Teach, Tech, Lead

Tracey Pacheco is the founder and director of Blend Learning and an experienced educator with 25 years in the New Zealand education sector. After 10 years in the classroom, she became a Ministry of Education-accredited PLD facilitator and established Blend Learning in 2015. Since then, Tracey has worked alongside dozens of schools to build sustainable capability in curriculum design, inquiry learn...

Recorded LIVE at the National Education Summit, this conversation with Dr. Haili Hughes is one which you will not want to miss! We touched on teacher retention, science of learning, explicit teaching, codification, lethal mutations, leadership, teacher wellbeing and teacher agency - amongst other topics! Also name dropped Adam Boxer, Carl Hendrick, Tom Sherrington, Peps Mccrea, Doug Lemov and even...

Bjorn Norstrom is an EdTech leader, STEM educator, and advocate for ethical AI adoption in K-12 education. A licensed technology educator with extensive industry certifications, Bjorn has spent more than two decades helping students and teachers connect classroom learning with real-world technology skills. His experience spans teaching, curriculum design, program management, and STEM coaching, wit...

Dr Alice Elwell is an experienced educational leader, Head of English, and IB educator whose work sits at the intersection of teaching, research, and curriculum innovation. As a teacher of English, Theory of Knowledge, and Global Politics, she champions inquiry-driven learning, student voice, and democratic classroom practices, working closely with students to co-design meaningful learning experie...

Associate Professor Anita Skandarajah is an internationally recognised breast and endocrine surgeon, researcher, and medical educator. She is Head of Breast and Endocrine Surgery and Deputy Director of General Surgery at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, a Breast and Endocrine Surgeon at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Mel...

Gus and I were thrilled to be able to chat to Professor Danny Liu - who is a molecular biologist by training, programmer by night, researcher and faculty developer by day, and educator at heart. A multiple international and national teaching award winner, he is Professor of Educational Technologies at the University of Sydney where he co-chairs the University's AI in Education working group and le...

Brad Gaynor is a leadership coach, keynote speaker, and published author of two books - From Burnout to Breakthrough: The Leadership Reset and Not One More Teacher Lost: How We Can Save the Profession. Gus and I chatted to him about a variety of topics including, why teachers burn out, his RESET framework, how we can retain teachers, and how organisations can look after the wellbeing of their staf...

With shoutouts to House of the Dragon, Spiderman and our upcoming live pod at The National Education Summit with Dr Haili Hughes, this episode has it all! In our latest #one-pager, Gus outlines a technique he calls Calling Across the Room, designed to keep students on task in a very visible and authentic way. Hope you enjoy it!

Many teachers use Learning Goals and Learning Intentions (or similar). Many others will be surface parts of study designs and give students lists of Key Knowledge of Key Skills dot points. None of these things are wrong, but in our latest one-pager, Gus and I discuss the ways in which we can help better define and reinforce with students the learning 'nodes' that they should be taking away in each...

Gus and I were joined by Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath - a neuroscientist, educator, and researcher whose work explores how the brain learns and what that means for teaching in the real world. He's the author of The Digital Delusion, a thought-provoking book that challenges many of our assumptions about technology in education and asks whether more technology really leads to better learning. The conver...

We know that our students have a limited 'cup' of ... for want of a better description... capacity, attention, focus! We have a tendency to fill their cups quickly and once this happens, the additional material we send in their direction, simply overflows their cup and is lost. After a prolonged lesson of chalk and talk, how much has really be retained? Is there a better way? In this one-pager, Gu...

Milica Savic is the Coordinator of Learning & Teaching at Wesley College's Elsternwick Campus and she joined us in studio for a great conversation about learning design, instructional coaching and building cultures of inquiry. Milica has been part of a team leading a whole-school transformation of professional learning through the development of Wesley's Personalised Professional Learning (PPL...

Gus and I recently had a chance to chat to Holly Wedd, the Head Teacher of Maths at Orara High School. Holly has received several teaching and leadership awards, and chatting with her even for this small amount of time, it was clearly evident why! Not only does she have a passion for Maths and education as a whole, her use of high impact teaching strategies in the classroom is both seemless and in...

The idea that we want (and need) our students to think seems quite uncontroversial right? In this modern age we find ourselves in, students will do their utmost to avoid thinking. Thinking is hard! It was certainly a challenge for us pre-AI but tech is continuing to make this difficult to enact in our classrooms. So what can we do? Well - so glad you asked! The solution isn't necessarily 'easy' bu...

Glenn Solomons is a learning designer, course strategist and former school leader who helps educational consultants and school systems scale their impact through high-quality professional learning design. Through his company Cheeky Learning ( https://www.cheekylearning.com.au/ ), Glenn works with educational thought leaders, government organisations and school systems to build blended and asynchro...

Trent Ray is the founder of The Cyber Safety Project and he joined Gus and myself for a chat about the challenges that schools, teachers and students face and the critical and evolving nature of the cyber safety landscape. Trent has a wealth of experience in the #Cybersafety field - driven from his own prior roles teaching and managing ICT in schools. You can reach out to Trent via the Cyber Safet...

In the latest One-Pager from the #TeachTechLeadPodcast , Angus Humphries asks "Are they listening?" ... with the cheeky sub-title... "and why not?". Do we bombard students with long and verbose amounts of content and instructions, without first considering the cognitive load of students and how much they are actually taking in? I've linked the full One-Pager in the comments - hope you enjoy it! #E...

In the latest One-Pager from the #TeachTechLeadPodcast , Angus Humphries pitches "Five Things"! We all know the power of reading and writing and the transformative thinking that results. This technique discusses setting up a structured class room environment where students read with purpose, make notes (not just randomly) and the have an opportunity to discuss or share these notes without referrin...

Caiti Wade is on The Educator's Hot List and while this fact is not the important thing about her, the question it prompts, IS.... Why? Caiti has built a reputation for helping schools use evidence, data and cognitive science to drive meaningful student growth. With expertise spanning instructional design, curriculum implementation and leadership strategy, she is committed to making the science of...

Gus and I had the pleasure of chatting to Ashleigh Martin, the Principal of Caulfield Grammar School. He is widely recognized for his forward-thinking approach to education, with a strong focus on innovation, student wellbeing, and preparing young people for a rapidly changing world. Under his leadership, the school has continued to evolve as a leading independent school, embracing new models of l...

Brent Sheffield is a high school English teacher with a decade of experience driving real, measurable student growth in a Title 1 school. Brent focusses on simplifying the practices that actually move the needle - things like clear explanations, spaced retrieval, and consistent feedback.  Brent is a graduate of Florida’s High Impact Teacher Corps and has served as an English Department Chair, lead...

What is the most effective way to give feedback to students so that they actually take it on board and action it? Are you spending countless hours marking student work only to have them look at the mark and shove it to the bottom of their bag? In this, our 9th one-pager, Gus and I discuss the process of giving feedback to students. Now notice I didn’t say CORRECTIONS, nor did I say MARKS, though m...

What does it really mean to teach students to think for themselves? In our latest podcast episode, we speak with Dr Merinda Bermingham, whose PhD research in critical thinking — particularly teacher understanding of critical thinking — sits at the heart of her work as an educator. Merinda is driven by a powerful purpose: helping students live empowered, respectful, and innovative lives shaped by m...

@Kate Stockmans is an English and Drama educator and the founder of CommuniKaters, with over a decade of teaching experience in international contexts including the UK, Australia, Nepal and Uganda. Trained in dialogic teaching principles, she is passionate about the role communication plays in fostering learning, supporting connection and building empathy between students, educators and parents. H...

Amy Green is a keynote speaker, author and podcast host who, through her consultancy work, explores what it really means to live and work well. After starting in education, she saw how outdated ideas about productivity were leaving people overwhelmed - prompting a bigger question: what if the problem isn’t resilience, but how we design work? Amy helps leaders rethink productivity culture and build...