EDTalksMN

Hanane Kachman serves as Workforce Development Consultant at Fairview Health Services, where she provides expertise in specialty recruitment, workforce planning, pipeline creation, diversity and inclusion, and building partnership with educators and public officials. Hanane is currently focused on creating career pathway programs that begin in high school and continue through a variety of post-sec...

Sara Etzel is Director of Career & Technical Education for Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and a national America Achieves Fellow. At MPS, Sara is leading an innovative team of educators in a systems-change effort to expand access to co-curricular STEM experiences, develop career exploration opportunities that align with Minnesota’s World’s Best Workforce legislation, and create experiential lear...

Beth Hawkins was a founding reporter at MinnPost, where she wrote Learning Curve, an education news and analysis blog. She is currently national correspondent for The 74 Million, a nonprofit news site focused on education policy, where she writes about promising policies and practices in schools throughout the country. Her talk was part of the EDTalk on Media and Public Education, where speakers d...

Mauri Chantel Melander Friestleben is the principal of Lucy Craft Laney at Cleveland Park Community School in North Minneapolis. Her school was featured in KARE 11’s year-long profile, “Lessons from Lucy Laney,” where she got an insider’s view of working with the media. Her talk was part of the EDTalk on Media and Public Education, where speakers discussed media coverage of public education and ho...

Dr. Daryl Parks is Associate Professor of English Education at Metropolitan State University, where he prepares pre-service teachers for urban teaching success. A former high school teacher, Parks works closely with urban high schools to support their effectiveness with students, teachers and administrators. Alexei Moon Casselle, aka Crescent Moon, has been actively involved in the Twin Cities hip...

Nate Eklund holds fast to the notion that life is too precious to spend it not liking your job. After spending 15 years as a high school English teacher, he authored a book on workplace cultures in schools and founded Eklund Consulting. Today he works in a variety of industries to develop thoughtful leaders, engaged employees and workplace cultures that are vibrant and fulfilling places for all. H...

Jamie Williams is a restorative practices consultant, trainer, teacher and peacemaking circle-keeper. She has worked as a Restorative Justice Coordinator in Wisconsin, supported Project Launch at the Red Cliff Reservation Early Childhood Center and the Amicus Radius Program (a Restorative Justice Program for juvenile girls) and served as a Minnesota Department of Corrections circle-keeper. Jamie i...

Maren Henderson is an Evaluation Specialist for Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), where she coordinates the Youth Participatory Evaluation program for the district. Maren uses evaluation to empower underrepresented communities and inform equity-driven decision making. She holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs with a concentration in yout...

Dr. Clay Cook is the John and Nancy Peyton Faculty Fellow in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing at the University of Minnesota and Associate Professor in the School Psychology Program. Clay co-founded the School Mental Health Assessment, Research and Training (SMART) Center at the University of Washington and is a core faculty member within the Institute of Translational Research in Children’s Mental...

Dr. Candace Burckhardt is a Special Education and English Learner Coordinator at Indigo Education, where she supports special education programs in over 70 charter schools in Minnesota. Candace recently finished a pilot research program on mindfulness-based interventions within special education programs in Minnesota. In 2016 she served as a Research Fellow with the Mind & Life European Summer Res...

Dr. Ann Masten is a Regents Professor of Child Development and the Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Masten has studied resilience in children and families experiencing homelessness for more than 25 years in collaboration with shelter providers and school districts in the Twin Cities. Her research focuses on risk and resilience in human development...

Bryan Boyce is the founder and Executive Director of Cow Tipping Press, which cultivates writers with developmental disabilities and gives readers a new way to think about this rich form of human diversity. As the sibling of a brother with developmental disabilities, Bryan knows firsthand the value and richness of exchange across neurological difference. He seeks to give others this opportunity—an...

Paul Creager is a Curriculum & Media Arts Coordinator at Gordon Parks High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has been an educator for nearly 20 years, during which time he's conducted curriculum research in Japan, UK and most recently India as a Fulbright Scholar. Paul is also an award winning documentary filmmaker, and founder of the Square Lake Film & Music Festival. He lives on the festival pro...

Sambath (Sam) Ouk is the English Language Coordinator for Faribault Public Schools. He and his family survived the Cambodian Killing Fields and immigrated to the United States in 1982. Sam has researched, proposed and implemented a variety of programs for newly arrived immigrants and students learning English and has written about the acculturation experiences of refugees. He hopes that through hi...

Jenny Wright Collins is Executive Director of the University of Minnesota YMCA. She is a proven non-profit leader committed to transforming Twin Cities communities through youth development, educational equity, cross-sector collaboration, and innovative leadership development. With over 15 years of experience working with youth, she manages programs that engage 8,000+ young people state-wide, incl...

Gayle J. Smaller is Executive Director of the New Lens Mentoring Society, which he created in 2014 to close the opportunity gap between students of color and their white peers in Saint Paul Public Schools. Gayle draws on his vast experience as a teacher, principal, and educational consultant and uses a unique multi-generational mentoring and experiential approach to closing the achievement gap. Bo...

Rebeka Ndosi, L.Ac, MSOM Rebeka Ndosi recently left the education and nonprofit worlds to focus on individual and collective healing. A licensed acupuncturist and level II trained yoga and meditation instructor, she is the owner of Healing Illuminated and co-owner of People’s Movement Center. Rebeka was nominated for an Emmy as producer of TPT’s narrative-changing Black Brilliance, which featured...

Dr. Mark Sander, PsyD, LP is Director of School Mental Health for Hennepin County and Minneapolis Public Schools, and a Senior Clinical Psychologist for Hennepin County. As a certified Master Trainer in the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES), he helps develop trauma informed organizations and trauma sensitive schools, and publishes and speaks nationally on school mental health. Dr. Sander...

2014 MN Teacher of the Year Tom Rademacher, and one of his students Arieanna Whitley, discuss how students can help lead and create anti-racist classrooms. Former Minneapolis School Board member, and current State Representative Peggy Flanagan talks about how knowing where we come from can determine where we're going.

This EDTalks focused on storytelling and art and how they can be tools for teaching and learning. Beverly Cottman, tells stories, myths and folktales rooted in African and African-American traditions. Beverly uses storytelling as a powerful tool to transform lives, pass on values, instill pride, evoke self-love and celebrate culture. She developed her expertise as a storyteller during 30 years as...

Our February 2016 EDTalks featured Bertrand Weber, the Director of Nutrition and Culinary Services for Minneapolis Public Schools who discussed the importance of high-quality school lunches and his innovative work leading the Farm-to-School movement. Dr. Megan Gunnar is the Associate Director of the Center for Neurobehavioral Development, and the Director of the Institute of Child Development at t...

Our April 2015 EDTalks featured Kao Kalia Yang, a teacher, public speaker, writer and author of the award-winning book "The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir. She spoke about her experiences as a Hmong student in public schools. Dana Mortenson, co-founder of World Savvy believes deeply in the transformative power of global education. Dana discussed the importance of globally competent teaching....

We kicked off our 2016-17 season of EDTalks with a discussion on demographic data - how the demographics of Minnesota and the metro area have changed over time, and what these changes mean for our communities and our classrooms. Ruth Hamberg, Engagement Specialist from MinnesotaCompass presented "Who Is Minnesota" and gave us a foundation of our community's demographics. KaYing Yang, Policy Direct...