#44 The Science of Learning: How Fit Learning Drives Student Success with Kimberly Berens

In this episode of Why Distance Learning?, hosts Seth Fleischauer, Allyson Mitchell, and Tami Moehring are joined by Dr. Kimberly Berens, founder of Fit Learning and CEO of Fit Learning Online, to discuss the critical role of behavior science in education. Dr. Berens shares her journey from establishing Fit Learning in a small closet to growing it into a global network of centers that use science-based methods to produce dramatic academic gains for students in just 40 hours of training. The conversation delves into why many traditional educational practices don’t align with the science of learning, as well as how Fit Learning’s approach to measurable skills, immediate feedback, and fluency training can revolutionize student outcomes. Dr. Berens also addresses the adaptation of her program to online learning, emphasizing accessibility and the importance of skill mastery in a virtual environment.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The foundation of Fit Learning and Dr. Berens’ mission to improve educational practices worldwide.
• How behavior science informs Fit Learning's methods, focusing on measurable outcomes and frequent reinforcement.
• Differences between cognitive science and behavior science in education.
• Challenges in traditional education and how belief-based practices hinder student success.
• The concept of “fluent” learning, emphasizing skill mastery before moving to complex applications.
• Online learning’s role in making behavior-based education more accessible.

Guest Bio:
Dr. Kimberly Berens is the founder of Fit Learning and CEO of Fit Learning Online. With over two decades of experience, she has created a system of instruction grounded in behavior science that consistently delivers rapid academic growth. Her work has expanded to include centers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia, along with Fit Learning Online to reach learners in underserved areas. Her book, Blind Spots: Why Students Fail and the Science That Can Save Them, explores the limitations of traditional educational practices and advocates for science-based methods.

Guest Links:

1. Fit Learning – fitlearning.com
2. Fit Learning Online – fitlearningonline.com
3. Dr. Kimberly Berens’ Personal Website – drkimberlyberens.com

Host Links:

• Discover more virtual learning opportunities and resources at CILC.org with Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell.
• Seth Fleischauer’s Banyan Global Learning uses technology to enhance digital and cultural competence in teachers and students.

Creators & Guests

Host

Allyson Mitchell

SF

Host

Seth Fleischauer

TM

Host

Tami Moehring

What is Why Distance Learning??

The Why Distance Learning? podcast is for educators who are engaged with live virtual learning experiences, whether they be content providers who produce and facilitate or educators who want to complement their curriculum and learn more about the medium. We interview content providers, industry professionals, field experts and educators who love and use live virtual learning.

Dive deep with Seth, Allyson, and Tami into the rapidly growing world of synchronous virtual and online education. Through in-depth interviews, explore how educators are leveraging videoconferencing, interactive virtual learning, and other education technologies like virtual field trips to revolutionize remote and distance learning. Discover the benefits and challenges of teaching at a distance. Learn how virtual engagement can enhance traditional instruction. Hear from distance learning experts using the latest EdTech tools to create unique remote learning opportunities for students and teachers alike. From content providers to administrators to EdTech entrepreneurs, this podcast reveals the human stories and innovative technologies shaping the future of virtual and online education. For anyone interested in transforming classrooms and learning through remote digital platforms, Why Distance Learning? charts a path forward.

Hosted by Seth Fleischauer of Banyan Global Learning and Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moehring of the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration.

Seth Fleischauer (00:01.118)
Hello everyone and welcome to Why Distance Learning, the podcast for educators who are engaged with live virtual learning experiences, whether they be content providers who produce and facilitate or educators who want to complement their curriculum and learn more about the medium. We interview content providers, industry professionals, field experts and educators who love and use live virtual learning. And our guest this week is Dr. Kimberly Barons. Welcome Dr. Barons.

Kimberly Berens (00:25.317)
Hi, thanks for having me.

Seth Fleischauer (00:27.124)
Thanks so much for being here. We were introduced via the Bee Podcast Network. We've got a series of guests from there. So thank you so much to that network for setting us up. And your work is about the science of learning and applying that to education. It's kind of similar to an episode that we did number 31 with Thor Pritchard, who also was really seeped in like cognitive science.

and we'd love to dive into the science of, of learning and what that says about what teachers are doing, what they could be doing better and differently. but applicable to this podcast, during the pandemic, you also pivoted online like the rest of the world. And you've said that fit learning online works very similarly to the way that it does in person. And that's something that we'd love to dive into. but before we do that, let's have Tammy introduce you please.

Kimberly Berens (01:12.433)
Sure.

Kimberly Berens (01:16.337)
Great.

Tami Moehring (01:17.23)
I'd be happy to. Dr. Kimberly Barons is the founder of Fit Learning and CEO of Fit Learning Online. She co -created a powerful system of instruction based in behavior science and the technology of teaching, which has transformed the learning abilities of thousands of children worldwide. For more than 20 years, her system of instruction has produced at least one year's worth of academic growth and only 40 hours of training. Her learning programs effectively target such

such essential areas as early learning skills, basic classroom readiness, phonemic awareness, reading fluency, comprehension, inferential language, basic and advanced mathematics, logical problem solving, grammar, and expressive writing. From our early beginnings in a broom closet at the University of Nevada in Reno, Dr. Barron's has helped to grow fit learning to an organization with centers located throughout the US.

Canada, Europe, and Australia. In her current role as CEO of FitLearning Online, she focuses on increasing access for learners living in regions without a FitLearning center. Dr. Barron is a frequent invited speaker and a contributor to many popular press publications such as Thrive Global, 74 Million in Medium. Her first book, Blind Spots, Why Students Fail and the Science That Can Save Them was released in October of 2020.

Allyson (02:35.483)
Yay!

Seth Fleischauer (02:46.42)
October 2020, that seems like convenient timing.

Kimberly Berens (02:49.871)
Well, it wasn't supposed to happen that way. We moved up the, my editor moved up the release date when the closure, when the shutdown happened because my book was so, the content was so relevant to what was going on at time. So we actually sped up the release. It wasn't supposed to come out to the spring of that year, but we put it on fast forward. Because we thought it was a useful, you know.

Seth Fleischauer (03:13.812)
Yeah, so.

Kimberly Berens (03:17.487)
resource for parents and educators at that point. So anyway.

Seth Fleischauer (03:20.818)
Yeah, and break that down for us. Why this book? Why was it useful? Why at that time?

Kimberly Berens (03:26.811)
So, you know, I obviously wrote the book before COVID. And, you know, as a person who's been in the field of education for decades, in the private sector, you know, it was actually what I kind of call my rage, finally was my rage book.

Allyson (03:47.357)
Yes! Yes!

Seth Fleischauer (03:47.54)
You

Kimberly Berens (03:50.297)
just had had like, my God, enough is enough. And I do a lot of talking to parents one -on -one who reach out and need help. And I do as much media as I can. But the countless number of parents who come to me with the same problem, which is that their child has not been effectively educated in the classroom for a really long time.

They've tried every type of school support service. They've tried all these big tutoring conglomerates and nothing makes a difference. They're their kid has all these disabilities and they feel hopeless and helpless and powerless and so does their child. And it happens every single time. And every single time, I mean, I will be honest, less than 1 % of the time, is there anything actually wrong with that kid neurologically speaking?

99 % of the time that child has just been failed because to be frank, educational practices in the United States are not guided by the science of learning and school design is not guided by the science of learning. be honest with you, traditional teaching practices and school design are actually contraindicated by decades of scientific evidence. So it's just heart wrenching. And as someone who's tried to be an advocate for science -based instruction in schools and tried to get

and the people in charge to change course and act like scientists rather than ideologues, it's not ever worked. I've never been successful in making that shift happen on a grand scale. And so I decided to write the book because I feel like the only way this is ever gonna change is through a grassroots movement of parents and educators who've had enough is enough. And they're armed with information and knowledge about.

Allyson (05:11.922)
Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Berens (05:36.677)
what science actually indicates is required for learning to take place and for kids to actually master academic skills. And that's the only way schools are gonna change because they're based in belief systems and traditions, not scientific evidence. And that has to change. So I wrote the book because I'd had enough and I wanted to try to communicate with as many people as I could. And then pandemic hit and everything got worse. mean, you're already in a really bad situation when I wrote the

Allyson (05:54.92)
hehe

Kimberly Berens (06:06.055)
when I was writing the book and then COVID hit and now it's worse than it was. We were at 60 % below proficiency when I was writing the book and now we're at 70%. So our proficiency rates declined further as a function of COVID and they have not rebounded at all. So we're just in a worse situation than we were, which isn't surprising because nothing's changed. I mean, even all that tutoring funding, that ESSER funding that got applied to all the tutoring programs, but guess what? They all do the same stuff.

Allyson (06:30.205)
Mm.

Kimberly Berens (06:35.623)
Those big tutors, know, all the big noisy tutoring companies that have all the big marketing budgets and all the advertising dollars and get all the big contracts, they're not doing anything different. They're not using the science of learning. You know, they're doing the same stuff. So nothing's really worked or changed. And here we are, 2024.

Allyson (06:53.203)
Four years later, but you know what that means? That just means you get enough fire to then go for the second book or, you know, edition number two and you get to say, look again, look again. That was, that was how Tammy and I were inspired to write together our book where we were truly just like, nobody is listening. Like, you just want to be like, we, are so much facts, evidence, years and years of studies put together. So.

Kimberly Berens (06:54.66)
I'm not a teacher.

Kimberly Berens (07:05.425)
Right.

Kimberly Berens (07:13.392)
Yes.

Seth Fleischauer (07:13.94)
You

Allyson (07:21.809)
I mean, good for you to be able just to use that passion the right way and put it down in word.

Kimberly Berens (07:26.971)
Right?

Seth Fleischauer (07:27.952)
Yeah, and you're telling a story here of, you know, you have this knowledge, you have this body of work, the science of learning, right? It's huge. And you tell the story of like, you know, you're telling people, but they're not changing. You hinted that it's a belief system, right? Traditions that you're running into. That's the reason it's not changing. What are those belief systems that you're running into?

Kimberly Berens (07:54.767)
Yeah. So and I talk about this in my book. education actually started really, well, the public education system began as an idea, an idea of how to promote our democracy, to be quite honest. Like back in the in the turn of the 20th century when this all started happening, the idea, before

Before that, it was a privilege to receive an education in the United States. It was mainly people who had money and they could afford tutors or to send their kids to private institutions. But the majority of kids didn't get educated in the United States. And that changed with the launch of public education, which was an unbelievable idea. It was based in a really amazing concept, which is every kid has the right to be educated. And it helps our democracy if we have an educated public, because it helps put

more people into the workforce and educate voters and ensure that our citizens can contribute to our society in meaningful ways. And so it came from this really great humanitarian value system. But unfortunately, that belief, that idea was not married with science as it has been in other areas of our.

country, or even the world. I mean, if you think about medicine, health care, that also comes from a very awesome humanitarian place. But what's great about it is it's married with a science. It's married with a scientific system that allows it to evolve and improve.

as agriculture, engineering, technology, all of those fields that have dramatically evolved and changed our lives in countless ways. And when I think about this year versus last year, think about the difference, AI, right? AI and education wasn't even anything anyone was talking about last year. And all of sudden, now we're talking about AI and education. That's how fast things move when science is driving it.

Kimberly Berens (10:03.175)
But unfortunately, that's never been the case in education, which is why we have never, this is absolutely 100 % factual, and you can look these data up in my book, or you can look them up in the National Assessment of Educational Progress yourself. There's never been a time in the history of our nation where a majority of kids were at the proficient level, never once, not ever.

So even under the era of No Child Left Behind and increased state testing and all this stuff, all these, what I call top -down policy initiatives have never effectively changed anything because why? Because the teaching practices themselves haven't changed. And the reason they haven't changed is because those teaching practices aren't based in what the science suggests should happen with respect to how learning goes.

They're designed that way because of how educators believe kids should learn, not how they do learn, how educators believe they should learn, which is why discovery -based models are still the dominant model in education, even though all science in neuroscience, in behavior science, and then large -end educational research suggests those are terribly ineffective methods.

Training kids to guess and trying to have kids discover everything there is to discover about like, let's say fractions on their own is ludicrous, but those still continue because it's a belief system. Education is an ideological institution, not a pragmatic one, not a scientific one. And until that changes, nothing's gonna change. Because as we know in politics and religion, you can't win those arguments. This is why William James actually

Allyson (11:24.689)
Hahaha

Kimberly Berens (11:47.563)
establish functional psychology from which behavior science was born, because metaphysical disputes cannot be won. What can be, and that means you can't evolve, right? What you can evolve from is pragmatic discussions that entail evidence and the manipulation of variables and then the analysis of that manipulation over time. And that's what science provides you.

So that's the mess we've been in for a century and that's not gonna change until that practice changes in American schools.

Seth Fleischauer (12:24.086)
Okay, whoo! Yeah! Damn!

Allyson (12:25.587)
I know, I am like so excited to have this conversation. Yes, I am excited. Well, yeah, and I mean, it's such a big converse. It's so exciting to break down the idea of constructing knowledge. And how do you, when you think like an artist, if you think like a scientist, you think like a historian, the way that you're kind of categorized in the way that we may think of learners, it is interesting to think what is the model.

or how do you adjust the model to fit so many different learners? I wonder, there any, what are some of the key stuff? What would make up the best type of model based on evidence, I guess is my question. Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (13:06.905)
Yes. So I want to make one clarification. when you said that, my expertise is in the science of learning, but then you also mentioned cognitive science.

Seth Fleischauer (13:19.134)
Sorry. Our other guest was cognitive science, but keep going. Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (13:21.455)
Okay. So I'm in behavior science and cognitive science is not, mean, look, there's a lot going on there and they definitely glommed the science of learning, but the science of learning originated as behavior science back in the 1930s. Okay. So what I want to make sure is distinguished for you and your listeners is that

Seth Fleischauer (13:30.894)
You

Kimberly Berens (13:46.879)
The difference between behavior science and cognitive science is that behavior science is a natural science approach. So we are a natural science. So what that means is that we focus on what can be directly observed and directly measured. And then we manipulate variables in the environment that we know are directly related to learning. And then we measure the effects of that manipulation over time.

with every single learner. So that's what happens in a natural science approach, which means that our definition of learning itself is directly measurable. And I actually just got into a little bit of a debate with someone on Twitter about this, defining learning as a change in long -term memory. And so I want you guys, and this is so vastly important, I can't emphasize this enough because this is what is all over the place in

Allyson (14:24.041)
Yay.

Seth Fleischauer (14:26.77)
You

Kimberly Berens (14:41.243)
This is the way educationalists speak. And I'm not saying this guy who said that he's not an educationalist. He's a cognitive scientist. But I want to make sure that people in cognitive science don't make the same mistakes that the people in education have made, which is offering unmeasurable objectives, unmeasurable definitions, and actually attributing cause to constructs that cannot be measured, right? So like ideas or constructs that are immeasurable, because memory

is actually a construct. I know that's probably going to blow your minds that I said that. But I want you to think about one instance when memory is directly measured. Remembering is directly measured because remembering is behavior. So if you want to define remembering as, OK, I worked on this set of math facts with this kid yesterday for the first time, and now I'm going to work with them again today, and I'm going to measure their

Allyson (15:15.019)
Hahaha

Kimberly Berens (15:40.273)
corrects and errors, that's a measure of remembering, if you want to talk about it like that. But memory is not something that you can directly measure. And so this guy in cognitive science who defines learning as a change in long -term memory, well, I really challenge you to try to measure learning in that way. And you can't, which makes it inaccessible to actually collecting objective evidence on what you're doing and making instructional decisions with respect to it.

Allyson (15:46.621)
Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Berens (16:09.319)
So we define learning and behavior science. And this has been the case since, like the 19, well, we really kind of came out of the laboratory and we started applying it to human learning in the 1960s with my mentor, Dr. Ogden Linsley, who was a student of B .F. Skinner's. So he was my mentor in graduate school. And the way we define learning is the change in rate over time. So rate is a measure of behavior that

that captures count and time, which are the two fundamental properties of behavior. So behavior is countable, and behavior occurs in time. So when you talk about rate, it's count per time. And our fundamental measure that we use in fit learning is count per minute, because that's the most appropriate measure for academic skills. But you can measure it in any time dimension. You can measure it count per day, count per week, count per month, count per year, count per decade, count per second, count per

Right. But we do count per minute. So change in rate over time, change in count per minute over time is our measure of learning. So change in rate of corrects and change in rate of errors over time gives you a direct measurable definition of learning that then you can actually see with your eyeballs.

and make instructional decisions with respect to it. So if your rate of change, and I always do this because on our learning charts, we form slopes. And the steeper the slope, the faster the learning, the flatter the slope, the slower the learning. And so we see the slope and we can make a change. So if a kid has a slope of corrects that's super flat, well, we're not happy with that because we're trying to rapidly accelerate kids' gains. So we're going to make some kind of intervention based on the principles of learning discovered by behavior science.

which is what you asked me about a minute ago and now I'm going to tell you. So the fundamental...

Allyson (18:00.732)
You

Seth Fleischauer (18:03.732)
We only have like a half an hour, Dr. Barron's. No, I'm kidding. I joke because we need like 90 minutes for this, but maybe we'll just keep going and do this in part two. This is fascinating. Keep going.

Allyson (18:05.105)
No, I love this. I'm so excited. No, no, no, no, please.

Kimberly Berens (18:07.76)
like you!

Allyson (18:13.874)
Eheh.

Kimberly Berens (18:16.039)
All right, I'm just gonna, this is one last thing I'll say and then I'm gonna show it. So the number one, what we know is that the learning occurs and only occurs through the repeated reinforcement of behavior over time. Okay, that is the only way learning occurs. So when you ask me what are the most important things that a teacher needs to do.

Allyson (18:18.267)
No, no, please, please.

Allyson (18:36.381)
So, okay.

Kimberly Berens (18:40.881)
Get kids practicing skills and engaging in responding to instruction with immediate feedback. Sorry.

Allyson (18:47.207)
Yes, that is so exciting. No, I'm so excited and thank you so much for taking time to break it down because sometimes I think it's really important to like take to really it's such a big idea. So being able to break down how everything is its own piece but works together I think is extremely important. But I also I come from a lens of an informal educator. So it's a lot of experiential students are coming and they're on site or they're virtually learning.

And in a lot of cases, my experience is in field trips. So you have only 60 or 80 minutes and having the conversations with the teachers before to know where are you, what are your students learning, what are their skills? Those are sometimes the opportunities, at least when you were speaking, I was like, it all comes together in this idea of when you can talk to an outside professional and you've been learning these skills or you've been asked to learn these skills or about academic topics in the classroom.

and then being able to apply them to be able to solve a challenge that's part of a field trip or engage in a question and answer, interactive conversation with an outside expert that allows that immediate opportunity for that application of skills. So it's just interesting to think about how that all comes together, because writing down application of skill is really easy, but being able to think through that whole process.

is so core to the learner.

Seth Fleischauer (20:17.182)
Well, and also, how does application of skill fit into the model that you're talking about of just practicing the skill?

Kimberly Berens (20:20.775)
Yeah. Exactly. That's a great question. so one thing science. So number one, I'm to say one thing. Science gives you generality of method. So another thing that drives me crazy is we have the science of reading folks now being like, guess what? Phonics matters, which PS we've known about since the 1960s. Okay. So this is not new information. Now it's like a new name and it's all fancy, but I'm like, the people in my field are like, what in the heck are you guys talking about? This has been figured out for like,

decades. I guess that's the thing. And now what's happening over in math?

Seth Fleischauer (20:50.804)
You

Allyson (20:51.237)
Yeah!

Seth Fleischauer (20:53.544)
and it's gonna be popular for at least five years.

Allyson (20:55.901)
Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (20:56.645)
I know. And now it's over in math now. Like, core math, core numeracy in computation actually matters. Duh. And so what I mean about generality of method is this. No complex repertoire of skills can be learned and mastered without the components of that repertoire being learned and mastered first, period. And guess what? Athletes and musicians get that. So no complex repertoire.

Seth Fleischauer (21:16.884)
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Say that again, say that again. Can you break that down? Say that again.

Allyson (21:21.906)
Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (21:25.915)
can be learned and mastered without that repertoire being broken down into its component skills and each of those component skills directly trained, practiced and mastered. This is why people who produce the best musicians, people who produce the best athletes, they also understand this, but it's gotten blown up in education for God knows why. But so when you're talking about application of skills, this is what, when I say generality of method, mean,

Allyson (21:37.661)
Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Berens (21:55.685)
Breaking complex repertoires down into component pieces, then providing effective instruction and repeated reinforced practice of those pieces until fluency is achieved, meaning a rate of responding that is accurate and fast, predicts three things. What you might call long -term memory, we call it retention, meaning kids don't forget it. Number two, increased attention span.

Allyson (22:16.669)
Mm

Kimberly Berens (22:20.923)
So they can do it under any conditions, standing on their heads when they're cold, when they're hot, when they don't feel good, and application of skills. So when a kid is fluent at phonics, guess what they're able to do with that? Decode words. When kids are fluent at decoding words, guess what they get to do with that? Read words without decoding. When kids are good at reading words without decoding, guess what they can do? Comprehend. So that's what application of skills. So when you're talking about...

repeated reinforced practice of component skills to fluency measured as rate, that predicts the ability to apply those components for something more difficult. It applies in music, it applies in sports, it applies in math, it applies in reading. and by the way, I didn't mention grammar. There are schools out there proudly boasting that they don't teach grammar anymore directly and that kids just figure it out.

And if they use it, if they do something wrong in a sentence, then they look up the grammar rule. In what universe does that make any sense? It doesn't make sense with any skill. I don't care what you're talking about. You don't get good at anything unless you're good at the parts of it, period. So it applies to grammar. It applies to math. It applies to reading. It applies to critical thinking and problem solving. It applies to freaking playing an instrument. I'm a guitarist. Trust me. I spend most of my practice on scales and drills. Why? Because that's what makes me a better player, not.

playing pieces all day, okay? So that's what drives me crazy about these piecemeal things that start coming out of the education world. It's like, duh, we know this, we've known this forever in our field. It applies to any skill. So it's generalizable to anything you're trying to teach, anything.

Allyson (23:43.805)
Mm -hmm.

Allyson (23:55.805)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (23:59.028)
Dr. Barron's, do you speak with this much confidence about everything you talk about? Yeah.

Allyson (24:03.219)
I love it!

Kimberly Berens (24:03.586)
Yes!

Kimberly Berens (24:07.623)
astrophysics, but I'm really I've doing this for a really long time.

Allyson (24:08.58)
Yeah!

Seth Fleischauer (24:12.538)
Yeah, you're just like you're a series of like of like impactful declarative statements, right? You're just like this is everything and also two minutes later this my goodness people

Tami Moehring (24:14.168)
you

Allyson (24:23.827)
Well, but that's what science gives you is evidence. If you have the evidence, then it's like, just don't understand. If the data is there, then it's there. So what are we, what's the conversation?

Kimberly Berens (24:30.823)
That's nuts! It's crazy!

Tami Moehring (24:30.84)
you

Kimberly Berens (24:34.876)
Yes.

Tami Moehring (24:35.074)
All I can say is that you would be very interesting to go to like an educational conference, especially a technology conference, and have you just go from room to room and give like a little synopsis of, no, that did not work, or why are they doing this? Because do you feel like technology, yeah, is just covering things up or is it helping or how does that mesh with, you know, this basis of learning?

Seth Fleischauer (24:47.669)
NO! Where's the evidence?

Allyson (24:48.422)
I would love it.

Allyson (24:55.771)
Eheheh

Tami Moehring (25:04.354)
you know, going back to the science of it.

Kimberly Berens (25:04.869)
Now, there's some, I will say there's some apps that are great. There's some apps that promote fact fluency because they're actually timed and kids are actually having to increase their rate in math facts before they increase to a higher level. And also, look, I gotta tell you right now, why do you think kids become so addicted to video games? Because they...

Allyson (25:25.315)
because it's achievement points. This is my master's studies. Yes, the achievement points. I always am like, why do we all start out with A? That means I lose. Why do we not start out with zero and be able to achieve the highest maximum level? You know that those points are available. But that was just my, that was my, yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (25:26.644)
Allison's got thoughts.

Kimberly Berens (25:42.831)
Well, it's but it's all video game designers are informed by behavior science period. It's not, they're not. And so they aren't limited by the educational establishment, forcing them into teaching with beliefs and traditions behavior. Video game designers want to sell video games. And how do you sell video games? You design them in such a way that kids get really good at playing them and that kids, because they get really good at playing them, they want to play them all the time.

Allyson (25:50.235)
Incentive.

Kimberly Berens (26:11.333)
And so they are designed explicitly for that purpose, which means that every level is easier than the next and kids don't advance to the next level until they master that previous level. And that previous level is mastered typically according to a fluency criteria. I there's time involved. They have to finish a world in a certain time.

Allyson (26:30.685)
You have to finish the challenge.

Kimberly Berens (26:33.223)
And then they're given lots of practice opportunities with the component skills of the game. And they're provided lots of intermittent reinforcement inside each level with like new weapons opening up and new people opening up. It's all based on behavior science, 100 % period. And that's why kids are good at them because they're designed properly. They're designed according to how humans actually learn and what maintains and strengthens behavioral repertoires, which is what... So when you ask me about technology, I'm like, there's a lot of tech that's going the right way. It's just not an education.

Allyson (27:02.099)
Right. It's like, unfortunately, it's blocked. I just always think when I was in school, was like, I can memorize how to text with a button flip phone faster than I was paying attention in the classroom. It became kind of like its own game. And I really do think that idea of the intrinsic learning that is involved is so wild that it's not being brought more into a traditional

Kimberly Berens (27:03.547)
Unfortunately.

Allyson (27:30.983)
learning experience. The reason I even started studying video games for my master's thesis was because I literally walked in on a group of guys playing a video game, but trying to solve a challenge that related to art history. I was super concerned. I thought that they had like found my book and really they're having this like this really intellectual debate about

something that helps them get to the next level of the game. And then you saw it happen again and then again and again, just in a different format. And it was just so wonderful to see because all of a sudden, if we went and saw those paintings in person, some of those conversations came back or when we did. So it was really cool. It's just a really nice opportunity to hear about video games.

Kimberly Berens (28:14.023)
Well, I find really, what I find devastating is, know, kids actually love learning. Like watch, I mean, I've raised two children and I've worked with children for 30 years. And if you watch any young, like a toddler, even a newborn, even a kid under the age of one, how we have evolved as a species that learning is something that goes on all the fricking time.

through our interactions with our environment, kids are obsessed with learning new stuff until they get to school. And then what happens? It's so punitive because they're expected to do stuff they can't do because they haven't been provided the opportunity to master the components or prerequisites of what they're being expected to do. It's boring. It's done with the teacher blabbing their mouths all day and the kids sit there staring, sleeping, drawing, messing around with their neighbor. They're barely participating. It's like...

one kid, it raises their hand and has the opportunity to answer. That's not how learning works in the real freaking world. The way learning works in the real world is that kids behave and they get feedback from the environment and that feedback shapes up their repertoire. That's why kids get good at stuff until they go to school. When school's in charge of learning disability diagnoses, they didn't have a learning problem until they went to school. What does that tell you? They never struggled to learn anything until the school was in charge of teaching it.

Allyson (29:26.925)
Mm -hmm.

Allyson (29:33.789)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (29:37.992)
Well, it's like Trump, you just don't test for COVID and it doesn't exist, right? So, okay, hold on. So way back when you said, get kids practicing skills and engaging to responding to instruction with immediate feedback. I feel like you can do that in a, fit learning online is a small group setting, right? What does that look like in a whole group setting where you were, okay, tell me, and backing up like,

Kimberly Berens (29:53.68)
Yes!

Allyson (29:55.154)
Yeah

Kimberly Berens (30:02.865)
Direct instruction. Direct instruction.

Seth Fleischauer (30:07.95)
What does school look like? What does learning look like at all levels when you are thoughtfully building these skills and building up the repertoire, doing all these things that you are explaining to us is the basis of how people learn, the behavioral science basis of how people learn. So what does this look like? What does learning look like when teachers do this effectively?

Kimberly Berens (30:29.841)
Well, sadly, it doesn't happen very often in schools because teachers aren't, number one, teachers aren't trained to do it, and number two, and if they were, they're not allowed to do it, okay? Because they're required to do what the district tells them to do. So unfortunately, it's not happening enough, but here's what it would look like. So if teachers were free to be effective and trained to be effective, what it would look like is, first of all, direct instruction is designed for classrooms. if you're not familiar with direct instruction, it got replaced with explicit instruction.

Allyson (30:59.887)
Hehehehehe. Hehehehe.

Kimberly Berens (30:59.961)
I hate to say that, but it's actually direct instruction and it was back in 90s. And it was the basis of the number one most, the largest federally funded study ever conducted in America on educational methods was the Follow Through Project. And it looked at all these different methods. Number one of them was direct instruction and the rest were the weird progressive education, discovery -based learning models that all the educationalists believe were the better way to go.

And guess which one outperformed all the other methods, direct instruction. These data were presented to Congress in the 1970s. And what happened? Congress decided to fund the underperforming methods because it matched the opinions of educators. Even though the data suggested that they were profoundly ineffective and actually worsened academic outcomes with a majority of kids, direct instruction got completely put.

to this ignored, even though the outcomes were insane because it didn't match what the opinions of educators were, like how education should go with a teacher lecturing and kids staring. So direct instruction involves very concise, clearly presented instruction. So like, let's do a direct instruction together. Let's do it on bow. We'll go in a class.

Allyson (32:13.925)
Okay, yes. I love when we get to be, when we have to do the roles, yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (32:15.115)
I'm down. Gimme.

Kimberly Berens (32:18.791)
Great. Everybody needs to respond. Are you ready? Okay, here we go. So we're going to talk about vowels. What are we talking about? Say, vowels, awesome job. There are five vowels. How many vowels? Awesome job. Are there four vowels? Yes or no? Are there three? Are there what? Is there one vowel? Well, okay. Well, how many vowels? Awesome job. So your vowels are great. Your vowels are A, E, I, O, and U. What are your vowels?

Seth Fleischauer (32:24.712)
Yes.

Allyson (32:28.615)
Vowels.

Seth Fleischauer (32:28.754)
Vowels.

Tami Moehring (32:29.538)
Thank

Seth Fleischauer (32:32.68)
Five vowels.

Tami Moehring (32:33.454)
Fabius... No. No. No.

Allyson (32:35.301)
No. No.

Seth Fleischauer (32:35.698)
No.

Seth Fleischauer (32:39.284)
There, sometimes why.

Five. Or six.

Tami Moehring (32:48.577)
A E I R U

Seth Fleischauer (32:48.676)
A E I O U

Allyson (32:48.815)
EIOU.

Kimberly Berens (32:50.139)
Good, job. And if I said A -E -I -O -N -U, what are those called? Awesome job. Imagine teachers doing that in a classroom with the entire class responding in unison. Rather than the teacher going, this is what discovery -based instruction looks like. Are you ready? Here's the difference. Okay, class, we're going to talk about a very special letter today. It's a special letter that plays a special role in words, and it tells us how to read words and how to sound words out. And this letter has sounds.

Allyson (32:53.906)
VALS!

Seth Fleischauer (32:54.142)
Vowels.

Tami Moehring (32:54.379)
out.

Kimberly Berens (33:18.807)
Anne has a name and who can guess what letters we might be talking about today? And you know, a few kids raise their hand and then she calls on the kid and they guess consonants? I don't know, me? And what happens for five minutes? Kids guess wrong answers.

Seth Fleischauer (33:32.263)
you

Seth Fleischauer (33:36.785)
You

Allyson (33:38.157)
of a you're off of a new path. Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (33:40.271)
Kids are guessing the wrong answer. Trust me, I've spent a lot of time observing classrooms. This is exactly how it goes. Minutes are passing by, kids are asleep, they're picking their nose, they're doodling, they're messing with their neighbor, two or three kids are guessing wrong. Finally, she gets to the punchline and it's like the end of class.

Just tell them the damn answer.

Allyson (34:02.137)
Yeah, you have to break it down at some point.

Seth Fleischauer (34:02.355)
Heheheheh!

Kimberly Berens (34:07.335)
The bottom line is the kids who already know it are the ones who already have an advantage, which is why the lowest income schools do the worst. Because those kids most likely have parents who, number one, aren't educated themselves, and number two, have to work seven jobs to freaking afford housing and food in this country. So they're not around. And they can't support their kids' education at home, and they can't pay for tutors. So those kids actually don't know the answers. They actually have to learn in the classroom. But the problem is teaching doesn't

teach kids stuff in the classroom. What they are banking on is kids already know it, so the kid guesses correctly. So Sally, blonde haired, rich kid in the front row who raises her hand and said, I think we're talking about vowels. Yes, Sally, so smart Sally, great work Sally. Why? Because her parents are both doctors and she's been at fricking, you know, at fit learning since she was three. That makes her special? No, that just makes her fricking lucky.

Allyson (34:49.362)
Hehehehehe

Kimberly Berens (35:02.183)
But why should it be luck that kids do all in the school system? It should be by design that every single kid in that class learns what a fricking vowel is before they walk out the door that day. That should be our job as educators in the United States. And it really upsets me. It's such a waste of time. This is a crisis. We have kids who cannot read. We have kids who cannot add. They can't do math and they're going to college. Do you know the rate of entering college students who need remedial math, reading and writing courses? 80%.

Allyson (35:14.929)
Yeah? Well, yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (35:18.719)
Yeah, you

Allyson (35:33.085)
Well, yeah, mean, with, yeah, I also feel like with math, it's like, those are such important things, because that's like how you need to know how to balance your checkbook. If you just think about your very like basic life needs, just taking it to as simple as that for that type of instruction. And I do wonder, because I am so excited by your spirit and all of your words, I wonder when you look at virtual, and I guess this is a little bit of my like rage button too, but when you look at,

Seth Fleischauer (35:33.214)
I see why you called this your rage book.

Allyson (36:02.599)
virtual schools and how virtual schooling is set up. As I mentioned earlier, I've always been in the live synchronous game. I do love asynchronous and all types of online learning platforms. But when I look at the specific structure of a virtual school, it isn't always all synchronous. And a lot of times the learner has a different experience than what you find in the traditional classroom. And the traditional classroom set up like one you've just been talking about.

So I wonder what are your feelings about virtual schools and how do you feel like there's an opportunity for them to grow hopefully in certain ways, but also is there a benefit, do you feel like there's maybe a silver lining or a benefit there with the opportunity?

Kimberly Berens (36:48.823)
Well, will say that COVID was clear on online instruction provided by schools was profoundly ineffective, but that shouldn't have surprised anybody because in like live classroom instruction is profoundly ineffective. So when teachers are doing all the talking and kids, now they're not just worrying about kids daydreaming and staring into space or messing with their neighbor. They're actually worrying about kids being on social media and texting.

Allyson (37:01.903)
Mm

Kimberly Berens (37:16.259)
and playing a video game on the side or doing whatever. I mean, my kids, I watched them. They both had their videos off and were doing other stuff every time I walked in the room. And I'm like, I can see you're getting a lot of your class today. So that's even harder. So if you're doing online instruction, you have to do more to make sure that every single kid is participating constantly in your class. And that could be with having whiteboards that every kid has at their.

at their workstation where they're writing and holding up the answers so that every teacher can see it in the Zoom screen or every kid's required to put something in the chat. Or, you know, there's lots of things you can do to require immediate constant responding on the part of the class. And the other thing is reinforcement is the only way learning happens. And that has to be contrived before a behavior is so established that it's reinforcing to engage in on its own.

You have got to use extrinsic reinforcement. mean, at Fit Learning, all of our kids are on token economies. Because we get kids who've had years of skill of failure. I mean, they have been failed for a long time. And guess what? A lot of these kids have been climbing under their table and crying during homework and refusing to do their homework with their parents. They have school refusal. Because why? Not because they're bad kids, maybe because they have a bad learning history.

So when you're competing with a bad learning history, man, you've got to use a lot of reinforcement. And so our kids all have golf counters. You know those, I have one over there for my guitar practicing. I'll show you. All our kids, not only do our coaches use this to count behavior, because remember we count and time everything. So everything's counted, corrects and errors. But all of our kids get sit in one of these too, and they use it to keep their points. So every time they hit performance goals, which are based on their measurable level of performance from the previous session.

Allyson (38:54.109)
Mm

Kimberly Berens (39:07.015)
They, every single day, their goal is to hit a personal best on every single skill they're practicing. So the personal best is one better or one more correct, one less error than the day before. That's all we, that's all that's required. We're not making them go from 10 math facts a minute to 60. Are you kidding me? They want to kill us. No, it's all, okay, you guess what? You got 10 correct yesterday. Today you're to get 11. That's your personal best. Let's do it. Ready? Go. And if they get 11, guess what happens?

Allyson (39:19.205)
Yay!

Allyson (39:25.896)
You

Seth Fleischauer (39:31.54)
That's so simple.

Kimberly Berens (39:34.203)
They get to click points on their clicker and then these points are exchangeable. It's like money and then they get prizes sent to their fricking house from Amazon.

Allyson (39:39.271)
Yeah.

Yay! I know. I know. Just that I would, I would need to have another one. Yeah, because I would just be clicking it the whole time.

Seth Fleischauer (39:42.15)
want to click her right now to click my points. Yeah. So tactile.

Kimberly Berens (39:43.749)
I know, pretty amazing. It's, they're the best.

No, I'm telling you, effective instruction are these two things combined with a learning chart, which we use. It's a timer, it's a timer, it's a freaking timer, man. Time and count.

Seth Fleischauer (39:55.668)
Hold on, so the golf clicker and what's the other one?

Seth Fleischauer (40:03.678)
You

Allyson (40:03.965)
haha

Kimberly Berens (40:06.471)
and chart it on a chart if you can. I mean, there's lots of great charting apps that use standard acceleration charts, but that's too much for this podcast. But at a minimum count the chart, just have them write their freaking scores down. If you don't use this fancy chart, kids love knowing their measures. They actually wanna know, kids will go, what did I get yesterday? I'll go, okay, you got 27 yesterday. Okay, my personal best is 28. Okay, I'm ready, I'm ready. And then we start the timer and they go because they're like, they want to do this. Like they don't wanna.

Allyson (40:21.509)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (40:21.822)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (40:31.678)
Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (40:33.919)
sitting there like sleeping and drooling in class. They want to They want to get better at their performance. They want to get fluent. They want to get good at stuff. Like they just don't have the opportunity and no one teaches them. So guess what? They start hating school. They hate it. Kids hate it.

Allyson (40:36.871)
Yeah

Allyson (40:42.355)
Mm

Seth Fleischauer (40:42.547)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (40:47.74)
Yeah, it's like what Allison was talking about starting from zero instead of starting starting from an A, right? Like you're just building up that entire time one more. mean, how simple is the idea of one more? Right? Yeah. So what's interesting is that like we had a question here, which was when we talked previously, we talked about the fact that your approach for fit learning online is not very different than your approach for fit learning in person.

which I found interesting because we often talk here on the podcast about how, when you are designing something for the virtual space, you, you can take into consideration certain factors that you, that are not true of the real world. And you illustrated a little bit, one of the, one of the accommodations that you can make in a virtual space to have people are participating in the chat or whatever it is, if it can't be vocal, right? So there are those, those types of, of accommodations that can be made.

And I kind of want to ask a question that I'm imagining you have like a 15 minute answer to. But I kind of want to hear all 15 minutes. Maybe we'll just talk afterwards. But like, OK, the question is, is the entirety of learning things that can be simply measured? Or are there things outside of that? Is there like a soul of learning?

Kimberly Berens (41:51.438)
outside.

Allyson (41:51.824)
Yeah

Seth Fleischauer (42:12.668)
that is like that can't be measured that is spoken to in some of these other forms of learning that aren't as scientifically backed up right because like you're using the science of learning and so it's based in the rhetoric of science the measurements of science right so are you missing something right like is something is something are you missing out on something because you're so focused on the science of it

Kimberly Berens (42:39.943)
So I would vehemently say no. Now, let me give you a really good analogy. And this actually happens at fit learning all the time with our kids. This is something that happens all the time. So our kids are in this tightly controlled, very routinized, very measured, very precise training environment. But then what's so freaking cool is after they've been in this very controlled

Allyson (42:42.875)
NNNN

Kimberly Berens (43:05.307)
very precise training environment where they've gotten super fluent at skills. They go out into the natural environment, they go out in the world and just cool stuff starts happening. And I don't have the opportunity to measure that. I don't have the opportunity to capture it. Not like I couldn't if I did, but I'm not with those kids. But like we get these reports from their parents of like stuff they're starting to do at home or even reports from teachers about stuff they're figuring out in the classroom like before they even teach a concept or being corrected. Like the teacher gets corrected by our kids because they're wrong.

Allyson (43:33.041)
Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Berens (43:34.673)
They make an error. Our kids are confident. they're like, that's actually not what un doesn't just mean not, un also means opposite of, opposite of if it's next to a verb. Like, you know, they do that stuff all the time where they make, they correct our teachers. So that's kind of in that realm of what you're talking about. But here's something I'll equate to my guitar practice. So I, as you're not going to be surprised, I, I practice my guitar every day in the same manner as I teach that I use the same method. So the same method we use with kids at fit.

Allyson (43:43.293)
Hmm.

Kimberly Berens (44:03.183)
is also the same method I use to certify the people that work for me at FIT in our method. And it's also the way I practice my guitar. So when I'm practicing my guitar, I'm very controlled and routinized. video, I record every single practice session and I go out after the fact, I go and I score it according to count correct and count incorrect per minute. But I always like to say once I've gotten to a point on like a piece of music,

Allyson (44:19.985)
Hmm.

Kimberly Berens (44:29.083)
that I break down into sections and I practice small sections and then I gradually combine them. And then once I'm out of cumulative, I release myself, right? And I just go out and I free myself up and I just play it. I don't record it every time. I'm not counting it anymore. And I start putting it on a retention check schedule where I check it like once a week. And it's during that freeing up period that I add the flair, right? That's when I do a lot of the work around

Allyson (44:54.397)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (44:54.612)
Hmm. The soul.

Kimberly Berens (44:58.885)
what I'm emphasizing, when I'm getting louder, when I'm getting softer, when I'm speeding up, when I'm slowing down, tempo changes, that stuff I don't do in my controlled, measured environment. But the only reason I'm able to do that at all is because I'm so good at, I've gotten so good at it from the practice that I've done on it. So I think that's what you mean, that there's definitely qualitative stuff with kids that we see in writing, especially. Writing's a really difficult repertoire to teach. And so we get kids really fluent at the mechanics.

Seth Fleischauer (45:15.764)
You're confident.

Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (45:29.243)
We get kids really fluent at the components of writing, but it's the practice of writing in the natural environment, almost like an artist. It's the practice of doing that, that all of that starts coming together and then evolving into something even more wonderful. But the only way it evolves into something more wonderful is because all those components are in place and now they're focusing on the bigger picture. It's like the qualitative stuff improves, right? Like they add their flair.

And their flair happens in an unmeasured environment, but that's great. But the only reason they were able to do that is because we got the pieces so proficient.

Allyson (45:59.036)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (46:07.218)
Yeah.

Allyson (46:08.637)
Well, and I think that's interesting because learning is a foundational block, but each person is their own person. That's the humanity in it. That's the soul is the individual is going to be unique. You're just giving them this skill set, the opportunity to have the foundation of a skill set that no matter what, even if you learn.

You know, the Y equals MX plus B, you learn the vowels. However you're going to do it, you're going to have your own way of understanding, synthesizing, and then reusing that information when the time comes. Even if it's like saying the vowel, like, instead of whichever way.

Kimberly Berens (46:41.415)
I'm just gonna...

Kimberly Berens (46:46.347)
Well, like think about the US Open. Like, I'm a big tennis fan. you know, was watching the final last yesterday and think about that. So these players, right, think about the thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of hours they've spent practicing each one of their components, right? Each one of their moves, each one of their shots, each one of their approaches, each, every single thing they've practiced hundreds of thousands of times. But the way that all comes together in any individual game or match,

Allyson (46:49.756)
Yay!

Kimberly Berens (47:16.803)
is completely random, right? It depends on, no game is the same as the next one. No match is the same as the next one. Everything is different because it's dependent on another player and what the other player does and conditions and the weather and how the player's feeling and their health and whatever. So what I love is like all those components come together in novel and unique ways during every match, right?

And that's the same for learners in schools. Like when their component skills are so proficient, it depends on the day and what they're being given the opportunity to do and practice and create for themselves. They all comes together in novel ways, but the only reason it comes together successfully in that manner every time is because the pieces are really fluent. Look at all those players on the tennis court, right?

Allyson (48:05.363)
Hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (48:05.822)
Mm -hmm.

Allyson (48:08.208)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (48:09.17)
Yeah. So I think you answered for us our question about why is the online situation essentially the same as the in -person situation? your answer, you did answer it, which is like, it's the science of learning. This is how it works. It doesn't matter where it is, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kimberly Berens (48:22.151)
I don't know if I answered that, do you know what I said?

Allyson (48:24.863)
Mm -hmm.

hahahaha

Kimberly Berens (48:27.705)
It's alright. It's alright. That's doesn't matter.

Allyson (48:32.455)
And there's timers and clickers that you can have physically, virtually, all different types of fun ways.

Seth Fleischauer (48:38.952)
But so then I want to end here with our titular question, Dr. Kimberly Barron's, why distance learning?

Kimberly Berens (48:46.683)
I love that question. So, you know, my, and this is the commitment of all of us at Fit Learning. You know, we are, committed to the transformation of educational practices on the planet such they are guided by the science of learning, such that all children can achieve their greatness and make an impact in their communities and the world. Okay. That's like our grand vision and mission at Fit Learning. And one, so we've had all these strands, this has been a, you know, a marathon, not a sprint. So from the broom closet, and that is not a lie, like in 1998,

Allyson (49:14.961)
Yeah

Kimberly Berens (49:16.293)
was like by myself and in a makeshift janitor's closet starting to evolve.

Seth Fleischauer (49:20.308)
I'm currently in my wife's closet recording this podcast, but gone.

Kimberly Berens (49:24.399)
We're going get things, garages and closets, right? So we've evolved so much. And so our first kind of evolution was let's scale this in open locations, physical locations, right? But I'll be honest with you, opening physical locations is really hard because it, first of all, it takes a lot of funding and it takes a lot of training and certification and oversight to produce a team that can effectively run a location.

Allyson (49:26.983)
Yes.

Kimberly Berens (49:50.887)
And so it's been great and we're continuing to do that. We're actually, launching MAUI, FitMAUI is in the works now. So we're launching them, but it's very slow and it's a laborious, slow process getting those open. And so my commitment is increasing access. I mean, we only have 24 locations around the world and there are millions of children who need effective, every child needs effective instruction or repeated reinforced practice to fluency period.

Allyson (49:58.053)
Yay!

Allyson (50:11.389)
Hmm.

Kimberly Berens (50:20.229)
But there's millions where it's a dire situation. And so I launched Fit Learning Online to increase access for kids. And also for parents, like, God, I know what it's like. I I may have grown kids now, but Lord, as a working, pie -level career mother of two little children with very complex schedules who also did Fit Learning because I'm not dumb and my kids did Fit for their whole lives, because I think -

Allyson (50:45.405)
You

Kimberly Berens (50:45.957)
to the school, they didn't master skills at schools. They applied skills they had already mastered at school. They mastered everything at FIT, because I knew that's how it had to go. Driving kids around all over the place, sports, whatever it is. What I love is that my kids get fluent in reading and math and critical thinking and logical problem solving while their mom and dad are downstairs making dinner and doing the stuff they have to do in the evening. Their kids in the next room are upstairs.

they're doing the most important part of their day in learning. I'm gonna be honest with you. The most important part of their day is that 50 minutes where they're getting that kind of focused, precise practice to mastery. And they get to do it at home while mom and dad are dealing with their other stuff, which I think is, or they're doing it at home. When they get off the bus, they do fit really quick and then they head off to their sports practice or vice versa. Like it just makes it, because sadly schools aren't doing this. It's clear they're not gonna.

Allyson (51:28.723)
Mm

Kimberly Berens (51:40.975)
It's going to be a long time before this, if ever, happens. So they've got to be able to fit it into their lives. And the online model really lets that happen. But I will also tell you, the live model, online doesn't work for every kid. It really doesn't. I'll be honest. There are some kids who really don't benefit from online instruction for whatever their behavioral barriers, attending barriers.

Allyson (51:55.803)
Mm

Kimberly Berens (52:04.731)
Their parents actually can't sweep. They'd rather have a babysitter drop their kid off at a fit location because no one's at their house, whatever it may be. There's lots of kids who still prefer and benefit from live instruction, but the online gives an option to a vast number of kids who really need it and couldn't access it otherwise.

Allyson (52:11.955)
Mm -hmm.

Seth Fleischauer (52:26.644)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Barron's for being here. You know, I often listen to my podcasts on like 1 .25 speed, but I'm going to have to provide a warning. Our guest is from New York. Maybe maybe don't do that.

Allyson (52:30.077)
So grateful.

Kimberly Berens (52:31.834)
I'm hiding.

Allyson (52:39.303)
Yes!

Kimberly Berens (52:42.439)
I always get a high rate of talking. think New York's made it worse, but you're in fluency business. You get good at doing stuff fast. You should see how fast we are. Anybody should watch a fit learning session. It would blow your mind how fast we are. I mean, it is unbelievably rapid.

Allyson (52:47.056)
Nuh -huh.

Seth Fleischauer (52:51.86)
Hahaha

Seth Fleischauer (52:58.342)
Yeah, well, you gave us that model there, right?

Kimberly Berens (53:00.538)
is fast.

Allyson (53:00.911)
I was so excited. I'm like, I'm ready. I'm going to take them myself.

Kimberly Berens (53:04.432)
There's no sleeping, there's no yawning, there's no time, there's no time for that. It's like a sport. Kids are like ready to go. They're like woken up.

Seth Fleischauer (53:10.43)
Yeah.

Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much for illustrating that for us, for explaining why it works and for providing this framework, you know, I think for teachers who are not only in the virtual space, maybe engaging infrequently with students, but also those who are embedded in the classroom. It's a pretty clear directive, right, with a whole lot of reasons why. So thank you. Thank you so much for providing that.

Allyson (53:14.321)
Yay!

Kimberly Berens (53:18.671)
Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (53:35.217)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kimberly Berens (53:40.369)
pleasure.

Seth Fleischauer (53:41.488)
Yeah, for our listeners, please do check out the podcast on cilc .org slash podcast for other episodes. And if you'd like to support us, please follow us, leave us a rating or a review, tell a friend. Thank you as always to our editor, Lucas Salazar. You can check the show notes for any links that were mentioned here. Although I'm realizing I didn't ask that question. Where should we find your work online?

Allyson (53:56.467)
Okay.

Allyson (54:04.2)
Mm.

Kimberly Berens (54:06.117)
Yes. So there's fit learning, you know, www .fitlearning .com. There's fitlearningonline .com. And then my work is on drkymberlybarons .com. That's where you'll find my book, all my op -eds that's mentioned, know, thrive global medium pieces. school psych, I mean, psych today, podcast, other podcasts. So that'd be on drkymberlybarons .com. So fitlearningonline .com, fitlearning .com, kimberlybarons .com. Dr. Kimberly Barons .com. Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (54:32.102)
Awesome. you are, you are fantastic. You are just like a flame thrower and it's really, really fun. Really, really fun to spend an hour with you. if you, if you would like to know the answer to the question, why distance learning, please check out the people we highlight on this podcast. These are the people who are leveraging this amazing technology to truly transform the learning experience. Although in this case, just create the

Kimberly Berens (54:37.169)
Thanks.

Allyson (54:38.214)
Yes!

Yes!

Kimberly Berens (54:42.882)
I'm sorry.

Kimberly Berens (54:58.161)
Yeah.

Seth Fleischauer (54:58.394)
Same good learning experience somewhere else. Why distance learning? Because it's accessible and it's awesome. See you next time.

Allyson (55:00.691)
Mm

Allyson (55:06.567)
Bye.