The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

Discover how to inspire your colleagues by using 'I statements' to share your teaching ideas without sounding pushy. This approach fosters collaboration and encourages openness in educational environments. Additionally, learn about innovative strategies, like the 'pineapple chart,' that can enhance professional development among teachers. Embrace a more engaging way to promote your passion for teaching!

Jen Serravallo, a literacy expert and author of *Teaching Reading Across the Day*, shares insights on enhancing reading instruction in all subjects. She discusses the vital role of close reading lessons, revealing nine research-based lesson structures to improve comprehension. Listeners learn practical strategies to engage students, including text-dependent questions and multimodal texts. Serravallo emphasizes collaboration among educators to support literacy across the curriculum, ultimately empowering all teachers to become effective reading instructors.

When chaos reigns in the classroom, a simple notebook technique can help restore calm. This method not only aids teachers in managing their emotions but also encourages student curiosity. It's an innovative approach to transforming turbulent situations into conducive learning environments. Perfect for those moments when you feel like yelling!

In this episode, Marnie Diem, the lead technology specialist for the Cult of Pedagogy, shares her insights on the latest educational tech tools. They unveil three innovative AI applications, a platform for interactive lessons, and WeVideo's upgrade for dynamic video editing. Marnie highlights the importance of accessibility with Read&Write and introduces Padlet as a new storytelling tool for classrooms. The discussion emphasizes how these technologies enhance learning without replacing the crucial role of teachers.

In this enlightening discussion, Claire English, founder of The Unteachables, shares her insights on classroom management and teacher well-being. She outlines three key reasons why classroom order can decline and offers actionable strategies to reclaim it. Claire emphasizes the importance of teacher wellness, highlighting how mental health directly impacts classroom dynamics. With her international teaching experience, she introduces resources like her book 'It's Never Just About the Behavior' and the Behavior Club to empower educators in their journey.

Multitasking isn't great for our brains, it compromises our mental health, and ultimately it doesn't even work, but that doesn't stop many of us from trying to do it all the time. What we may not realize is that it also sneaks into our classrooms and interferes with learning, and it's happening in ways you may not even notice. In today's episode, I'm talking with cognitive scientist Megan Sumeracki about the pitfalls multitasking creates in schools, and what we can do to avoid them. -------------------------------------------- Thanks to The Gilder Lehrman Institute and Alpaca for sponsoring this episode. For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 239.

Join Peter Johnston, author of 'Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning,' as he unpacks how teacher language shapes classroom dynamics. He reveals practical phrases to navigate differences and foster democratic dialogues among students. Johnston discusses the importance of embracing uncertainty and respectful disagreement to promote critical thinking. Discover strategies to create an inclusive environment that encourages collaboration and diverse perspectives, enriching the overall learning experience.

Books are one of the most powerful ways to learn about others and about ourselves. But for that learning to happen, we need a wide range of stories that represent a whole spectrum of people and lives. In many schools and classrooms, however, the offerings are far too narrow. Curating the kind of library that truly reflects the diversity of human experience takes time, intention, money, and good tools. This episode will help you make that happen. Joining me are three exceptional librarians — Cicely Lewis, Julia Torres, and Julie Stivers — who share their advice for building more inclusive collections. They also recommend a handful of outstanding titles to add to your shelves. Thanks to Scholastic Magazines+ and Alpaca for sponsoring this episode. For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 237. 

Any time we teach our students something, we need to check to see how well they learned it. If we only do this check at the very end, after all the teaching is done, and we find that our students haven't learned the material, it's too late to do anything about it. That's why we really need to do formative assessment — checking along the way — so if there are problems, we can fix them. In this episode, we're talking about five important things we need to do to make sure we get formative assessment right. Joining me are two people who really understand what works in education: The Marshall Memo's master curator Kim Marshall, and Jenn David-Lang, the mind behind The Main Idea. Together they have published the Best of the Marshall Memo website, a fantastic, free collection of the best ideas in education. Thanks to Scholastic Magazines+ and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode. For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/effective-formative-assessment/. 

If our students are going to thrive, they all need to feel safe, accepted, and loved while under our care. This week, we're focusing on what that looks like when it comes to gender-expansive students — kids whose gender expression or identity is different from what they were assigned at birth. For these students, creating a school that feels safe and accepting isn't simply a matter of being nice to them; there are some specific do's and don'ts that can make a huge difference in how they experience school. My guest is Dave Edwards, an educator who teaches these principles through his website, Gender Inclusive Schools, and his brand-new book of the same name. As the parent of a transgender daughter who has experienced discrimination, Dave's mission is a personal one. In this episode, he shares specific things schools can do to proactively create safe learning environments for these students. Thanks to The Wired Classroom and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode. For links to Dave's book and a full transcript of our conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com/gender-inclusive-school.