TeachLab with Justin Reich

This week on TeachLab, we continue our series of conversations with innovative educators with Mel Cheng, a lifelong educator and learner. Mel is the Director of Engagement at What School Could Be, and before that worked as a classroom teacher, technology facilitator and coach, and administrator at Hawaiʻi’s first public charter school for 23 years. A maker enthusiast, Mel believes that intentional...

This month on TeachLab, we’re releasing a series of conversations with innovative educators to celebrate the release of our host Justin Reich’s new book, Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools . This week we’re lucky to be joined by Ronni Moore, an educator who is passionate about re-envisioning what school can be. Ronni is the director of high schools for Crystal House Indianapolis, and was...

This week, our host Justin Reich released his new book, Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools . To celebrate the launch and dig into the themes of the book, we’re releasing a series of conversations with innovative educators.  In this episode, we’re joined by Erik Burmeister, an award-winning teacher, principal, and superintendent who worked as a highly impactful educator in California for...

In the eighth and final episode of our series on Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we talk  with Katie Rinderle, a 10 year veteran educator from Cobb County, Georgia. Katie is the first teacher in Georgia to be terminated for violating the state's divisive concept laws. What did Katie do? She went to a school book fair, sponsored by her school, and bought the best selling picture book, My Shadow...

In the seventh episode of Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we dive back into our exploration of book bans and challenges throughout the United States. We sit down with Jen Varney and Barb Fecteau of the Massachusetts School Library Association, to hear about how the current climate is impacting the lives of school librarians, and their strategies for navigating these times. And, we talk to Sabri...

In the sixth episode of Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we turn our attention to Guilford, Connecticut. Guilford is a small town with a big commitment to equity for their students, and serves as a microcosm for the debates surrounding schools in the US. Our host Justin Reich sits down with Amity Goss, Assistant Superintendent of Guilford Public Schools, to learn more about what’s happening in G...

In the fifth episode of our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we’re taking a look at book bans in schools. We head off to Florida, the epicenter of this conflict, to find out more about what books are being removed, how this affects students, teachers, and the community, and the actions that educators are taking in the face of these controversial transformations in school libraries an...

This week, we’re giving the floor to our friends Jesse Dukes and Chris Bagg at UpperMiddleBrow to share one of their summer reading episodes. You’ll listen to teachers offer their summer reading recommendations for teens, and a great conversation about teaching literature. Heads Up: UpperMiddleBrow is a little salty, so there might be a curse word here or there. If you like what you hear, be sure...

In the fourth episode of our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we’re taking a look at autonomy. How much autonomy do K-12 teachers really have, how is teacher autonomy being reduced… and what’s being lost as a consequence? We share a profile of David Graf, a veteran educator from Woodland Park, Colorado. And, our host Justin Reich is joined by law professor Derek Black and education p...

In the third episode of our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide, we take a look at a few of the recent court cases that impact teacher’s freedom of speech, like Kennedy v. Bremerton and Kluge vs. Brownsberg. Our host Justin Reich talks with Derek Black, Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law, Brock Boone, senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Cente...

In the second episode of our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide, Justin takes a look at the history of teacher’s first amendment rights, with the help of experts  Brock Boone, senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Sara O'Brien, researcher at Harvard Graduate School of Education. And, we follow up with educator Dakota Morrison to hear about what happened next as he...

Our host Justin Reich kicks off our new series, Teacher Speech and the New Divide. To get a sense of the current landscape of divisive content laws, we talk to Brock Boone, senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Then, we’re joined by Sarah Kaka, Associate Professor and Writer/Researcher at Ohio Wesleyan University, who helps us understand how divisive laws are impacting teachers...

TeachLab is doing a crossover episode with the book podcast Upper Middlebrow hosted by Jesse Dukes and Chris Bagg. Justin Reich was invited on as their guest and are graciously letting us repost the episode under TeachLab.   Upper Middlebrow Notes: We hit pause on recapping, and talk the intersection of education and technology with a genuine educational technologist, Professor Justin Reich (and t...

Our host Justin Reich wraps up our series on Subtraction in Action with his reflections, along with highlights from conversations about the act of subtraction with education thought leaders from around the country.  “We're just not that good as human beings at thinking about subtractive solutions. We've thought about stuff that we could add, but have we really taken the time to think about things...

In our latest episode of Subtraction in Action, our host Justin Reich is joined by Researcher and Professor Matt Kraft to discuss his latest paper “Instructional Time in U.S. Public Schools: Wide Variation, Causal Effects, and Lost Hours”. Subtraction in action is all about getting the stuff that we don't need out of schools so we can focus on the most important things, and Matt’s research offers...

Justin sits down with the wonderful and prolific Larry Ferlazzo, an English and Social Studies teacher, author and education  blogger. How might subtracting field trip permission slips help address chronic absenteeism? Tune in to find out.   Resources and Links Visit Larry Ferlzzo’s Website https://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ Follow Larry on Twitter @Larryferlazzo Watch our film We Have to Do Some...

Teach Lab’s Subtraction in Action series continues as our host Justin Reich explores subtraction in curriculum. Justin reflects, “One of the things that happened during the pandemic is that educators had to reduce. There has just not been a way in the last few years to teach everything that we typically teach in a year, or at least if we choose to do that, we're choosing to leave students behind i...

In today’s episode, host Justin Reich continues our series on Subtraction in Action in conversation with education leaders around the country. We reflect on the ways that administrators relate to subtraction, and hear stories from the field. Justin is joined by: Beth Rabbitt, CEO of the Learning Accelerator Nicole Allard, Executive Director of Educational Excellence and Innovation in the Vista Uni...

In today’s episode, host Justin Reich continues our Subtraction in Action series with Nat Vaughn, Principal of the Blake Middle School in Medfield, Massachusetts. Together they discuss how Blake Middle School managed the pandemic by reflecting on the purpose of school, identifying what really matters for student’s education, and how to work through hard decisions about subtraction.   Resources and...

Host Justin Reich and Jal Mehta from the Harvard Graduate School of Education continue our Subtraction in Action series with Leidy Klotz, Professor of Engineering at the University of Virginia, and the author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less. Together they discuss Leidy’s book, his research and inspirations, as well as how these ideas can better serve education.   Resources and Links Lear...

Our host Justin Reich is joined by Jal Mehta from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to kick off Subtraction in Action, our new series about the positive impact that subtraction can have on school communities. Justin and Jal have been talking to teachers, school leaders, and design experts from around the country about what we can take away from schools to free people up to focus on the esse...

In this episode of TeachLab, we present a selection from our host Justin Reich’s recent appearance on What School Could Be’s Game Changer Series. In the interview, Justin is joined by the filmmaker Aimee Corrigan and educator Angela Daniel, to discuss the making of the Teaching Systems Lab’s new documentary film We Have to Do Something Different. The conversation is hosted by WSCB’s Susannah Johns...

TeachLab is excited to introduce Subtraction in Action, a new series about the positive impact that subtraction can have on school communities. How do we make school simpler? How do we give teachers and students some room to breathe? Can we clear out the marginal to focus on the most important things? For this new series of episodes, we’ve been talking to teachers, school leaders, and design exper...

In this episode of TeachLab, our host Justin Reich goes behind the scenes of the Teaching Systems Lab’s new documentary film We Have to Do Something Different: Teachers on the Journey to Create More Equitable Schools . The 35-minute film provokes important conversations about the big challenges facing schools by taking a detailed look at the small steps teachers around the country are taking every...

This week on TeachLab, our host Justin Reich joins a panel of education leaders with Superintendent Dr. Baron Davis from Richland School District Two in Columbia, SC, Superintendent Dr. Rhoda Mhiripiri-Reed of  Hopkins Public Schools in Minneapolis, MN, and Dr. Beth Rabbitt, CEO of The Learning Accelerator, hosted by the US Department of Education's Office of EdTech.  In the conversation, panelist...