S5E18: Glenn Whitman and Ian Kelleher on Bridging Learning Science and Classroom Reality

Welcome back to Progressively Incorrect. I’m your host, Dr. Zach Groshell.

In this episode, I sit down with Ian Kelleher and Glenn Whitman of the Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning (CTTL). We began with the origin story of CTTL — how they set out to bridge mind, brain, and education science with real classroom practice — but we quickly moved into something deeper.

This wasn’t just a conversation about research. It became a conversation about what it will actually take to improve schools using the science of learning.

We explored the tension between neuroscience and cognitive science, the responsibility teachers have (and shouldn’t have) when it comes to research literacy, and the persistent implementation gap that stands between knowing the science and using it well.

We also dug into scaling: how do you expand research-informed practice across systems without diluting it into “brain-based” buzzwords? And how do you balance structure and explicit instruction with the emotional and motivational dimensions of learning that CTTL emphasizes?

Rather than staying abstract, we pushed into the practical realities: teacher preparation, leadership, school culture, and the long-term legacy of this work.

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Questions We Explored

• What problem in schools led to the creation of CTTL?
• What does it mean to be a “research-informed teacher” in practice?
• How do we avoid neuromyths while still translating brain research into classroom strategies?
• Why is implementation so hard—even for educators who believe in the science?
• What does it take to scale learning science without reducing it to a checklist?
• How should schools balance emotion, belonging, and motivation with clarity and explicit instruction?
• Twenty years from now, what would it mean for this work to have truly succeeded?

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Books I can actually recommend…

The podcast you’re listening to is sponsored by John Catt from Hachette Learning and hosted by Dr. Zach Groshell. John Catt publishes some of the best books in education, including my book, Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching.

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