The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast (Jennifer Gonzalez)

Teachers are saying this is the worst school year ever. In this episode, I'll explore the reasons why, offer some solutions, and also share a few other loosely related thoughts that may or may not help. 

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Thanks to CommonLit and Brain Power Academy for sponsoring this episode.

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Learning requires us to be vulnerable, and in order to do that, we need to feel safe. In this episode, I talk with Elena Aguilar, author of The PD Book, about how professional development facilitators can make that happen for teachers.

Thanks to JumpStart and Hapara for sponsoring this episode.

Quality note-taking is a powerful learning tool, but to do it well, students need to be taught how to do it. In this episode, I talk with instructional coach Peg Grafwallner and chemistry teacher Abby Felten about a fantastic station-rotation lesson they developed to help Abby's students learn to take better notes.

Is it better to rescue our kids every time they make mistakes, or let them experience the consequences of their actions? In this episode, I interview Jessica Lahey, author of The Gift of Failure: Why the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. We discuss how helicopter parenting can stunt a kid's growth, what parents should do instead, and the teacher's role supporting a student's autonomy.

Is it possible to differentiate instruction so that students truly move at their own pace? My guest, middle school math teacher Natalie McCutchen, explains exactly how she does it--a process I believe teachers of any subject could adapt for their own classrooms. 

It's a new year and it's a great time to try out a few new tech tools. Here's my annual round-up of apps and sites I think are worth a look, plus two more extra just for the heck of it. The 2020 Teacher's Guide to Tech is now available at https://teachersguidetotech.com/guide/

Graphic novels are wonderful for reading, but when students use the graphic novel form for their own writing, incredible stories can emerge. In this episode, I talk with English teacher Shveta Miller about how she teaches this process to her students, and why this particular genre allows students to share some of their most important stories.

After years of listening to shallow, perfunctory student discussions, ELA teacher Jessica Cannata found a way to make those conversations more natural, more interesting, and more real. In this episode, Jessica explains how her Real Talk strategy works, and how you can use it in lots of other courses outside of the English classroom.

Thanks to EVERFI and Parlay for sponsoring this episode.

You can learn more from Jessica Cannata at EB Academics.

We've covered a lot of differentiation strategies over the years, and here's one you may not have heard of: backward chaining. It allows students to start a task a few steps ahead, allowing them to experience a sense of completion that might otherwise be out of reach. My guest Melanie Meehan explains how it works. 

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Thanks to Pear Deck and Spinndle for sponsoring this episode.

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Ask any group of teachers if their goal is to simply have students regurgitate facts, and every one of them will say no. Despite that, it keeps happening. In this episode, we'll look at two of the most common errors teachers make when planning lessons for higher-order thinking, and some ideas for what to do instead.

In too many classrooms, we're expecting students to learn material without asking them to do much of anything with it. Why is this a problem? Where did it come from? And what can we do to fix it?

I've got a bit of a rant to share with you in this episode, and it has something to do with Grecian Urns. Chances are you have one or more of these in your lesson plans, and in this episode I'm going to help you find them and get rid of them.

Sometimes the simplest techniques are the most effective. Think-Pair-Share is a humble but powerful teaching strategy that's due for some attention. In this episode, I talk about the benefits of Think-Pair-Share, plus some tips for making it work better for you.

A one-pager is a highly engaging, visual tool that allows students to synthesize learning, but some kids don't think they're creative enough to make them. My guest, Betsy Potash, host of the Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, shares her simple solution to this problem, along with a step-by-step plan for using one-pagers in your classroom.

True silence is almost impossible to achieve in the classroom, and extraneous noises can be distracting. Adding background music creates a sanctuary where sustained concentration is more likely to happen.

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to Stash101 for sponsoring this episode.

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No one likes it when an administrator plays favorites. But what if the favorite is you? In this episode, I share a story about one of the most difficult periods of my teaching years, and some advice to help teachers and administrators avoid a similar situation. 

Is it a reflection of a warm school culture, or a subtle way to get teachers to volunteer more time? If you suspect it's the latter, it's time to push back. In this episode, I talk with Angela Watson, author of the new book Fewer Things Better, about three popular school norms that can ultimately lead to teacher burnout, plus some specific ways teachers can push back on those messages.

Most of us recognize that schools need to change to meet the demands of the information age, but we don't have many models to follow for making that change happen. In this episode, I interview Don Wettrick, who launched an innovation elective in his high school six years ago. He tells me how the program works, why all schools need an innovation class, and how you can start one in your school.

Kim, a passionate ESL teacher and our very first guest, talks candidly about the complexities of teaching English learners: the power imbalance that arises when the kids speak English but the parents don't, why ELL students won't look their teachers in the eye, and the well-intended mistake so many content area teachers make when working with a diverse population.

Cognitive scientists are learning more all the time about what strategies really work to help people learn, but teachers don't always know how to apply that knowledge in the classroom. In this episode, I talk with Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain, authors of the new book Powerful Teaching, about the four research-based teaching "power tools" that can be used in any classroom to boost student learning.

In far too many cases, schools do not support students of color in ways that help them grow to their full potential. My guest, Dena Simmons, shares four specific things teachers could be doing in their classrooms to change this.

Teaching grammar in isolation is not only ineffective, it can actually make student writing worse. So when students make mistakes, what should teachers do? In this episode, I outline a simple system for teaching grammar within the context of meaningful writing.

Standardized testing has, without a doubt, created a lot of problems in education, and far too often, our conversations about these problems end in statements like "we need to just get rid of them all" or "Oh well, nothing we can do to change things." In this episode, education researcher Jenn Binis joins me to talk about a different approach to solving the problems around standardized testing: moving away from all-or-nothing thinking and towards the idea of reducing harm. Jenn offers 5 specific strategies educators can take to make things better.

Thanks to NoRedInk and Edge•U Badges for sponsoring this episode.

Read Jenn's full blog post by going to cultofpedagogy.com/standardized-tests-what-to-do

Popcorn or "round-robin" reading has been around forever, even though it's not supported by research and can actually slow down students' reading progress. Learn more about why you should stop doing it and what strategies to put in its place.

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to Floop for sponsoring this episode.

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After years of hearing teachers' stories, I have reached the conclusion that there is one element that makes the difference in whether the teachers in any given school will lean toward positive and productive or desperate and crushed: That element is the administrator. In this letter, I share the things teachers wish administrators would do to help them become the best teachers they can be.

This year's picks include a video conferencing platform that feels more like a physical space, a database of books where the main characters are black girls, a career exploration platform, math lessons that students will actually care about, a device that combines tech with hands-on play, and a collection of art experiments. 

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Learn more about the Teacher's Guide to Tech at teachersguidetotech.com.

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Thanks to Fearless Schools and Google's Applied Digital Skills for sponsoring this episode.

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When a student or audience member has a question, repeating it before you answer allows everyone else to hear it and gives you a chance to clarify the questioner's intent.

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You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to CommonLit for sponsoring this episode.

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The core activity of this after-school program is boxing, but it offers so much more to students. In this episode, I talk with Jamyle Cannon, executive director of The Bloc Chicago, about why this program has been so wildly successful at helping students achieve personal and academic success, and how other educators can follow the same model by building engaging programs around student interests in their communities.

Thanks to EVERFI and Giant Steps for sponsoring this episode.

Every teacher has had students whose names are hard to pronounce. Some of us shrug this off, saying we're just no good with names, or we give our students nicknames instead. In this episode, I talk about the message we send to students when we continually say their names wrong, and I share some strategies and tools to help you get them right.

If too many of your classroom plans go off the rails, you might need to add more norm-setting, where you clarify expectations in detail before starting an activity. It's a step some of us skip, but the time you spend on it will pay off later. 

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You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to Edulastic for sponsoring this episode.

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If you’re finding that your classroom management seems to be a problem no matter what you do, there’s a good chance you might be doing something to get in your own way. Here are 10 mistakes teachers make that can undermine even the best classroom management system.

Dialogue journals are a simple but powerful tool for building trust with your students and sustaining that relationship all year long. In this episode I talk with teacher Liz Galarza about how she uses these journals in her classroom and the research she's doing about how they shift the power dynamic in the classroom. 

If our students are going to thrive, they all need to feel safe, accepted, and loved while under our care. This week, we're focusing on what that looks like when it comes to gender-expansive students — kids whose gender expression or identity is different from what they were assigned at birth. For these students, creating a school that feels safe and accepting isn't simply a matter of being nice to them; there are some specific do's and don'ts that can make a huge difference in how they experience school. My guest is Dave Edwards, an educator who teaches these principles through his website, Gender Inclusive Schools, and his brand-new book of the same name. As the parent of a transgender daughter who has experienced discrimination, Dave's mission is a personal one. In this episode, he shares specific things schools can do to proactively create safe learning environments for these students.

Thanks to The Wired Classroom and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For links to Dave's book and a full transcript of our conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com/gender-inclusive-school.

Many states are seeing record high numbers of teacher turnovers and vacancies. While the problems that caused this shortage have not gone away, there are groups of people who are coming up with some creative ways to address this situation, new and surprisingly affordable pathways for training good, enthusiastic teachers. Two of these programs are Oxford Teachers College at Reach University and Educators Rising. In this episode, educator Kimberly Eckert talks with me about how and why both of these outstanding programs work.

Thanks to Edge•U Badges and EVERFI for sponsoring this episode.

To read a full transcript of our conversation and find links to all the resources mentioned in this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/teacher-shortage.

Are you preparing for a teaching job interview? In this episode, I talk to five experienced administrators about the things prospective teachers should and should NOT do in interviews. Many thanks to Chris Nordmann, Penny Sturtevant, Herbert O'Neil, George Couros, and Joe Collins for providing us with these great insights.

When we blame our teaching problems on the collective inferiority of a generation, we only make things worse. In this episode, we explore the problem of teacher nostalgia, why we give into it, and how we can stop it.

If you want to do more differentiation, but you feel overwhelmed by the idea of creating lots of individual lessons, try creating a tiered activity. This simple differentiation strategy gives students an appropriate level of challenge without a lot of prep on your part.

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to Floop for sponsoring this episode.

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While working on the update of my book, The Teacher's Guide to Tech, I learned about a whole lot of tools that can make your teaching more efficient and effective. Here are six of my favorites.

The ability to tell a good story is one of the things that makes human beings extraordinary. Here's the process I used to teach my own students how to do it.

Whether you're brand-new to block scheduling or you've been doing it for years, this episode will have you handling those 90 minutes like a boss.

Not long ago, if you wanted to record and distribute music, publish a book, produce a film, sell your art, or reach an audience with your voice, you had to hope a large corporation would make that happen. But those days are over: A special group of technology tools now makes it possible for our students -- and us -- to pursue our talents and passions to the fullest extent possible, just like the pros. I call this collection the Passion Tools, and in this episode, I'm going to tell you all about them.

http://www.teachersguidetotech.com

Why is it that so many teachers have a hard time taking good care of themselves? In this episode, I interview teacher productivity expert Angela Watson about the reasons we struggle to make time for self-care and four specific things we can do to change that.

Voice of Witness is an organization that curates oral histories, stories told by people whose voices are rarely heard: Migrant workers. Refugees. Prisoners. Factory workers in developing countries. Undocumented Americans. Their stories, in their voices. In this episode, I talk with Voice of Witness education program director Cliff Mayotte about the books and free classroom materials that can help you bring the power of oral history to your classroom

Teachers never seem to be able to find enough time to get their work done AND have a healthy, balanced life outside of school. And until now, I had very few solutions to this problem. But that was before I heard about Angela Watson's 40 Hour Teacher Workweek. In this episode, she shares 5 of her incredible time-saving strategies for teachers...and everyone else.

Many well-intended efforts to make schools more equitable often fail because we're trying to make them work inside a system that's a terrible fit for them. What's been missing is a whole-school approach that creates a path forward that is radically different from what we've done before. In this episode, I talk with the authors of the book Street Data—Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan—about their ground-up approach to school transformation, one that lets go of the fixation on text scores and centers marginalized voices instead.

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Thanks to CommonLit and ISTE for sponsoring this episode.

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Find Shane and Jamila online at shanesafir.com and jamiladugan.com.

High school English teacher Jeff Frieden shares his Ongoing Conversations strategy, a simple, effective way to get students to have rich, one-on-one conversations about what they're learning—and get to know each other a little better in the process. 

Trauma-informed teaching has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, and my guest, Alex Shevrin Venet, is a wonderful guide to help us better understand how it works. Her book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education, offers a holistic, nuanced exploration of what this work looks like in practice, and it does so with equity at the center. In this episode, we talk about what trauma-informed teaching looks like in practice, how some approaches to this work miss the mark, and how teachers can start applying some basic principles of good trauma-informed teaching right away. 

Thanks to EVERFI and Giant Steps for sponsoring this episode.

Read a summary of this interview and a full transcript at cultofpedagogy.com/trauma-informed-education.

Some educators wonder if multicultural and social justice education are relevant if most of your students are white. The answer is yes. In fact, they may be even more relevant for white students. In this episode, Dr. Sheldon Eakins talks with me about the reasons white students need this kind of education and what, specifically, we can teach them.

Follow Dr. Eakins on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sheldoneakins

Find Dr. Eakins' podcast, the Leading Equity Podcast, here: https://www.leadingequitycenter.com/podcast 

More resources available at the Leading Equity Center.

Many teachers don't know enough to effectively meet the needs of students with ADHD. In this episode, we'll take a look at 8 principles you can apply to your teaching that can help these students thrive.

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Thanks to Listenwise and Read&Write by Texthelp for sponsoring this episode.

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Teaching is intense, vulnerable work that brings up a range of emotions all day, every day. If we really want to help teachers thrive, we need to go beyond the technical parts of the job and look at how our core human needs show up in this work. In this episode, author and instructional coach Elena Aguilar joins me to explore what it looks like when a teacher's needs for belonging, autonomy, competence, self-esteem, trust, and purpose are not being met, and what can be done to address that.

Thanks to EVERFI and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For links to Elena's book, Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 233.

In an effort to boost test scores and close gaps, too many schools are using more reading "activities and programs" and cutting back on time for actual reading. In this episode, teacher and author Pernille Ripp tells me about how she completely changed her approach to reading instruction to help students become life-long readers, and how other teachers can do the same.

The problem of late work never seems to go away. In this episode, I share eight smart solutions teachers use to manage it with their students.

Sometimes, to do right by their students, good teachers have to break the rules. In this episode, I talk with Melinda Anderson, author of Becoming a Teacher, about the times when doing the right thing means bucking the system.

Get the book, Becoming a Teacher
(Amazon Affiliate link)

Follow Melinda Anderson on Twitter: @mdawriter

I have no new strategies or tools or books to share with you this week. Nothing new to implement. Just a simple call to action for administrators to start giving your teachers more specific, genuine positive feedback. They need it. 

Thanks to NoRedInk and The Modern Classrooms Project for sponsoring this episode.

You can read this podcast as a post at cultofpedagogy.com/your-teachers-need-a-win/.

An argument for spending more time practicing subtlety and nuance and complication in our thinking.

This episode is sponsored by Kialo Edu and Kiddom. 

One thing they don't teach in our education courses is just how freaking much students talk, and how hard it can be to quiet them down. To tackle this problem I went to Michael Linsin, the creator of Smart Classroom Management. In this episode, we look at the reasons students talk when they shouldn't and what you can do about it.

When high school English teacher Dan Tricarico started taking photos of his colleagues, he didn't expect them to create new bonds among his staff. Teachers rarely get an opportunity to have their humanity and uniqueness showcased in this way, but these beautiful portraits do just that — and anyone with a smartphone can do the same thing for the teachers at their school. 

Thanks to WeVideo and The Modern Classrooms Project for sponsoring this episode.

To view the full portrait gallery go to https://cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 221.

What are the best practices in tech training for teachers? In this episode, I interview three technology integration specialists to hear what they've learned about the most effective methods for planning and delivering ed tech training in schools. Thanks to Sarah Thomas, Rodney Turner, and Craig Badura for sharing their experiences!

Chances are you're going to be doing at least some online teaching in the upcoming school year. What shifts do we need to make in our face-to-face teaching practices to make the most of online learning? In this episode I talk to instructional technology coach Melanie Kitchen about nine ways online teaching should be different from in-person teaching, plus a few ways it should be exactly the same.

Find Melanie on Twitter at @MelKitchenEDU or on her website, creativecuriosity.org.

To get a weekly email about Cult of Pedagogy's latest posts, podcasts, courses, and products, sign up at cultofpedagogy.com/subscribe.

One of the most important things we need to accomplish as we move forward into the school year is building relationships with our students. But if you're teaching online, that task will be more challenging than ever. In this episode I talk with Dave Stuart Jr. about his strategy of creating Moments of Genuine Connection and how we can do that while teaching remotely.

Get Dave's free mini-course: 10 Tips for Staying Motivated When Teaching in Times of Uncertainty 

See all of Dave's online courses** at cultofpedagogy.com/dave

**I am an affiliate for Dave Stuart Jr.'s online courses. This means I receive a commission for any purchases made through my links.

Annotation can be a powerful way to improve comprehension and increase engagement, but its effectiveness can vary depending on how it's taught. In this episode, two teachers share their classroom-tested approaches to teaching students how to effectively annotate texts: 3rd grade teacher Andrea Castellano and high school English teacher Irene Yannascoli. 

Thanks to Listenwise and Studyo for sponsoring this episode.

To read a full transcript of this conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com/art-of-annotation/.

In too many classrooms, our students aren't really thinking. What they're doing instead is more like mimicking, and my guest Peter Liljedahl is determined to change that. In this episode, we'll learn about his Thinking Classroom approach to instruction, where students are up on their feet, actively and collaboratively problem-solving, in a format that has taken the math world (and beyond) by storm. 

Thanks to Listenwise and Wipebook for sponsoring this episode.

OERs have gotten really good over the last few years, but in order to steer clear of the crap, you have to know where to look. In this episode, I interview curriculum evangelist Karen Vaites about where teachers can go to find outstanding materials—from single-use resources to full-year curricula—that are 100% free.

While it's true that student choice has a lot of value, it's possible to give so much choice in an assignment that it kind of backfires. When a task has little to no structure at all, students often respond with confusion, not creativity.

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You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to CommonLit for sponsoring this episode.

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Stopping while you read a text out loud might be necessary in order to explain, dissect, or analyze something, but those interruptions can really mess up a listener's experience of the text. Next time, start with a smooth first read, then start over and get into the instruction.

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You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to Edulastic for sponsoring this episode.

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If we know what works to motivate students, why are so many students still unmotivated? These five questions will help you determine if your practice is really in line with research.

Welcome to our very first installment of "Ask the Cult," our call-in advice show for teachers and anyone else with questions about teaching, learning, and education. In this episode, we hear from a science teacher who wants advice on making his class more challenging for gifted and advanced students, a graduate student who needs help keeping her online bookmarks organized, and a teacher who doesn't know what to do about a co-worker who mistreats students right in front of her.

Adding an unexpected ingredient to a lesson makes students more likely to remember the thing they were supposed to learn.

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to Pear Deck for sponsoring this episode.

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Language shapes so much of who we are, but not all students feel they can bring their whole selves into the classroom. Even the most well-meaning teachers can unwittingly do more harm than good. In this episode, educator Andrea Castellano answers some common questions about students who code-switch between languages and dialects and shares research-based practices that will help multilingual students flourish.

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Thanks to CoderZ and Edulastic for sponsoring this episode.

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If you've ever thought about using podcasts as classroom texts, but didn't have time to find the right ones, you're going to be blown away by Listen Current, a website that curates the best podcasts of public radio and wraps each one with classroom-ready materials. In this episode, I talk to Listen Current founder and CEO Monica Brady-Myerov about what the site offers to teachers.

Students with special needs are spending more and more time in mainstream classrooms, so all teachers need to learn how to support them well. In this episode, special educator Lisa Brooks helps us learn to identify students who may have dyslexia. She then shares ways we can do a better job of supporting students with this learning difference that's far more common than you might think.

Positive, accurate representations of Arab voices and contributions are largely missing from our classrooms. In this episode, four educators — Sawsan Jaber, Reem Fakhry, Fatma Elsamra, and Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi — teach us how we can change that.

This episode is sponsored by JumpStart.

Read a full transcript of this episode and find a robust list of excellent resources for integrating Arab narratives into your curriculum at cultofpedagogy.com/arab-narratives.

The sit-and-get, one-size-fits-all model is disappearing. Taking its place are these 9 alternative models for teacher professional development.

In this episode, I talk with Khan Academy's founder, Sal Khan, about the platform's new mastery learning feature, which allows learners to get personalized practice, filling much needed skill gaps and advancing at their own pace. And it's all completely free.

So many teachers have English language learners in class, but the teachers have no training in how to support them. In this episode, I gather tips from three ESL teachers for the most effective ways regular classroom teachers can support these students.

How important is the relationship you build with your students, and how can you make that relationship better? James Sturtevant, author of the book You've Gotta Connect, joins me to talk about why the teacher-student relationship is more significant to student learning than even socioeconomic status, the specific things teachers can do to build a strong, trusting relationship with students, and why sarcasm will always bite you in the butt. A must-listen for teachers interested in improving classroom management.

Educators, especially those in leadership roles, spend far too much time in isolation. An educator mastermind gives us a group of peers to help us problem-solve, set goals, and support each other in the incredibly challenging work we do. In this episode, I interview Daniel Bauer of the Better Leaders, Better Schools podcast about the educator masterminds he facilitates, and how you can start your own.

Many dress codes unfairly target students in certain populations, doing more harm than good. Is your dress code due for an upgrade? In this episode, equity writer Coshandra Dillard helps us learn what to look for when revising dress code policy, and high school principal Marcus Campbell shares his experiences in changing his own school's dress code. 

As a teacher, you probably find yourself in situations pretty often where you're made aware of a student having needs or challenges that exceed what your school typically offers them. The list of student needs in so many schools is never-ending, and your desire to help meet them is probably pretty strong, too. But attempting to meet these needs on your own — to become a kind of "savior" to your students — can not only lead to burnout for you, it's also not ultimately that helpful to the student long-term. In this episode Alex Shevrin Venet, author of the book Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education, returns to talk about the danger of getting into a savior mentality when helping our students, how to tell if you're slipping into that kind of thinking, and how to shift toward healthier and more helpful ways of thinking about and approaching student needs.

Thanks to NoRedInk and The Modern Classrooms Project for sponsoring this episode.

You can find links to Alex's book and a full transcript of our conversation at cultofpedagogy.com/savior-mentality/.

Just a little story for you; the title says it all. 

Anticipatory sets — quick preludes to your lessons — are a creative way to get students interested in what's to come. They are not an absolute necessity, but if you can work them in, they make a lesson just a little more special.

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You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to The Modern Classrooms Project for sponsoring this episode.

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Awareness of educational inequity is important, but we also need to take action. In this episode, professor and activist Pedro Noguera shares ten specific things educators can do to pursue equity in schools.

When we say something generic like "good job," it might make a student feel good, but that's about it. What has a lot more impact is specific praise given to individual people.

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to Stash101 for sponsoring this episode.

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This subtle little teaching move stops off-task behavior in a class session and gets things back on track without drama! 

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Thanks to Reading Progress in Teams for sponsoring this episode.

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What factors are most likely to contribute to suicide in young people, and how can teachers recognize the signs? In this episode I talk with Anne Moss Rogers, mental health and suicide prevention speaker, about how teachers can help to prevent suicide in adolescents and children.

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Thanks to Listenwise and ISTE for sponsoring this episode.

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Could your school stop its normal routine for a full day and devote it entirely to unstructured play? That's what thousands of schools all over the world do every February for the Global School Play Day. In this episode I talk to GSPD founders Eric Saibel, Tim Bedley, and Scott Bedley about why play is so important for people of all ages.

It's happened to so many teachers: You teach your heart out. Really just knock it out of the park. Then you ask a question all students should know the answer to … and nothing. What's going on? In this episode, educator and writer Blake Harvard offers four possible explanations for why we get the blank stare, along with four solutions that will help us see a lot less of it.

Thanks to Edge•U Badges and The Modern Classrooms Project for sponsoring this episode.

To read Blake's article, go cultofpedagogy.com/stare.

To do this work and stick with it long enough to get good at it, you need a level of emotional resilience most other jobs will never require. In this episode, my guest Elena Aguilar shares 12 habits teachers can develop that will build the resilience they need.

Are we taking the wrong approach to learning? The book "Make It Stick" presents new research that shows how some of our most common studying and teaching practices don't have any real research to support them. In this episode, I talk to one of the book's authors, Peter Brown, about some of the book's most important takeaways.

When you've done lots of diversity training, but something is still missing, it might be that people still aren't comfortable having honest conversations about race. In this episode, I talk with Glenn Singleton, creator of the Courageous Conversations About Race online course, and David Watkins, Director of Equity and Diversity for Broward County, Florida, where the course has already helped over 300 teachers get more comfortable having these conversations.

For some teachers, it has become a habit to send the majority of discipline problems elsewhere: Either we write up an office referral, threaten to call parents, or even enlist a more intimidating colleague to deal with a problematic student. When we do this, we are giving our power away, limiting the respect our students have for us and missing an opportunity to model assertive, skillful problem solving. In this episode, I'll share some ideas for breaking this habit and reclaiming control of your classroom management.

Building a robust vocabulary is an essential part of any education. Students will learn new words in our classes no matter what, but if we're deliberate about giving them regular instructional opportunities to learn them, they'll learn so many more. In this episode, Dr. Angela Peery shares eight specific strategies you can use to build your students' vocabulary in any subject area and at any grade level. 

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Thanks to fastIEP and Google's Applied Digital Skills for sponsoring this episode.

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American Slavery is a difficult topic to teach, and for decades, we haven't been doing a very good job of teaching it. In this episode, I interview history professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries about the Teaching Hard History framework, a free set of resources aimed at giving our students a more comprehensive look at how slavery started, its fundamental role in our country's history, and how it continues to impact our society today.

If you're like me, you've been a little slow to warm up to the idea of makerspaces in the classroom. In this episode, John Spencer helps me understand what a makerspace is, how it can add value to any classroom, and what steps teachers can take to start and manage a makerspace of their own.

Our students need more social-emotional support than ever before, and schools are coming up with creative ways to meet that need. In this episode, I interview Dan Ryder, whose high school makerspace serves as a stigma-free space for students to solve problems they have inside or outside the classroom.

Are any of these ineffective teaching methods still part of your practice? I have done them all, but now I know better. In this episode, I'll explain what the research says about these methods and what you should do instead.

This year's collection includes a discussion monitor, a tool that analyzes writing, a virtual reality tour maker, and my favorite new game.

The yearly roundup of tools includes an audio feedback tool, sites to combat racism and media bias, and an app that lets you Google things in mid-air.

This episode is sponsored by Kialo Edu and National Geographic Education.

Genius Hour has exploded in classrooms over the last few years, and teachers who want to try it have a lot of questions. In this episode I ask A.J. Juliani, creator of the Genius Hour Master Course, the top 10 questions teachers have about Genius Hour, and he gives me some great answers.

Graphic organizers can pack a strong instructional punch if you know how to use them. In this episode I review the research on why graphic organizers work so well, list 10 creative classroom uses for them, and offer a few tips so you can implement them effectively.