Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

Special Education, Explicit Instruction, and the Power of Literacy — with Dr. Lalita Karpen About This Episode In this episode of Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works , Gene Tavernetti talks with Dr. Lalita Karpen about special education, specially designed instruction, literacy, and the responsibility schools have to provide effective instruction for every student. Dr. Karpen shares her path fr...

From Six Teachers to a Movement: Building Professional Development That Lasts About This Episode Most professional development begins with enthusiasm and ends before it changes classroom practice. In this episode of Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works , Gene Tavernetti talks with Suzannah Evans and Dr. Shane Saeed about the Science of Learning Collaborative in Colorado’s St. Vrain Valley School...

Summary What are executive functions, and how can teachers support them without adding another program to the school day? Mitch Weathers returns to Better Teaching to discuss the cognitive skills behind organization, task initiation, self-regulation, planning, and follow-through. Mitch explains why clarity, modeling, predictable routines, and a well-designed classroom environment protect students'...

Summary What happens when some of the best teachers in a district are invited to present at conferences across the country, but are never asked to share what they know in their own schools? In this solo episode, Gene Tavernetti reflects on the way classroom teachers with deep expertise in evidence-informed instruction can be sought out by educators elsewhere while their knowledge is overlooked or...

Summary In this from-the-archives episode, Bart Hoffman interviews Dr. Frank Rodriguez and Gene Tavernetti about their book Digital Captives: Helping Schools Strike a Balance Between Humans and Hardware . They trace how technology moved from a tool intended to augment instruction into something that can displace attention, relationships, reading, and meaningful learning. Frank and Gene discuss wha...

Summary Gene Tavernetti examines the familiar explanation that school improvement is difficult because “it’s just the culture.” Drawing on work with schools across the United States and Canada, he argues that culture is not fixed atmosphere—it is the residue of daily decisions, habits, and follow-through. The practical path to change is to change what people do. Gene lays out a focused approach: c...

Summary Instructional coaches are often treated as a school’s all-purpose backup: covering classes, managing testing logistics, joining extra committees, and handling whatever emergency appears next. In this episode of Better Teaching, Gene Tavernetti explains how those individually reasonable requests quietly dismantle a coaching program. Gene makes the case for protecting coaching time as carefu...

Summary In this episode of Better Teaching, Gene Tavernetti challenges the belief that effective coaching must be spontaneous and unscripted. He explains why a well-designed coaching script does not make a feedback conversation rigid or inauthentic—it gives the coach a reliable structure for specific, courageous, and useful feedback. Gene connects coaching scripts to classroom-management routines,...

Summary What does effective literacy intervention look like for students in middle and high school? Faith Howard returns to Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works to explain how she built Literacy Lab, a 6–12 intervention model that combines the science of reading with age-appropriate, grade-level texts. Faith shares how a glorified study hall became a focused literacy intervention, why secondary...

Summary What should every new teacher know before they are asked to improvise, differentiate, or innovate? Gene Tavernetti argues that one of the most important foundations is fluency in explicit instruction—not just hearing about it in professional development, but learning to design it, deliver it, practice it, and receive feedback until the work becomes automatic. Gene explains why that fluency...

Summary Glenn Whitman is a distinguished educator who has worked with schools around the world to support schools and teachers bringing evidence practices to their classrooms. In this episode Glenn talks about his own school’s journey to becoming an evidence-based teaching institution, his continued role in that journey, and how his school supports schools around the world who also want to become...

Summary Kate Meyers and Nicole Davis, AKA Two Maine Teachers and authors the EduProtocol Field Guide: AI Literacy Edition, discuss AI, AI in schools, AI for teachers, and AI for literacy for students. Show Notes LinkedIn: two-maine-teachers Facebook: Facebook Website: twomaineteachers.com Book: The EduProtocol Field Guide AI Literacy Edition This podcast sponsored by: The Bell Ringer, a weekly new...

In this episode, I talk about how to get a faster and more effective start to coaching this year.  This podcast sponsored by: The Bell Ringer, a weekly newsletter providing news, tools, and resources on the science of learning, written by education reporter Holly Korbey. Subscribe here . 

Everyone says one of the most effective ways to teach new content is by using explicit instruction. But fewer teachers than you might think can deliver an effective explicit instruction lesson. Dr. Tavernetti wrote Teach FAST to help remedy that situation and help guide teachers to more effective explicit instruction lesson. In this episode Gene lists and explains the differences between this book...

Beth Hawks talks about her new book, Show Your Work: Teaching Smarter with the Science of Learning as well as her professional path to the Science of Learning and how she utilized it in her teaching. This podcast sponsored by: The Bell Ringer, a weekly newsletter providing news, tools, and resources on the science of learning, written by education reporter Holly Korbey. Subscribe here . 

In this episode Alison Rini, founder of Star Lab school in Sarasota, Florida, describes her journey in education and how her vision of a microschool became a reality. After 25 years of teaching and leading public, private, and charter schools, Alison Rini left the school system and designed a microschool called Star Lab. In order to bring the vision to reality, Alison received a fellowship from Th...

This is latest in our series of Thinking Out Loud. In this episode Zach Grosell and I talk about your year in consulting and a plethora of other topics. Links: Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles This podcast sponsored by: The Bell Ringer, a weekly newsletter providing news, tools, and resources on the science of learning, writte...

Jane Wagner spent more than 30 years as a teacher and driving force of an award-winning K-8 Visual and Performing Arts magnet school. In this episode we discuss the challenges of maintaining a quality thematic school. Gene's Books: Teach Fast Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles Digital Captives X: (1) Gene Tavernetti (@gtavernetti) / X LinkedIn: (7) Gene Tavernetti | LinkedIn www.tesscg.com S...

In this episode, I talk about what takes more time than we think when it comes to implementation, and what takes longer than we think. Links: Gene's Books: Teach Fast Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles Digital Captives X: (1) Gene Tavernetti (@gtavernetti) / X LinkedIn: (7) Gene Tavernetti | LinkedIn www.tesscg.com Substack: Gene Tavernetti | Substack This podcast sponsored by: The Bell Ring...

In this episode Dr. Anthony Fitzpatrick talks about a unique apprenticeship program designed to enhance skills of teachers and facilitate movement on the salary schedule all without intrusive amounts of time after regular school hours. Who benefits? Everyone! Links: LinkedIn:  Anthony Fitzpatrick, Ed. D. | LinkedIn Facebook:  (1) anthony fitzpatrick - Search Results | Facebook Instagram: antfitz55...

In this episode, Gene Tavernetti speaks with Dr. Randy Palisoc, a passionate educator known for his innovative approach to teaching math. Dr. Palisoc shares his experiences and strategies for making math easy for students, focusing on the importance of understanding math as a language. They discuss Dr. Palisoc's background, including his work at Synergy Academies, the development of the Core Advan...

In this solo episode, Gene Tavernetti breaks down why most "we do" approaches to guided practice don't work. Using decimal addition as a teaching example, he shows how to isolate and pre-teach the key concept before practice even starts. He exposes three common but ineffective guided practice patterns and offers a step-by-step alternative that gets better student repetitions and real formative dat...

In this episode, host Gene Tavernetti speaks with Sean Morrissey, a fifth-grade teacher and former school psychologist, about his structured, research-based approach to vocabulary instruction. Sean shares his four-part daily lesson framework — retrieval practice, explicit instruction, fluency passages, and independent practice — explaining how pairing words, embedding spelling, and using morpholog...

In this episode Gene shares some thoughts about what he has learned about what NOT to do when it comes to providing professional development and support for teachers and staff. Links: Gene's Books: Teach Fast Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles Digital Captives X: (1) Gene Tavernetti (@gtavernetti) / X LinkedIn: (7) Gene Tavernetti | LinkedIn www.tesscg.com This podcast sponsored by: The Bell...

Rachel Canter didn’t just report on the Mississippi Marathon—she was involved from the beginning of the state’s long journey toward educational improvement. In this episode, we discuss why meaningful change took so long and what it took to move reform from legislation into actual classroom practice. LinkedIn:  Rachel Canter - Progressive Policy Institute Website: Rachel Canter - Progressive Policy...