraging productive struggle is mission critical. Finally, they offered advice to teachers starting their careers.

  • “In addition to connecting with kids, we build that background knowledge. We build that vocabulary in a really wonderful and seamless way. The literacy skills that we know kids need to make meaning and transfer to other spaces have sort of always been built into it. I think one of the biggest shifts that we’ve made is that now we’re making it explicit.”
  • “Even though our standards have been out for quite a long time now, a lot of states, a lot of districts, are really pushing now for multidimensional science. So, in what we’re doing, we’re really trying to scaffold claim, evidence, and reasoning experience and process into our whole learner experience. So, this really builds on the idea of seeing the content and practices in multiple forms, in multiple concepts, so a student can see the application, so they can hopefully transfer that knowledge, and also really build in evidence-based writing skills. […] With all that, there are still opportunities for data to come back to the teacher, to come back to a learner, so we can see that growth over time.”
  • “How do we infuse choice? How do we infuse wonder and delight, and then also, alongside, really thinking about how we universally design this learning  experience and how we have options for differentiating?”

8. No Silly Questions – An Education Podcast for Parents: Why Does My Kid Think I Have the Answer to Everything?

Full episode

As a former educator and mom of three, it’s safe to say Karina knows a thing or two about quality educational content. She joined No Silly Questions hosts Danielle Freilich and Jordana Fruchter for a lively conversation spanning BrainPOP’s approach to engaging kids by modeling curiosity, skill building, and fostering a love for learning. She also shared tips from her own family’s educational repertoire, including “BrainPOP for Breakfast,” and the importance of making connections and reinforcing what kids are learning at school.

  • “There’s all kinds of research that when kids are more engaged and curious, they are going to be paying more attention. They are going to be leaning forward in their seats.”
  • “A really important principle for us at BrainPOP is to not talk down to kids.”
  • “Most good programming has a dual agenda: They’re building background knowledge about the things that kids are curious about, and building vocabulary, but they’re also usually developing some important skills at the same time.”
  • “Maybe you’re one of those amazing parents who can explain the science behind why leaves change color in the fall. For the rest of us, there’s BrainPOP.” 
  • “We really strive to present any topic in a developmentally appropriate way, with extreme sensitivity. Ideally there will be an adult—either a parent or teacher that is guiding and scaffolding a discussion around the content that we’re presenting.”

Ilana Kurizki is VP, communications and social impact at BrainPOP. She just celebrated her 14th year with the company.

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