The Student-Centered World Podcast

As our 3rd season comes to a close, let me know if you would like to be a participant on next season's podcast (or if there is someone you would like to nominate to participate):

Episode Summary: A simple Google search will show you that teachers trying to find the classroom management skills that will work for their students are not only plentiful but can be completely overwhelming. We know a solid classroom management routine is vital in running an effective classroom, but finding that system that incorporates behavior, student engagement, and (less) teacher stress seems hard to find.

So many teachers, at some point in their career, find themselves wondering, “How do my classroom management strategies address these (fill in the blank) classroom behaviors?”  You need to know what problems exist in order to find the answer.

Episode Summary: In today’s global society, students want to learn how to use the technology around them along with understanding how the uses for technology in the classroom correlate with life outside of school. Before we even go into how you can use technology as a way to measure how students are engaged, let’s first look at how technology helps you in the classroom.

Episode Summary: When you are looking for behavioral engagement in the classroom, you are trying to observe students being actively involved in the learning process. Commonly deemed “participation”, behavioral engagement flourishes with routines, assignments, activities, and cues that help students know not only what is expected of them but is also conducive to learning overall.

Episode summary: There are many Engaging Classroom Activities for Middle Schoolers that can be used in school, at home, or at after-school activities. Engaging Classroom Activities for Middle Schoolers which are fun and interesting can help increase the flow of learning, which is always the goal.

However, sometimes it is difficult with this “too cool for school” age group. It is hard to find the balance between too childish and too mature to get to that sweet spot that gets the students excited about participating each day.  Engaging Classroom Activities for Middle Schoolers can be a challenge.

Engagement is so important during these years since it will influence whether or not they enjoy learning, their perception of school, and most likely whether or not they will continue to pursue further education. Engaging Classroom Activities for Middle Schoolers can play a big role in these things.

Episode Summary: A student-centered curriculum is developed based on the premise that the students have both choice and the responsibility to determine what their learning needs are and how to proceed in meeting those needs. It allows them to dive deeper into context and to find ways to engage in classroom content on a deeper level than they would with a traditional teacher-centered model.

This allows them to gain a deeper knowledge base than they would with a traditional teacher-centered classroom, as they are no longer just memorizing information but are actively engaging with it, leading to a deeper understanding and more long-term success in retaining the information that has been taught.

Though it seems like it would be extremely difficult for a child to determine how he or she learns best, with the right teacher guidance and facilitation, the choices laid before them naturally differentiate for each student, and in time, they more thoroughly understand what they need to succeed in the classroom.

Episode Summary: Teacher-Directed vs. Student-Centered Instruction is a common comparison in today’s educational spectrum. However, there is generally some confusion between not only what each one is, but the similarities and differences between them. The number one piece to remember in both instructional techniques is that wholeheartedly the teacher is 110% in charge of what is going on in the classroom.

So often there is a misconception that the teacher is no longer in charge of a student-led classroom. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Just because their visual role within a classroom full of students is not the same, it does not mean they are not still completely dictating everything that happens.

While the number of similarities between teacher-directed vs student-centered instruction is vast, here are five important differences that any educator needs to understand when determining the best method for their classroom.

Episode Summary: One topic that always comes up when discussing the student-centered model in the classroom is classroom management. A lot of days it is a work in progress, but over time your students really do understand what is expected of them and how to behave in that type of class. Creating a classroom management plan that not only encourages student engagement but propels it, is not difficult with the right guidance.

Episode Summary: As teachers, so often we are trying to find the latest gimmick to get our students involved in the classroom. But it seems to be a very difficult task to determine whether or not a student is truly engaged in the classroom. The definition of student engagement varies not only from state to state, but school district to school district, and sometimes even teacher to teacher. So, what does student engagement look like? There are some very telltale signs to know whether or not your students are engaged in the classroom.

Episode Summary: While the conversation about student engagement is always the rage in educational circles, it’s important to be able to specifically answer the question, “what IS student engagement?”

Teachers, administrators, and even parents can talk about this concept all day long, but if they don’t have a true answer to that question, then there is no point in pursuing techniques or strategies to reach them.

Student engagement is how much effort, excitement, attention, and interest a student shows in content material. By asking what is student engagement, a person is trying to define what will get a student to participate willingly, actively, and excitedly in the classroom.

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, I had the opportunity to talk with Drew Purcell, who is a history teacher by trade, but now is moving more into the tech sector as a Google certified trainer. We had a great conversation about the future of technology in the classroom, Drew goes out and he helps teachers whether they can barely draft an email or are always looking for the next best thing in improving their tech skills.

Episode Summary: On this episode of the Student-Centered World podcast, we're going to start off by looking at the five characteristics of student-centered learning. And basically, that means, how do you know if something is truly student-centered? So, you might do an activity and you might think this is great, they're on their own but is it truly student-centered learning or is it the kids are just working on something? There is a really distinct difference. Just because students are working without guidance or direct instruction from the teacher does not mean that it's student-centered, and I can't harp on that enough. Again, a lot of the articles and stuff that I have read, that kind of said student-centered learning, it's not good. They think that this misconstrued notion of what it is how it goes, and it is not.

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 today, I wanted to take a couple of minutes to actually tell you my story about how I got to this point in hopes that you realize that you can get to this point as well.

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 chat about that for a little bit.

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. Obviously, that's not something that we want. We want everybody to have a really positive experience, but these three mistakes are very, very common. You may have even made them yourself at some point and that's totally fine. That's why I wanted to take some time to address them and talk about what we can do to fix them.

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 in their teaching career, I don't think I need to define that place. I think you can probably understand what I mean by that. But there is a lot of resistance in the thought that nothing can make this easier, nothing can make this better, it is what it is. Teaching has been the same way forever, it should still be that way, and so on and so forth. So today, I wanted to take a couple of minutes to explain to you why that is, in fact, not the case and why it is oh so different.

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 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 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 haven't explained why, and I wanted to take time today to talk about them.

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, I wanted to talk about that today to see if you are doing this to yourself, and what you can do to change it.

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 tendency to really overwhelm most teachers, but it doesn't have to depending on how you craft your classroom. That is what I wanted to explain to you today.

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 couldn't wait to get her hands on it in her own classroom. But even though she went through the course, she did have some questions that are fairly common to help clarify to make sure this goes as smoothly as possible for her students. Today, I hope you get something out of listening in as well. And if you also have any questions when you're finished, you can feel free to reach out and I am happy to help.

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 curriculum. She has a lot of really, really great ideas for every grade level to be able to get this done and also explains why it is SO critical to this generation of learners.

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 just can't control things.

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 things out there that they want us to do or want us to learn about. But there are a lot of huge benefits from it for each person individually and we're going to go over a little bit of that today.

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.

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 get them performing so we get to know who they are and what makes them tick and I can go on and on about the importance of building relationships in the classroom. But when you have a year that the classroom itself looks so different, and the expectations and how we even see them is changing so rapidly it's really hard to create consistent relationships. The number one challenge that I've been hearing from the teachers that I'm working with are the ones that have been all digital. How are you supposed to create a relationship with somebody who may never even come on camera? What are you supposed to do there? A lot of them are like, I'm just not. You can't just not. You have to do your due diligence to make meaningful relationships with each one of these students. So today, I wanted to talk about some of the ways that you can do that. These techniques can be used in the classroom. They can be used out of the classroom. They can be used digitally. They can use a hybrid. It's just a matter of putting your own spin on them.

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 to hear a little bit of her trip in the background, which is just super fun, and if that's not 2020 I don't know what it is). Bridget took our course and just really saw the benefit of student choice, building relationships, how all of it interconnects and she's really inspirational to listen to. I think you will get a lot out of the lessons that she's going to teach you today.

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 and it's throwing everybody for a loop. I wanted to take some time right now, to give you some food for thought to think about how you can prepare moving forward, and that way, at least until everything does move to the new normal, you have a plan in place for no matter what comes your way.

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, and the other half is in the classroom or whatever scenario you have before you, it gets a little bit tricky to figure out the best way to schedule that is benefiting all of your students. Now I know there are all kinds of elements that are in the mix right now, if you're a virtual and you have students not logging in, so on and so forth. But that's something that I'm going to be talking about another day. Right now, I want you to wipe all of that off and just think about is the best way to be scheduling out what you need to teach your students given all of the hoopla, the potential change in the hoopla, and what that could look like to again, make your life easier, and make your students’ lives more beneficial.

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, I want to give you some words of wisdom that I think can help get you through.

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 of education. Joe has done a fantastic job in his role working with the administrative team at Rowan University to try to come up with every possible scenario for their students and ways to help them still succeed in both learning and making it through the day-to-day. It doesn't matter if you are a K-12 teacher or you are in higher education, you will get a lot out of the things that Joe talks about today. A lot of the concepts that he developed or came up with or implemented are certainly things that we can all use in our classroom as well.

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 committee's that they had together. It was so utterly impressive what they were able to come up with, the challenges that they are facing, and how they were overcoming them.

I really think anybody who is either struggling with a reopening plan, or is getting ready to reopen, or maybe you have reopened, but it isn't really going as well as it could be, can get so much out of this episode. The three of us just sort of had a great conversation about what they're doing for the kids, what they're doing for the teachers, and how they are planning to move forward with all of this.

Episode summary: On today's podcast, I had the opportunity to chat with 14-year teaching veteran Steph Sperber who is currently teaching in a middle school classroom. I met Steph in Spring 2020 through our Student-Centered World mastermind Facebook group; Steph was so instrumental in helping teachers in our group transfer their classrooms to a digital setting. I bring up Steph a lot when I talk to other teachers because I specifically remember her saying that, given her regular classroom was already student-centered, she actually had more time on her hands when school went digital. No one ever believes me when I tell them that, but it's true. The teachers that I've trained and the students that are learning all had the same sentiment that there is more time because of the nature of how the classroom is run. In talking to Steph today, you'll hear exactly how it's done.

Episode summary: Today I wanted to take a couple of minutes to talk about routine in the classroom. So, if you listened for the last two weeks, you know that the first episode that we had talked all about engagement. It was clipped out of the engagement webinar that I was giving over the summertime and then last week, we talked to Bridget Burlage, who talked all about how she engages her students through routines in the classroom. But there are some questions because my engagement piece was all about switching things up in the classroom and keeping the kids on the toes. Then Bridget went in and talked about how you have to have very distinct routines and it seems like they're conflicting thoughts, but they are not. And I wanted to take a couple of minutes today to explain how they both work together in perfect harmony in the classroom.

Episode summary: In our very first interview of season three of the podcast, I was able to catch up with one of my former coworkers, Bridget Burlage, who is a high school English teacher and also teaches AP students. She has absolutely found her stride and a hybrid classroom and has some fantastic tips and tricks that she uses that are not only successful for the day-to-day, but it's also fully preparing her students through consistent engagement and relationship building. It all comes down to the structure in the classroom that she has created, and her students have adapted. Bonus: her tips are not for high school only; you can use them in any grade level, you just obviously have to change it a little bit for your content area and age appropriateness, but then you will be set to go. 

Episode summary: 

To say this year (2020) has been a roller coaster is an absolute understatement. Every moment, it seems like something has changed, something has been altered, something has been thrown at us some type of curveball that we had no idea was even coming in the first place. 

And it's been hard. 

Everything is up in the air for fall 2020 in the classroom, but most districts are seriously considering blended learning. This podcast episode discusses what blended learning is and how you can be successful with it (and...spoiler alert...if you plan for blended learning, you can still do it effectively in the classroom...but it's very hard to be successful at traditional teaching online!)

#blendedlearning #teachertips #distance learning

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As teachers, we so often rely on our own experience each year that passes in the classroom when it comes to developing lesson plan ideas. Currently, we are in a unique situation in education. Teachers have been thrust into an atypical version of distance learning. While distance learning can be very effective in some scenarios, it turns into quite the bit debilitating attempt to keep continuity and consistency in our classrooms that have now turned virtual.

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Teacher evaluations and classroom observations are nerve-wracking for any teacher. Make it easy for an administrator to know how to write a classroom observation for you with these ideas and teacher observation examples that will work in all classrooms.  By following these instructional strategies, you will demonstrate not only effective teaching but will rock your teacher evaluation comments through whatever teacher evaluation system your district uses with this teacher observation checklist.

Hopefully, you haven't been there and you've only heard the horror stories, but when you work in a toxic school environment, everyone you love about education gets washed under a sea of anxiety. There are three options to come through on top of the situation. Don't let a bad school ruin your love of the game.

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Remember back to what probably seems like a lifetime ago. You became a teacher to:

But the changes we are facing every day in policy, procedure, and expectations are making it seem like a pipe dream. The truth is, even if you’re not getting the support you need from your administration, parents, and even students, you can still recapture that “new teacher” energy. You just need to take care of yourself first.

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Teachers have been thrust into distance learning, but did you know that it will, unequivocally HELP teaching once everyone returns to the classroom? What seems like a complete uprooting is actually one of the greatest silver linings we have ever received in the educational world. eLearning and distance teaching is going to make all teachers better at their craft for a very specific reason. #distancelearning #elearning

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