"What does it mean if you never see yourself in a story?" - Jennifer Buehler "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a beautiful story, and it is one of the most commonly taught books in the secondary curriculum. But educator, Jennifer Buehler, can't help but wonder how many students relate to the characters. "At the end of the day, that book represents white America's vision of racial progress and injustice," says Buehler. "It's a really different thing to get a story that asks questions about racial justice that's not coming from the white perspective." Buehler, a former high school teacher and current associate professor of English education at Saint Louis University raises a question that all educators should consider. What does it mean if you never see yourself in a story? She says it's a common problem in schools nationwide because it's a hard shift for teachers to make. "Our curriculum remains pretty traditional nationwide. It requires teachers to be reading out of their comfort zones and exploring new authors and new texts. And it involves parent and administrative support." says Buehler. Money is a factor as well. "To bring different books into the classroom you have to be able to pay for those books," Buehler says. Is it hard to find diverse books? According to School Library Journal’s 2018 Diverse Collections Survey of 22,000 school and public librarians, 15 percent said they find it “very difficult” or “difficult” to find appropriate titles to round out a diverse library collection. The librarians surveyed cited finding portrayals of “characters with disabilities, Native or Indigenous peoples, and English language learners” as the most difficult. What can teachers do? Buehler knows teachers have a desire to make a change. She also knows that a lot of the "classics" already in the classroom are not bad books. "They [the books] just can't meet all the readers' needs, they can't do all the work that literature should do," says Buehler. Buehler suggests that teachers need first to make sure administrators are aware of the challenge. She advises teachers need to do their homework and know the books that they want to champion. "You have to have your own argument, that's appropriate to your own educational context, for what change is needed and why," says Buehler. Another major challenge is money for new books. Buehler suggests organizing small fundraisers. Teachers may also want to consider using PledgeCents or DonorsChoose. She also cites a foundation named "The Book Love Foundation," which dedicates their time to putting books in the hands of teenagers. To hear more from our conversation with Buehler listen to Episode 84 of  Class Dismissed. You can find Class Dismissed in your favorite podcast app or on iTunes. All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2017 – 2019

Project LIT Back in 2016, English teacher Jarred Amato read an article in the Atlantic about "book deserts;" areas where printed books are hard to obtain. The story stuck with Amato. So much so, that he shared the article with his class at Maplewood Highschool. The conversation with his students was enough to spark the beginnings of Project LIT, a movement that has swept across the nation. "I don't think I understood the scope of the problem," said Amato. "It was eye-opening." Are book deserts real? When the Nashville teacher presented the idea of book deserts to his students, they started to consider if it was an issue around the Music City. Jarred Amato pictured with students Credit: Jarred Amato Twitter "We actually drove down Dickerson road and took note of the gas stations, the liquor stores, and the fast food, so there are healthy options to eat," said Amato. "There's actually an adult toy box, literally right next to the bus stop where kids get ready for school, across the street from an elementary school. And there are no bookstores, there are no books." Amato said it was that moment that his students decided to do something. They started small, they created a name, "Project LIT", and a logo. From there, they asked the community for books. Even posting a launch video on YouTube.   The community response was tremendous. They received over 10 thousand books. LIT Libraries But the next challenge was distribution. How do high school students make 10 thousand books accessible to a community that needs them? They decided to transform old USA Today newsstands into what they dubbed "Lit Libraries " Amato admits that it was overwhelming at first. He was delivering thousands of books using his Honda Civic. He was also juggling preparing for a wedding, finishing grad school, and of course keeping up with his regular responsibilities of teaching. Amato says they learned a lot along the way. He says it's all about empowering the students. Students now set up conferences, read to elementary students and handle the duties of running social media accounts. Explosive Growth The Project LIT growth has been incredible, and Amato credits the students. He says their work on social media created interest in the program and in the Spring of 2017, they began offering an application for other communities to develop a Project LIT chapter.  "That's where teachers can go to sign up to become a part of our movement," said Amato. In less than two years Project LIT has grown to 620 chapters. Amato says they're almost in every state. To learn more about the mission of Project LIT listen to Episode 83 of  Class Dismissed. You can find Class Dismissed in your favorite podcast app or on iTunes. All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2017 - 2019

Can you measure what matters?When companies look for employees, they look for candidates that are curious, creative and persistent. So logically, these are the skills we should be teaching and measuring in our school system. But how do you measure curiosity or creativity? YJ Kim is a project director at the MIT Office of Open Learning, and she's been working years to answer this question. Yoon Jeon “YJ” Kim is a research scientist at the Teaching Systems Lab. "When we started talking to teachers more about it, we quickly realized that teachers do want to measure, they do want to assess those skills," says Kim "But they often feel like at the end of the day we just have to do standardized testing." Currently, schools assess students on content retention. Using a standardized test, it's relatively easy to do. But there really is no standardized test for curiosity. In response to that, Kim and her colleague, Lousia Rosenheck have been designing what they call "playful assessments." Rosenheck, who is a designer and researcher at MIT, says a lot of the construct behind playful assessments is helping learners recognize what they're good at, how they can improve and how the individual can tell if they're getting better at those things. "Communication is an important skill. But what does that mean? What are the different kinds of communication?" Rosenheck says these are the types of questions they hope their tools can answer. ShadowspectOne of the tools the researchers are designing is called "Shadowspect." It's a game-based assessment that looks like a fun puzzle. Kim says you rotate shapes and figures in the environment, and it measures not just students mathematics strengths, but it also assesses the students spacial reasoning, creativity, and persistence. Shadowspect Screenshot Credit: MIT Teaching Systems Lab "How those things are measured is because we are using a lot of process data that is logged through the gameplay," says Kim. Shawdowspect monitors the things the user moves, clicks and rotates and then it uses those features to make inferences based on how the user solves the puzzles. Rosenheck says they are still in the early stages of development, but they are inviting teachers to join a pilot program that will be starting in the next month or two. Why is it called "playful assessments"?Kim says the notion of playfulness is essential because their goal is to reimagine what assessment really means. The researchers want assessment to go beyond something that students are just passively doing. "If you think about a playground, everybody who comes to a playground are equal players. They share they have fun, and everybody participates in the process of play," says Kim. "When we think about assessment, it's something that's given to students, and they don't really have any say in how they're assessed." What does success look like?Rosenheck knows that if a school can't measure something, it probably won't be a priority for the school. Louisa Rosenheck is a designer and researcher of educational technologies in the MIT Education "Our school system is so focused on assessments that the way it is, things are not going be taught, they are not going to be given priority if we can't assess them," says Rosenheck That's why finding a way to measure skills like curiosity, creativity and persistence are so important. "So if we can find tools and mindsets that show everybody how we can value these skills, then teachers can finally focus more on those, and validate what students are doing, and celebrate the wonderful projects that students are doing that are meaningful to them," says Rosenheck Kim says they can develop great assessment systems that have psychometric qualities, but if teachers are not using the assessments it's not really a win for her. "I have two kids and they talk about how anxious they are when they take quizzes and tests," says Kim. "And I really hope that in 20 years or so,

Class Dismissed Best of 2018 It's been an incredible year for the Class Dismissed Podcast. We were just named as one of the "Best Teacher Podcasts". Plus, we now have listeners in all 50 states and 61 countries. The success of the show would not be possible without our listeners and all the incredible educators we've interviewed. In Episode 81, we're reflecting on some of our favorite interviews and we're highlighting our most downloaded episode and our most clicked on webpage. Favorite Episodes Episode 54: Leading with love – The secret weapon of this tattooed principal - Hamish Brewer is not your typical principal. He rides his skateboard through the school, tattoos cover his arms, and he high-fives students as he walks through the halls. However, Brewer expects and receives results from his students and teachers. Episode 73: Meet the educator that’s teaching a class about Anthony Bourdain -  Kennedy, who has a Ph.D. in 20th Century American Literature and Film, started to analyze why Bourdain’s death had such a personal impact. And he realized all the brilliant ways Bourdain looked at cultural studies, film studies, and literary studies. Episode 43: Why this educator reads a novel to his pre-algebra class - For more than a decade, Joel Bezaire has been reading “The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time” to his pre-algebra students. The main character in the mystery novel is a 15-year-old boy who has a form of autism and is very gifted in mathematics. Bezaire says that as the book progresses, his students really come to enjoy and connect with the character. Most Listened To Episode 72: Taking the fuzziness out of reading comprehension with Jennifer Serravallo - Bestselling author Jennifer Serravallo is already a rock star in the education community. Her previous books, “The Writing Strategies Book” and “The Reading Strategies Book”  have helped thousands of educators offer strategies for reading and writing.  Now, Serravallo is out with a new guide designed to help teachers make sense of reading comprehension. “Understanding Texts & Readers” offers the tools for an educator to identify if a student is comprehending a book, even if an educator is not familiar with the book the student is reading. Most Clicked On Webpage Episode 46: Make Fortnite a vehicle for your classroom lessons - Teens and tweens around the world are hooked on Fortnite. When kids are not in school, they’re rushing home to hop on their Xbox or PlayStation to play one of the most popular video games in years. This past January, Epic Games said the title had more than 45 million players. But did you know Fortnite is packed with lessons of alliteration, math, and geography? Where to listen? You can find Class Dismissed in your favorite podcast app or on iTunes. Love what you've heard? Don't forget to subscribe to the show. New episodes every week. All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2018

When parents and teachers talk children do better, period. -Russ Davis, CEO SchoolStatus The Perfect Marriage For the past six years, the software company, SchoolStatus, has been in the business of aggregating student data for school districts. They offer a platform that allows districts to see trends within large amounts of information quickly. This data includes attendance, test scores, and records of discipline. Now, that same app is being used to translate conversations between educators and parents. A few years ago, SchoolStatus decided to marry that data with a teacher-parent communication tool. Now, using a desktop or mobile app, educators can review their student's data, and with a quick click of a button, they can call or text a parent without sharing their personal number. The calls and text messages are also archived for proper record keeping. "You can see who you've contacted, when, what they said...when they read it," said Tupelo, MS middle school teacher Kirsti Turner. Recently, SchoolStatus honored Turner because she sent the company's millionth text message. "The rate at which they [teachers] have been adopting it, has just been insane," said Nick Peterman, Vice President of Operations and Development at SchoolStatus. Peterman says they are on pace to hit 3.5 million sent text messages by the end of the 2019 school year. In today's day and age, text messaging is a convenient form of communication between parents and teachers. But teachers don't necessarily want to give up their phone number, and sometimes they may forget to document the conversation. SchoolStatus seamlessly eliminates both of those headaches. Tearing Down The Language Barrier One of the most impressive features of the SchoolStatus application is that they have built in a way for teachers and parents to translate their communications. "I have a couple of parents who don't speak English at all," says Turner. "So I've had to translate my messages, and whatever they send to me they'll translate." Peterman says teachers have told them that these conversations would not be happening without the translation feature. Tupelo, MS middle school teacher Karla Scott said, "One of the parents, she really informed me about a lot of things that were going on with her child that I had no idea about because I think that she thought I was a Spanish speaker." "That's just another barrier that this tool has allowed us to overcome. It's been fantastic," said Peterman. To learn more about SchoolStatus and the communication and student data features, listen to Episode 80 of the Class Dismissed podcast.  You can find Class Dismissed in your favorite podcast app or on iTunes. All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2018

"There are 10,000 teachers that might teach the Great Gatsby, and I have no idea what they're doing?" Alternatives to "Teachers Pay Teachers"? Peter Nilsson has taught English at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts for more than a decade. He and his colleagues understand the importance of sharing resources and lesson plans, and they know they are dozens of sights that try to bring teachers from around the country and globe together to do just that. But Nilsson believes those platforms are falling short. He says that when a teacher looks online for resources, one of three things usually happens. It's hard to find what you're looking for. When you find something, the quality is unreliable. It cost money for teachers. Some solutions like Teachers Pay Teachers have been successful in creating revenue models and making some teachers money, but Nilsson says it's not building a free shared knowledge base. "Content is locked and closed," says Nilsson. You don't know what you're purchasing when you purchase it It's locked up in documents which makes it hard to manipulate There's hardly any way to feed your information back into the community Other platforms are allowing teachers to share information for free, but those platforms are not always very easy to use, often because of poorly constructed search functions. "There are 10,000 teachers that might teach the Great Gatsby, and I have no idea what they're doing?" says Nilsson. "Great veteran teachers retire and with their retirement evaporates all of their knowledge." What makes a better platform? Nilsson and his colleagues believe there's a more effective way to create a shared professional knowledge platform. He feels so strongly about it; he's on a sabbatical to build Athena. Athena is unapologetically described as no whistles and bells. No badges. Just a place for teachers to find, share and improve the questions, activities, and assignments we use every day. Nilsson says teachers are looking for a topic-oriented approach when searching for educational resources. So when you go to Athena, you would find a search bar, and you would arrive at a topic page much like Wikipedia. If you searched Great Gatsby, it might be organized by chapters and then materials for the entire text. And articles based on characters. "You would find discussion questions, classroom activities, assessments, multi-media objects," says Nilsson. He says, remarkably very few sights use this topical approach of searching for information. "We're not interested in creating this just for the sake of creating another platform," says Nilsson. "We're doing this because we feel it solves a problem that has not otherwise been solved effectively." Nilsson says educators have increasingly found ways to share materials online and that's really exciting, and it feels like we're going through our first generation of that with networks on Facebook, Twitter and Teachers Pay Teachers, but there's likely going to be the second generation of platforms that enable it to happen even more effectively. "That effectiveness is critical," says Nilsson Athena is currently being tested with hundreds of teachers and thousands of resources, but the platform is not fully open to the public just yet. If you would like to sign up for more information, you can head to www.teachathena.org To learn more about Athena, you can listen to Class Dismissed on your favorite podcast app or iTunes. All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2018

The migrant caravan, the Pittsburg synagogue, Charlottesville, and Parkland High School. They're all significant events that have dominated the airwaves, and they've been the focus of heated political debate. Educators know their students are aware of the events, but they can be understandably hesitant to broach the difficult topics with their class. Could something get lost in translation? How might a parent react? What if a teacher is accused of pushing a political agenda? "They (teachers) want to be able to talk about this, but at the same time they are so afraid to do it," says Jennifer Rich, an assistant professor in the College of Education at Rowan University. Rich, who is also the director of research and education for the Rowan Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies believes there is a way to talk about these heated issues without pushing your politics. "I think that we can open the conversation and allow students to lead the conversation, without getting involved." Recently, Rich wrote an opinion piece for the Hechinger Report about discussing the migrant caravan with students. She also broached the topic with her students a few weeks ago, and she told us about five takeaways from her experience. Admit Mistakes Remember the rule of "good intentions." Enter into the conversation from a place of curiosity Don't have a firm end-goal Allow everyone a voice, even when you disagree In Episode 78 of the Class Dismissed podcast, Rich offers in-depth strategies for discussing difficult topics. To learn more, listen to Class Dismissed on your favorite podcast app or iTunes. All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2018

How one guidance counselor channeled her frustrations into a proven school improvement model. In 1998 Angie Jerabek was working as a high school guidance counselor near Minneapolis. She was in her fifth year and working directly with 9th graders, but she was discouraged. She felt like she was trying all the "best practices" but year after year half of her students were failing a course. Jerabek was so frustrated she was ready to call it quits. She went to her principal to tenure her resignation, but he pushed back. "In a very helpful way he provided a much broader context, and he said this wasn't an issue with just our school this was a national issue," said Jerebak. The principal challenged Jerabek to come up with a new approach. The result was the Building Assets, Reducing Risks program, also known as BARR. Raising the Bar The BARR model has evolved since 1998, and it's experienced real results. On average, BARR schools see a 34.5% reduction in failure rate after one year of implementation. The BARR model consists of professional development and training, and that's paired with a lot of structure. "We are wanting to make sure that every student in the grade has multiple adults that are knowing who they are. We provide structures to make sure everyone is being seen and that they're in relationships," said Jerabek. "And then we're sharing that information between adults." Part of the BARR training focuses on equipping educators with the tools to make sure they're picking up on changes amongst students.  BARR looks at "noticing" as a skill. In California, a school using the BARR program credits the "noticing" technique with recognizing that a small group of girls were victims of sex trafficking. A group of teachers meeting and discussing unusual patterns amongst the girls led a BARR coordinator to investigate and ultimately shine a light on the situation. Across the board Since 2010, Jerabek has been putting BARR to the test in school districts all over the country. BARR is currently practiced in rural, urban and suburban schools. In fact, they're in 15 states and the District of Columbia. "At this point, every school that has taken the model on has seen changes within the year," says Jerabek. To learn more about the impacts of the BARR program, listen to Episode 77 of Class Dismissed on your favorite podcast app or iTunes. All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2018

Redefining Success What does success look like? Is it about being the best in the world or is about being the best for the world? It's key to a mindset raised by Austrailian Researcher Ash Buchanan, and it resonated with educator Robert Ward the first time it was brought to his attention. Ward has been teaching students in Los Angeles, CA for over two decades and he's authored several books, but after studying the Benefit Mindset, he couldn't help but contemplate how he could apply the Benefit Mindset model to education. Teaching the Benefit Mindset As a result, Ward penned his latest book, "Teaching The Benefit Mindset." Ward has always believed that developing self-confidence is important, but he says the "Benefit Mindset" takes that confidence to the next level. "Personal success should only be a beginning," says Ward. "Now, how can I share my passions, how can I find my purpose in the world." "Teaching the Benefit Mindset" focuses on how the education community can work together in teaching students to think outwardly. Ward says parents should be asking their kids "What is the one thing you did for others today?" And educators should reassess what praise they heap on their students. Success shouldn't just be measured by grades. To hear more from Ward about "Teaching the Benefit Mindset" listen to Episode 76 of Class Dismissed on your favorite podcast app or iTunes. All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2018

Matchmaker for Educators Many of us are familiar with how a dating website works. Plug in your hobbies, interested, and preferences and then the software matches those qualities with a partner that has similar interest. So what if you could use that same method when applying for a job in education? This is essentially what Selected is doing. Co-Founder and CEO, Waine Tam, says they originally built the software to match tutors with parents. Three years ago, Tam was sharing his tutor matching software at a job fair. A representative from an elite private school in New Jersey asked if they could use the software to help find quality teachers. Tam knew that schools could use some assistance finding great teachers, but he didn't realize that teachers had a difficult job finding schools. "The kind of light bulb was when we started talking to teachers, and the teachers said we have a hard time finding jobs," said Tam. "These are teachers that are certified. These are teachers that have a tremendous amount of experience." Tam was surprised to learn that teachers, which are in high-demand, were under-supported when it came to looking for a job. Tam says Selected's mission is to improve teacher retention. The platform, which is free for teachers, requires teachers to list their experience and then Selected asks the applicant a few questions about desired pedagogical preferences. Schools have to reach out first, and on average, a candidate gets contacted by five schools in the first week. To learn more about Selected listen to Episode 75 of the Class Dismissed on your favorite podcast app or iTunes. Other Links From Episode 75 Why Are So Many People In San Jose Fighting Housing for Teachers? 'We are better than this:' Idaho teachers get paid leave after dressing as border wall, Latinos for Halloween All Rights Reserved. Class Dismissed Podcast 2018