The Student-Centered World Podcast

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, I wanted to talk about myself. No, but seriously, a lot of people ask how I got here. So, I talk about the fact that I created Student-Centered World to try to help teachers not have to go through what I went through to find out students that are learning and blended learning and the flipped classroom and all of that. But toda...

Episode Summary: Toxic positivity. It's a buzzword today but what does it actually mean? Toxic positivity is when you overly look at the bright side of life. It's when you are not acknowledging anything difficult and you are trying to find the best in everything, but to a fault to the point of making some people feel bad about the negative things that are happening in their life. Today, I want to...

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, we're going to be talking about mistakes. Now, that's not something people usually like to talk about. But I have found that when people start out with student-centered learning, there are three main mistakes that they make, and it could make it, so you don't want to try it anymore, your kids aren't interested in participating...

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, I wanted to take today I want to talk a little bit about why student-centered learning makes your life easier. Now, a lot of times when I try to explain that to teachers, especially ones that either isn't as well versed in student-centered learning, or are very skeptical about student-centered learning, or are just in a place...

Episode Summary: Hey friends, and welcome to the Student-Centered World Podcast, where you might be listening while you are grading papers or in lieu of grading papers. But I wanted to talk about grading papers today. It seems like that is usually the least liked part of being a teacher. I wanted to talk about a way that you can make it where it's not so bad. Episode transcript: For the full trans...

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, I want to take time to help you with a little bit of a mindset shift, as I like to talk about what seems to be all of the time, about student-centered learning in general and explain to you why, in fact, it does make your life less stressful. Episode transcript: For the full transcript of this episode, please visit studentcent...

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, I wanted to take this week and take a couple of steps backward, because I've mentioned multiple times about Generation Z..."Generation Z is in our classroom", "they're different", "Generation Z", "Generation Z". But I haven't really talked about Generation Z. Who they are, why they're different. I say they're different, but I...

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, I wanted to talk to you about something that I know of in the business world that is directly relatable to the teaching world. Now, so often we don't hear the two overlap. But there is this term that I hear over and over again in the business world that every time I hear it, I think of teachers and what we do to ourselves. So,...

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, I wanted to talk about something that we all are obviously required to do in the classroom, which is to differentiate for every student that is in there. We know that all of our students learn just a little bit differently from each other, have different needs, and it's our job to meet all of those needs. Differentiation has a...

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, you get to listen in on a coaching session that I have with one of our "A Passion for Progress" teacher-students named Rocio Gonzalez. Rocio is a teacher of English as a second language right outside of Mexico City. She went through our course in the summer of 2020. She saw the excitement behind students in their learning and...

Episode Summary: Today's podcast episode is really a student-centered learning success story. We get to chat with Kyra Sandstrom, who is one of our Passion for Progress students and I love how this is all worked out for her. When she took our course (" A Passion for Progress: Becoming a Rockstar Teacher in a Stressed-Out World ") in the summer of 2020, she kept coming back to the point that she is...

Episode Summary: In this week's podcast episode, I wanted to take a couple of minutes to chat about something that I am extremely passionate about. Not only was it a technique that I mastered in the classroom, but it is one of the main focuses that I teach my " A Passion for Progress: Becoming a Rockstar Teacher in a Stressed-Out World " students about and that is student choice. If you've been re...

Episode Summary : In today's podcast, I was able to sit down with Dr. Marissa Kase who specializes in social-emotional learning. Now we know that SEL is very much a buzzword and buzz term in education right now, but a lot of people don't really get what it is, and how you're able to implement it in your day to day without it being more work or just something else to do or deviating from your curri...

Episode Summary: If you've been looking for a way to lower the stress level and increase the productivity and positivity within your school building, that means students, staff, administrators, parents even then this podcast is for you. I had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Kali Arnold and Danielle Brunson who run The Namaste Project . The Namaste Project helps schools hone in on the mindfulness...

Episode Summary: As teachers, we like to be in control. We like to know what's happening. We like to know what the plan is a long-distance, and we like to execute that plan the way that it works in our head. But right now, we're having a really tough time doing that and we're having a really tough time dealing with that. So, I wanted to take some time today to chat about what you can do when you j...

Episode Summary: I hope you are feeling calm this morning but if you are not, today's podcast episode might be just what you are looking for. We're going to be taking a look today at mindfulness. Now mindfulness is something that I think is extremely beneficial. But there are a lot of people that roll their eyes and say, oh, my goodness what is the benefit of that. It's just another one of those t...

Episode Summary: In this week's podcast, we're going back to a Facebook Live I did back in the spring, not long into the school shutdowns. While some of the chatter is a little more timely for that period, after listening to it I realized it was a larger message that so many teachers needed to hear RIGHT NOW. The advice ends up being timeless....or until the crazy of all of this finally passes. Ep...

Episode summary : In today's episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, I get to chat with Christie Hartley, a 61-year young teacher from New Mexico, who is also one of our " A Passion for Progress " students. In our conversation, we go over all kinds of things that she's been doing in the classroom this year, how things have been going, and of course, how she has been dealing with teaching du...

Episode Summary: In this week's podcast, we're going to be talking about creating meaningful relationships with your students in a year where you might see them in person, you might not. You might see them for a little bit, they might go away. You may only see them through a screen, etc., etc. So, we know that creating relationships with our students is the number one way to get them engaged, to g...

Episode summary: In today's podcast, we get to go on a trip, sort of. I got to talk to one of our “A Passion for Progress” students, Bridget Hocutt, who teaches eighth grade. At the time of our recording, she and her family had decided that since they were all working remotely to take a little road trip, which was super exciting that I was able to talk to her as they were traveling (but we do get...

A lot of the teachers that I have been talking to have been saying that they are beyond frustrated and exhausted because their schools or their districts keep changing the rules as they're playing the game.  Some districts had said that things are going to be one way and then abruptly change to something else. There are kids coming and going depending on what the protocols are for your school...

Let's talk all about scheduling for the crazy. Typically, we have an idea of how we want our lessons to play out, how we want to schedule them, whether you believe in backward design, or you go day by day, or you just plan out your lessons by week. Everybody has a system on how that works. But lately, when you're adding in the digital elements or the online elements or half the kids are on Zoom, a...

In today's (short) podcast, I want you to have a little bit of a conversation with yourself. We often know that not only are we our own worst critic, but we are also a lot of times the person that we listen to the least. A lot of times, that leads to a lot of negative effects both in our professional life, personal life, and right now this is a really difficult season for teaching. Because of this...

Episode summary: In today's podcast, I had the opportunity to talk to one of my dearest friends, Dr. Joe Lizza, who's Director of Campus Activities at Rowan University. We had a phenomenal conversation about the shifts that have been made when it comes to student life, student engagement, technology challenges, family challenges, all of the issues that we are seeing across the board in the field o...

Episode summary: On today's podcast, I had the opportunity to chat with Val Shindo-Uehira with a cameo appearance by Sarah Iverson, who is an Instructional Coach. Val and Sarah teach at Kapolei Middle School, where Val has taught 7th-grade science for the past 17 years. Our conversation went into how their school district was preparing to open back up and the plans that they had in place and the c...