The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

To adapt to changing student needs, some school libraries are reinventing themselves as makerspaces. But the principal of one Ohio middle school had something slightly different in mind. In this episode, I interview two educators who completely changed the function of their school library and saw its average daily student use grow from 10 to over 100.

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.

Hundreds of thousands of teachers are required to teach students the art of argumentative or persuasive writing. As an experienced writing teacher, I want to share my own best practices in this area. In this episode, I'll take you step by step through my process for teaching argumentative essay writing.

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.

So you got a new teaching job. Congratulations! The only catch is, you're starting in the middle of the year. This survival guide will help you figure out what to focus on right away so you can hit the ground running without falling down.

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.

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 studen...

Can being more dorky make you a better teacher? Can it make the world a better place? I say yes.

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. 

What can CrossFit, a fitness movement that is quickly growing in popularity, teach us about learning and motivation? As a new and very low-level student of CrossFit, I'm noticing some principles we can take from their approach and apply to our own teaching to get students motivated and help them learn better.

Do you need some fresh ideas for class discussions? When it comes to helping students practice speaking listening skills, are you stuck? In this episode, I describe 15 class discussion strategies you can start using right away. 

What is it like to be an instructional coach? To learn more about the challenges of instructional coaching, I asked two coaches to explain what they do, how they approach their work, and what they have learned about helping teachers improve. In this episode, I talk to Eric Sandberg, an instructional coach from Pennsylvania. 

What is it like to be an instructional coach? To learn more about the challenges of instructional coaching, I asked two coaches to explain what they do, how they approach their work, and what they have learned about helping teachers improve. In this episode, I talk to Gretchen Schultek Bridgers, an instructional coach from North Carolina.  

Despite our best intentions, sometimes teachers make decisions that alienate students beyond repair. In this episode, I share stories of mistakes I made that damaged my relationships with three different students, and what I learned from each one.

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.

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.

When we try to solve school problems with committee meetings, district-wide initiatives and new policies, change can be slow as molasses. But we are lucky enough to live in a new era, a time when teachers no longer have to wait for top-down solutions--you can hack so many problems yourself, using the resources that are already available to you. In this episode, I share three hacks that can solve b...

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.

What is dogfooding, and why do teachers need it? In the Season 1 finale, we explore the essential practice of doing your own assignments -- to find and fix problems -- before giving them to students. 

The list of ways a teacher can improve is a mile long. Since you can't do it all at once, here are eight paths you might take toward professional growth.

A lot has changed in education over the last decade, and many teachers will tell you those changes have not been good for anyone, least of all students. But what can a teacher do about it? Is it possible for teachers to influence the policies that impact their work? Education activist and blogger Anthony Cody joins me for a discussion of the current problems in U.S. public education and how frustr...

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 p...

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.

After teaching elementary school for years without revealing that she was gay, Jessica Lifshitz finally decided it was time to come out at school when she got engaged. This is her story. 

Helping students improve their writing skills is no longer solely reserved for English language arts teachers; educators in all content areas are expected to help students develop their abilities to write effectively. Fulfilling this goal isn't as hard as it might seem; these seven strategies (plus one bonus) are easy to implement, won't consume a lot of instructional time, and deliver big results...