The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

When it comes to teaching kids how to read, what is the big debate about? And what does research say we should be doing? In this episode, literacy expert Jen Serravallo and researcher Dr. Kelly Cartwright help us understand the different perspectives on effective reading instruction and what research says teachers and school leaders should be doing now to help kids learn to read. Thanks to  EVERFI...

Students who have learned enough English to do well socially may still need scaffolding to thrive academically. In this episode, I talk with Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton, authors of the book Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals , about the specific strategies teachers can use to help these learners reach their full potential across the curriculum.  Thanks to  Grammar Gap Fillers  and  Gia...

Positive, accurate representations of Arab voices and contributions are largely missing from our classrooms. In this episode, four educators — Sawsan Jaber, Reem Fakhry, Fatma Elsamra, and Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi — teach us how we can change that. This episode is sponsored by JumpStart . Read a full transcript of this episode and find a robust list of excellent resources for integrating Arab narrat...

Trauma-informed teaching has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, and my guest, Alex Shevrin Venet, is a wonderful guide to help us better understand how it works. Her book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education , offers a holistic, nuanced exploration of what this work looks like in practice, and it does so with equity at the center. In this episode, we talk about what trauma-informed t...

Do you ever feel like you're just marching through your content, trying to get it done? Like your students are just regurgitating it back, but not really learning it? Would you love to design deeper learning experiences in your classroom, but you're just not sure how? This episode may have some answers for you. I talk with Sarah Fine, co-author of the book In Search of Deeper Learning , about the...

The core activity of this after-school program is boxing, but it offers so much more to students. In this episode, I talk with Jamyle Cannon, executive director of The Bloc Chicago , about why this program has been so wildly successful at helping students achieve personal and academic success, and how other educators can follow the same model by building engaging programs around student interests...

When we ask a broad question to a large group — students, an audience, attendees at a meeting — we often get nothing in response. Plenty of the people probably have something to say; they just haven't been asked the right question. ------------------- You can find full written versions of these tips at  cultofpedagogy.com/edutips . ------------------- Thanks to  The Modern Classrooms Project  for...

In too many classrooms, our students aren't really thinking. What they're doing instead is more like mimicking, and my guest Peter Liljedahl is determined to change that. In this episode, we'll learn about his Thinking Classroom approach to instruction, where students are up on their feet, actively and collaboratively problem-solving, in a format that has taken the math world (and beyond) by storm...

Anticipatory sets — quick preludes to your lessons — are a creative way to get students interested in what's to come. They are not an absolute necessity, but if you can work them in, they make a lesson just a little more special. ------------------- You can find full written versions of these tips at  cultofpedagogy.com/edutips . ------------------- Thanks to  The Modern Classrooms Project  for sp...

To learn any concept well, students need to experience multiple, varied examples of that concept, and coming up with those examples can be a time-consuming task for teachers. ChatGPT can help you get it done in a fraction of the time. In this episode, Stanford's Chris Mah and Sarah Levine show us how it works. Thanks to  Listenwise  and  Wipebook  for sponsoring this episode.

Many teachers give out copies of their slides as a supplement to a lecture or presentation, but this practice leads to terrible slides and ultimately, ineffective teaching. In this EduTip I'll share a better alternative. ------------------- You can find full written versions of these tips at  cultofpedagogy.com/edutips . ------------------- Thanks to  The Modern Classrooms Project  for sponsoring...

After years of listening to shallow, perfunctory student discussions, ELA teacher Jessica Cannata found a way to make those conversations more natural, more interesting, and more real. In this episode, Jessica explains how her Real Talk strategy works, and how you can use it in lots of other courses outside of the English classroom. Thanks to  EVERFI  and  Parlay  for sponsoring this episode. You...

In episode 178, we learned about an approach to school change called Street Data. I believed so strongly in this methodology that I asked the two authors of Street Data, Jamila Dugan and Shane Safir, if they would allow me to produce a video series documenting teachers in two schools as they worked their way through the Street Data process, so that other teachers could learn from it. In today's ep...

The time students spend in your classroom may be the only opportunity they have all day to engage with other humans in any meaningful way. And it's such a shame to waste that by letting them stay in some sort of Matrix-like environment where they're only plugged into devices and rarely even look to the left or to the right. So take deliberate steps to help them get to know each other. ------------...

A messaging platform that translates messages into any language, a daily curation of current events, the one everyone's talking about that writes essays for you, and more: Here are six tools we think are worth a look this year. And while you're listening, you can grab a brand-new copy of the 2023 Teacher's Guide to Tech here . Thanks to  JumpStart  and  Hapara  for sponsoring this episode.

Learning requires us to be vulnerable, and in order to do that, we need to feel safe. In this episode, I talk with Elena Aguilar, author of The PD Book, about how professional development facilitators can make that happen for teachers. Thanks to  JumpStart  and  Hapara  for sponsoring this episode.

Two factors have given lectures a bad name: overuse and poor execution. In this episode we'll deal with both of these issues, considering when a lecture might be the best choice, then looking at ten things you can do to make sure the lectures you do give are outstanding.  Thanks to  EVERFI and Hapara for sponsoring this episode.

Offering small group mini-lessons that students only sign up for if they are interested is another great way to offer personalized instruction. Author and writing instructor Melanie Meehan returns to share how she has used this strategy in her classroom. Thanks to  EVERFI  and  Today by Studyo  for sponsoring this episode.

We are living in a time where a segment of the population is working as hard as it can to keep our students ignorant of history. Dozens of states are attempting to erase history from textbooks and curriculum if it paints certain populations in an unflattering light, and teachers' jobs are under threat in many places if they teach certain concepts. If you are a student or parent living in a place w...

While it's true that student choice has a lot of value, it's possible to give so much choice in an assignment that it kind of backfires. When a task has little to no structure at all, students often respond with confusion, not creativity. ------------------- You can find full written versions of these tips at  cultofpedagogy.com/edutips . ------------------- Thanks to  CommonLit  for sponsoring th...

Our sensory systems have a HUGE influence on how we learn, serving as building blocks for regulation, engagement, exploration, safety, movement, social interaction, and brain integration. In this episode, pediatric occupational therapist and author Jamie Chaves shows us how applying some basic principles of sensory processing in the classroom can remove unnecessary barriers and boost learning in s...

When a student or audience member has a question, repeating it before you answer allows everyone else to hear it and gives you a chance to clarify the questioner's intent. ---------- You can find full written versions of these tips at  cultofpedagogy.com/edutips . ------------------- Thanks to  CommonLit  for sponsoring this episode. -------------------

Even though many of us are back in physical classrooms this year, blended learning offers a way to weave together online and offline learning to position students at the center of the learning process. Instead of reverting back to a teacher-led, whole-group instructional model, blended learning can free us from the front of the room and allow us to work directly with individual and small groups of...

Collaboration is great as long as you have high-quality projects for students to work on. In this episode, we'll explore five unique ideas for collaborative projects that can be adapted for any subject area, along with suggestions for adding criticality and opportunities for student agency to each one.  ------------------- Thanks to  CoderZ  and  Hapara  for sponsoring this episode. --------------...

Stopping while you read a text out loud might be necessary in order to explain, dissect, or analyze something, but those interruptions can really mess up a listener's experience of the text. Next time, start with a smooth first read, then start over and get into the instruction. ---------- You can find full written versions of these tips at  cultofpedagogy.com/edutips . ------------------- Thanks...