The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

In too many classrooms, we're expecting students to learn material without asking them to do much of anything with it. Why is this a problem? Where did it come from? And what can we do to fix it?

There's a lot of confusion about how to use leveled texts in the classroom. In this episode, I interview literacy expert Jen Serravallo about the mistakes teachers and administrators make with leveled texts and which practices Serravallo has found to be most effective.

There's a lot of confusion about how to use leveled texts in the classroom. In this episode, I interview literacy expert Jen Serravallo about the mistakes teachers and administrators make with leveled texts and which practices Serravallo has found to be most effective.

There's a lot of confusion about how to use leveled texts in the classroom. In this episode, I interview literacy expert Jen Serravallo about the mistakes teachers and administrators make with leveled texts and which practices Serravallo has found to be most effective.

When we blame our teaching problems on the collective inferiority of a generation, we only make things worse. In this episode, we explore the problem of teacher nostalgia, why we give into it, and how we can stop it.

Voice of Witness is an organization that curates oral histories, stories told by people whose voices are rarely heard: Migrant workers. Refugees. Prisoners. Factory workers in developing countries. Undocumented Americans. Their stories, in their voices. In this episode, I talk with Voice of Witness education program director Cliff Mayotte about the books and free classroom materials that can help you bring the power of oral history to your classroom

In classrooms all over the world, students take notes every day. What does academic research tell us about the best ways to use note-taking in our classrooms? In this episode, I'll share 8 important take-aways.

Want your students to have rich, complex discussions about the texts they read? In this episode, high school English teacher Marisa Thompson shares a method she calls TQE, which requires almost no prep or grading and leads to the kinds of classroom discussions you thought only happened in college.

Imagine a professional development scenario where you are given funding, choice, and time to collaborate with others in your specialty area who energize and inspire you. That's the basic gist of a teacher fellowship program, and in today's episode, we're looking at how one of these programs work. My guests are Megan Roberts and Ashraya Gupta from Math for America, a fellowship program for exceptional teachers of math and science.

The ability to tell a good story is one of the things that makes human beings extraordinary. Here's the process I used to teach my own students how to do it.

To mark the milestone of 100 episodes, I'm sharing one of my favorite posts, Lessons in Personhood: 10 Ways to Truly Lead in Your Classroom. Thank you to everyone who has appeared as a guest on this podcast, and to everyone who has listened, reviewed, and recommended it. I have lots more to come!

Is your tech tool doing the work you think it is? Or could it actually be widening the same gaps you're trying to close? In this episode we explore the problems that can arise when a tool isn't carefully scrutinized, then look at seven strategies educators can use to deeply assess a tool for its impact. My guest is Rupa Chandra Gupta, who is the founder of the ed tech company Sown to Grow.

American Slavery is a difficult topic to teach, and for decades, we haven't been doing a very good job of teaching it. In this episode, I interview history professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries about the Teaching Hard History framework, a free set of resources aimed at giving our students a more comprehensive look at how slavery started, its fundamental role in our country's history, and how it continues to impact our society today.

No one likes it when an administrator plays favorites. But what if the favorite is you? In this episode, I share a story about one of the most difficult periods of my teaching years, and some advice to help teachers and administrators avoid a similar situation.

If you're like me, you've been a little slow to warm up to the idea of makerspaces in the classroom. In this episode, John Spencer helps me understand what a makerspace is, how it can add value to any classroom, and what steps teachers can take to start and manage a makerspace of their own.

To do this work and stick with it long enough to get good at it, you need a level of emotional resilience most other jobs will never require. In this episode, my guest Elena Aguilar shares 12 habits teachers can develop that will build the resilience they need.

Grades impact everything from college admissions to whether students get to go on certain field trips. With so much at stake, how can we make sure our grades measure what matters?

Middle school students are a special breed, and I was lucky to teach them for years. In this episode, I'll share my own advice about what makes them tick, and how to work with those qualities, not against them.

Are your worksheets contributing to meaningful learning, or just keeping students busy?

Money and space are nice, but they are NOT prerequisites for learning-friendly design. In this interview with learning space expert Bob Dillon, we explore tons of simple things teachers can do to make their classrooms better places for students to learn.

The sit-and-get, one-size-fits-all model is disappearing. Taking its place are these 9 alternative models for teacher professional development.

The sit-and-get, one-size-fits-all model is disappearing. Taking its place are these 9 alternative models for teacher professional development.

With its focus on building relationships and repairing harm, rather than simply punishing students for misbehavior, restorative justice is being adopted by more schools every year. In this episode, RJ practitioner Victor Small, Jr., helps me understand the basics of restorative practices and how interested schools can get started.

You have so much good stuff to share, but to get anyone to actually look at it, you need to give it some polish. In this episode, we look at why the brain prefers good curation, some school-related situations when good curation skills would come in handy, a set of curation guidelines to follow, and a short list of tech tools that can help you curate digitally.

Traditional feedback looks back on a past that can't be changed, and that's one reason it isn't always well-received. But when we shift to a practice called feedforward, where our focus is on the future, we can have a much more powerful and positive impact on our students, peers, and other people in our lives. In this episode, I interview Joe Hirsch, author of The Feedback Fix, about how the feedforward approach works.

One of them is super trendy. One takes you into the past. Three can be used in a dozen different ways. And one you're going to want to try right away. Come listen.

In schools, where our work demands constant interaction with other people, conflicts are always waiting to happen. By practicing validation with our students, their parents, our co-workers and administrators, you'll find that some of your most difficult conversations get a whole lot easier. In this episode, I'll share three simple steps to practice validation in any conversations.

In an effort to boost test scores and close gaps, too many schools are using more reading "activities and programs" and cutting back on time for actual reading. In this episode, teacher and author Pernille Ripp tells me about how she completely changed her approach to reading instruction to help students become life-long readers, and how other teachers can do the same.

Most of us recognize that schools need to change to meet the demands of the information age, but we don't have many models to follow for making that change happen. In this episode, I interview Don Wettrick, who launched an innovation elective in his high school six years ago. He tells me how the program works, why all schools need an innovation class, and how you can start one in your school.

Discrimination and harassment are still a daily reality for many LGBTQ students. In this episode, I share 9 specific things teachers can do to help these students feel safer and more accepted in the classroom and within the wider school culture.

Graphic organizers can pack a strong instructional punch if you know how to use them. In this episode I review the research on why graphic organizers work so well, list 10 creative classroom uses for them, and offer a few tips so you can implement them effectively.

One thing they don't teach in our education courses is just how freaking much students talk, and how hard it can be to quiet them down. To tackle this problem I went to Michael Linsin, the creator of Smart Classroom Management. In this episode, we look at the reasons students talk when they shouldn't and what you can do about it.

The research is clear: Retrieval practice is one of the most powerful ways to learn. In this episode, I talk to Pooja Agarwal about what retrieval practice is and how teachers can start incorporating it into their teaching tomorrow.

Some teachers think they're practicing culturally responsive teaching, when in fact, they're kind of not. In this episode, I interview Zaretta Hammond, author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, to identify and correct four common misconceptions teachers have about how to best help our diverse students thrive in school.

After years of hearing teachers' stories, I have reached the conclusion that there is one element that makes the difference in whether the teachers in any given school will lean toward positive and productive or desperate and crushed: That element is the administrator. In this letter, I share the things teachers wish administrators would do to help them become the best teachers they can be.

From work-arounds to fundraising to Wi-Fi on the bus, this episode explores 11 creative ways schools are addressing the digital divide.

Whether you're brand-new to block scheduling or you've been doing it for years, this episode will have you handling those 90 minutes like a boss.

Teaching grammar in isolation is not only ineffective, it can actually make student writing worse. So when students make mistakes, what should teachers do? In this episode, I outline a simple system for teaching grammar within the context of meaningful writing.

You thought you knew project-based learning? You haven't seen anything yet. In this episode, I interview Stephen Ritz, a Bronx teacher who has spent the last decade developing an incredible school-based gardening project called the Green Bronx Machine, which feeds the local community, builds student knowledge in multiple content areas, and creates strong cooperative bonds with local businesses and other stakeholders. Every teacher who has ever thought they didn't have the resources to give their students an outstanding education needs to listen to this.

Educators, especially those in leadership roles, spend far too much time in isolation. An educator mastermind gives us a group of peers to help us problem-solve, set goals, and support each other in the incredibly challenging work we do. In this episode, I interview Daniel Bauer of the Better Leaders, Better Schools podcast about the educator masterminds he facilitates, and how you can start your own.

Why is it that so many teachers have a hard time taking good care of themselves? In this episode, I interview teacher productivity expert Angela Watson about the reasons we struggle to make time for self-care and four specific things we can do to change that.

By using HyperDocs, digital lesson plans that pull together all of a lesson's resources into one place, teachers can make room for more interactive, personalized, and student-directed learning. In this episode, I interview Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis, authors of The HyperDoc Handbook.

For many students, getting into a highly competitive college drives most decisions about where to spend their time and energy. But what if some of these decisions actually hurt their chances of getting in? My guest Shirag Shemmassian, who helps students get admitted to highly selective colleges, shares the three mistakes students make when trying to make themselves stand out in the application process, and what they should be doing instead.

So many teachers have English language learners in class, but the teachers have no training in how to support them. In this episode, I gather tips from three ESL teachers for the most effective ways regular classroom teachers can support these students.

The last day before vacation. After-testing days. The day when the fire drill messes up your plans. What do you do when class is in session, but actual teaching may not be in the cards? I have thirty fantastic ideas.

A digital curation project is a fast way to engage critical thinking in any content area. In this episode, I explain how it works. For links to all the resources mentioned in this episode, visit http://cultofpedagogy.com/curation

Most people who teach at the college level do so without any formal training. In this episode, Norman Eng, author of Teaching College: The Ultimate Guide to Lecturing, Presenting, and Engaging Students, shares five strategies college teachers can use to be more successful in the classroom. To read the full blog post, go to https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/teaching-college

In far too many cases, schools do not support students of color in ways that help them grow to their full potential. My guest, Dena Simmons, shares four specific things teachers could be doing in their classrooms to change this.

Plagiarism is a serious problem for many teachers, and to beat it, we need to go beyond looking for new ways to threaten, catch, and punish students for it. We have to work on prevention. The 5 research-based exercises I describe in this episode will teach students how to avoid plagiarism and weave information from outside sources into their own writing in elegant and ethical ways.

Many of us like the idea of personalized learning, but we don't have many models for making it happen. In this episode, I interview the founders of the Apollo School, a project-based, personalized program built inside a public school that offers a hybrid of English, social studies, and art in one block of time. You'll definitely want to see how they make it work and possibly do the same thing at your school. Thanks to Wes Ward, Greg Wimmer, and Jim Grandi for sharing their experiences with me!