There is a certain kind of educator who walks into broken systems not to complain about them, but to change them. They arrive carrying credentials and conviction in equal measure. They sit beside struggling faculty not to evaluate them, but to grow alongside them. They design curricula not for standardized tests, but for the actual human beings sitting in those chairs. Dr. Shaquille Spearman is that kind of educator. And his conversation on Episode 117 of America in Black and White may be the most important thing you listen to this year.
1. Assessment Literacy Is Not Optional — It Is Foundational
One of the most powerful threads running through Dr. Spearman’s work is his insistence that assessment literacy must be treated as a core professional competency for every educator, not an optional add-on reserved for testing coordinators. In our conversation, he was direct: most institutions confuse data collection with data understanding. They generate reports without asking what the numbers actually mean for the human beings behind them.
Dr. Spearman’s approach reframes assessment entirely. In his framework, assessment is not something done to students. It is a conversation, a structured, evidence-based dialogue between what has been taught and what has been truly learned. This distinction matters enormously, especially in under-resourced institutions where assessment results can too easily be used to write off students rather than to better serve them.
| “Assessment should reveal what a student knows, not punish them for the resources they didn’t have access to.” Dr. Shaquille Spearman, AMIBW S4 EP117 |
2. Metacognition Is the Most Underused Tool in Education
Ask most educators what metacognition is and they’ll give you a textbook definition. Ask Dr. Spearman, and he’ll tell you it’s liberation. Teaching students to think about their own thinking, to monitor their comprehension, identify their gaps, and adjust their strategies in real time, is one of the most powerful interventions a teacher can make. Research in learning science has consistently shown that metacognitive awareness is among the strongest predictors of academic success across all demographics.
For first-generation college students, many of whom arrive on campus never having been taught how to learn, only what to learn, metacognitive skill-building is transformational. Dr. Spearman’s work in this area doesn’t just help students pass courses. It equips them with a cognitive framework they carry for life.
| “When you teach a student to think about their own thinking, you’re not just improving their grade. You’re changing their relationship with learning forever.” Dr. Shaquille Spearman, AMIBW S4 EP117 |
3. HBCU Environments Require a Different Kind of Leadership
Dr. Spearman has dedicated a significant part of his career to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, institutions that have been chronically underfunded relative to predominantly white institutions, yet continue to produce some of America’s most influential leaders. His reflections on HBCU leadership in our conversation were both candid and deeply moving.
He spoke about the particular demands placed on faculty and administrators at HBCUs: the expectation to deliver excellence with limited resources, to nurture students who are carrying enormous personal and familial weight, and to maintain institutional culture and identity under constant external pressure. His faculty development work within these environments is not generic professional learning, it is carefully contextualized, culturally responsive coaching that meets educators where they are and builds from there.
4. Learning Experience Design Changes What Is Possible in Any Classroom
Through his instructional design certifications from the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Spearman has built fluency in learning experience design, a discipline that moves beyond content delivery to ask a fundamentally different question: What do I want my learners to experience? This shift in framing, from “what will I teach?” to “what will they feel, do, and understand?”, opens up an entirely new realm of instructional possibility.
For HR and L&D professionals reading this, Dr. Spearman’s framework translates directly to corporate learning environments. The principles of backward design, learner-centered experience architecture, and reflective practice are just as relevant in onboarding programs and leadership development pipelines as they are in college classrooms.
5. Legacy Is Built in the Relationships, Not the Resume
Perhaps the most resonant moment in our conversation came when Dr. Spearman spoke about legacy. He was clear: his degrees, his certifications, his national presentations, these are vehicles, not destinations. What he wants to be remembered for is the student who made it because someone believed in them. The faculty member who found their voice because someone sat beside them and said, you have something worth saying. The institution that changed because someone was willing to challenge it from the inside.
That is the measure of an educator. Not what they know, but what they pour into others.
Listen to the Full Conversation
Please join us live tonight July 28, 2026 at 6pm EST by clicking the play button below:
Episode 117 of America in Black and White featuring Dr. Shaquille Spearman is available tonight at 6pm EST. This is a conversation for educators, higher education leaders, L&D professionals, advocates, and anyone who believes that transforming education is one of the most important things we can do for the future of Black America and America as a whole.
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