The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

If we know what works to motivate students, why are so many students still unmotivated? These five questions will help you determine if your practice is really in line with research.

Hundreds of thousands of teachers are required to teach students the art of argumentative or persuasive writing. As an experienced writing teacher, I want to share my own best practices in this area. In this episode, I'll take you step by step through my process for teaching argumentative essay writing.

While working on the update of my book, The Teacher's Guide to Tech, I learned about a whole lot of tools that can make your teaching more efficient and effective. Here are six of my favorites.

So you got a new teaching job. Congratulations! The only catch is, you're starting in the middle of the year. This survival guide will help you figure out what to focus on right away so you can hit the ground running without falling down.

Teachers never seem to be able to find enough time to get their work done AND have a healthy, balanced life outside of school. And until now, I had very few solutions to this problem. But that was before I heard about Angela Watson's 40 Hour Teacher Workweek. In this episode, she shares 5 of her incredible time-saving strategies for teachers...and everyone else.

Is it better to rescue our kids every time they make mistakes, or let them experience the consequences of their actions? In this episode, I interview Jessica Lahey, author of The Gift of Failure: Why the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. We discuss how helicopter parenting can stunt a kid's growth, what parents should do instead, and the teacher's role supporting a student's autonomy.

Can being more dorky make you a better teacher? Can it make the world a better place? I say yes.

Is it possible to differentiate instruction so that students truly move at their own pace? My guest, middle school math teacher Natalie McCutchen, explains exactly how she does it--a process I believe teachers of any subject could adapt for their own classrooms. 

What can CrossFit, a fitness movement that is quickly growing in popularity, teach us about learning and motivation? As a new and very low-level student of CrossFit, I'm noticing some principles we can take from their approach and apply to our own teaching to get students motivated and help them learn better.

Do you need some fresh ideas for class discussions? When it comes to helping students practice speaking listening skills, are you stuck? In this episode, I describe 15 class discussion strategies you can start using right away.