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If I were going to put together a list of the most influential sociologists of the past 25 years, Joel Podolny would be near the top. While Joel had an illustrious academic career, including a stint as dean of the Yale School of Management, it is his experience as the founding dean of Apple University—a role that Steve Jobs handpicked Joel to fill—in which Joel arguably has had the most influence on global culture.
As a fellow sociologist, I’ve always been curious about how Joel has combined a traditional academic career and a nontraditional career in tech. In his newest venture, Joel is the CEO and co-founder of Honor Education. I asked Joel if he’d be willing to answer my questions about his career, what he learned during his time at Apple and where he thinks higher education needs to go. Joel graciously agreed.
Q: You left a successful career in higher education to join Apple as the founding dean and vice president of Apple University. You’ve returned to focus on higher education, but now as the leader of a new technology company. Is there anything that you learned from your time at Apple that you are now trying to bring to higher education?
A: I’ll never forget the time early in my tenure at Apple when the CFO told the company that if we think about the products and customers first, and execution next, then the financial results will take care of themselves. When you look at online learning products, so often we focus on driving outcomes rather than focusing on the experience. But if we get the experience right, then the outcomes will take care of themselves.
The designers and engineers at Apple talked a lot about their focus on the emotions around the use of technology, and one that they referenced a lot was care—care for the customers, care for their experience, care for all the important but often overlooked details that evoke feelings of surprise and delight.
This resonates with how I have come to think about what makes for a great learning experience. When I started my teaching career, I thought that all that really mattered was the selection of ideas, frameworks or stories that I wanted to pass along to my students. Over time, I came to realize that what you teach is only one factor that determines what your students learn. I grew to see the importance of how you teach: factors like the design of the physical space, eye contact and body language, effective use of follow-up questions, and so on. Being at Apple took that awareness to another level. It heightened my sensitivity to the role that technology can play in the emotional arc underlying every great learning experience.
Q: You’ve described Honor Education as a mobile-first learning platform that puts human connection at the center of the learning experience. Why this particular focus?
A: From the time that I started my academic career at the Stanford GSB, case teaching has been the pedagogy on which I have most relied. So for me, teaching has never been just about what I can put into students; it is what I can coax out of them collectively so that each individual is the beneficiary of the perspectives of the others with whom they are sharing their learning journey.
The rise of AI has generated a lot of buzz around the promise of hyperpersonalized learning experiences where every student gets content tailored to their exact needs. But too much emphasis on personalization can be flawed if it puts students in a silo. Human connection is the cornerstone of the best learning experiences. Students don’t just gain knowledge but greater self-awareness, empathy, critical thinking and insight about how their approach to learning compares to and can draw on the approaches of others. They also develop the confidence and emotional intelligence that can only come from seeing how their peers react to their ideas.
At Honor, we’ve created a beautiful teaching and learning platform that mirrors the social interactions you would see in an actual classroom with a great teacher. Initially, our focus is on transforming asynchronous learning. So when you assign a reading or video, students don’t just experience that as a solo activity divorced from the classroom experience. They can quickly and easily react to and comment upon a text, video or image and see how their own reactions and comments compare to their peers. They can see when other students are confused or fired up about a passage. Based on our user data, adding these opportunities for human connection drives a three [times] increase in learner engagement, with learners logging in three to five times per day on average. This frequency also speaks to our mobile-first design, which enables students to more easily align their commitment to learning with the other commitments in their lives.
Q: You’ve talked about the importance of building digital tools that allow faculty to “read the room” as students go through assigned course material. What do you mean by that and why is it important?
A: There is nothing like that feeling of teaching a room full of students or employees and feeling that connection to them individually and collectively—tracking who’s with me, who’s confused, who disagrees, who has something that they just have to share with the rest of the group. When you are in that zone, you just know on whom you should call even before they raise their hand because of the expression on their face.
So much of being an effective teacher is about reading the room and ensuring that students feel seen. The problem with online learning, especially asynchronous learning, is they’re not seen. They don’t get those special moments of feeling cared for. At Honor, we’re building the UX to make those moments possible.
For example, if a student is unclear on a passage, they can tap a reaction for “unclear.” Because of our high-fidelity analytics, the instructor knows the exact line in a text or moment in a video that caused this reaction. They can then easily add a text or voice annotation offering clarity, and the student receives an alert notifying them to review the teacher’s response.
Voice annotations are particularly powerful. We have had a number of students tell us how comforting it is to hear their instructor’s voice explaining a difficult concept. The implicit message that the learner gets is “I see you wrestling with this concept, and here’s another way to think about it.” In a live class, there is ultimately a limit to the number of people who feel confident enough to ask questions and have their voices heard. But on Honor, every student can express themselves and faculty can “see them” with a very low lift.
That’s smart software design that is not just making online learning as good as in-person learning but actually improving the overall learning experience for any student. That’s what we’ve set out to do at Honor. We’re building a teaching and learning platform that makes students feel cared for and seen in ways that go beyond what is possible in a live, in-person class session.
