Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

Virginia Quinn-Mooney — Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works About This Episode In this episode of Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works, Gene Tavernetti talks with first-grade teacher and literacy advocate Virginia Quinn-Mooney about the Science of Reading, teacher learning, and the work of bringing research-backed instruction into classrooms. Virginia shares how the launch of Sold a Story helped prompt the Science of Reading Virtual Happy Hour, a community that connected teachers with influential literacy advocates and created space for honest professional learning. The conversation explores classroom practice, teacher collaboration, advocacy, and the tension between evidence-informed instruction and the systems that resist meaningful change. Virginia and Gene return to a practical hope: teachers can model effective instruction every day and help more students experience the teaching they deserve. What You’ll Learn How Sold a Story helped teachers begin reexamining literacy instruction.Why teacher communities and honest conversation matter for professional learning.What Virginia learned from hosting the Science of Reading Virtual Happy Hour.How classroom modeling and research-backed practice can influence students directly.Why implementation depends on leadership, accountability, and follow-through.How educators can keep working for better instruction even when systems move slowly. Chapters 00:00 — Welcome to Better Teaching01:05 — Introducing Virginia Quinn-Mooney05:00 — The impact of Sold a Story10:30 — Building the Science of Reading Virtual Happy Hour17:00 — Teacher learning, advocacy, and community25:00 — Bringing research-backed practice into classrooms34:00 — What effective modeling looks like every day43:00 — Systems, implementation, and the challenge of change52:00 — Hope, persistence, and doing better for students57:00 — Closing thoughts Resources Sold a StoryGene Tavernetti and TESS Consulting Group Added/created/modified by Codex on 2026.11.04 00:00 on ombee. This podcast sponsored by:The Bell Ringer, a weekly newsletter providing news, tools, and resources on the science of learning, written by education reporter Holly Korbey. Subscribe here. 

Dr. Lalita Karpen, special educator, literacy advocate, and education leader, shares her remarkable journey from leaving high school to earning a doctorate. She explores literacy as a human right, specially designed instruction beyond accommodations, explicit teaching, teacher mentoring, co-teaching, and school leadership. The conversation also tackles student debt, school choice, and equity for students with disabilities.

Suzannah Evans, an instructional coordinator, and Dr. Shane Saeed, an ELA leader and author, trace a six-person book study’s transformation into a 100-plus-teacher learning movement. They explore why one-off training fades, how voluntary hybrid collaboration builds accountability, and how classroom practice, teacher leadership, student results, and word of mouth can turn a small pilot into lasting district-wide change.

Summary What are executive functions, and how can teachers support them without adding another program to the school day? Mitch Weathers returns to Better Teaching to discuss the cognitive skills behind organization, task initiation, self-regulation, planning, and follow-through. Mitch explains why clarity, modeling, predictable routines, and a well-designed classroom environment protect students' cognitive capacity. He also makes the case for analog tools in a digital world and shares how the Organized Binder approach helps students—and teachers—build practical organizational habits. Chapters 0:00 — Welcome and meeting Mitch Weathers2:15 — What executive functions are and why they matter in classrooms8:30 — Core executive functions: working memory, inhibition, and flexibility15:30 — Higher-order executive functions and age-appropriate expectations24:00 — Clarity, modeling, and predictable classroom routines33:00 — The Organized Binder approach and building student independence42:00 — Analog tools, technology, and protecting students' cognitive work50:00 — Connecting executive-function supports with effective lesson structure53:20 — Closing thoughts and practical next steps Show Notes Mitch Weathers is the author of Executive Functions for Every Classroom and co-author of Executive Functions for Every K–3 Classroom.Connect with Mitch on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Mitch and Gene discuss the Organized Binder approach, which supports organization, task initiation, self-regulation, and follow-through.The conversation explores how teachers can make expectations clear, model routines, reduce unnecessary cognitive load, and create predictable environments that help students develop executive-function skills.Mitch explains why analog tools can complement technology by giving students opportunities to practice the skills they will need in other settings. Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works is hosted by Gene Tavernetti. Find more about Gene's work at tesscg.com. This podcast sponsored by:The Bell Ringer, a weekly newsletter providing news, tools, and resources on the science of learning, written by education reporter Holly Korbey. Subscribe here. 

Why do schools overlook their most knowledgeable teachers? This discussion explores evidence-based instruction, the social pressure that can suppress excellence, and why conference takeaways rarely spread beyond one classroom. It also challenges leaders to find and support internal expertise, revisiting the starfish story with a pointed question about the limits of isolated impact.

Frank Rodriguez, an educator and co-author of Digital Captives, explores how screens reshaped classrooms and student life. He discusses technology replacing instruction, pandemic habits that lingered, weakened attention and reading, widening gaps for struggling learners, and the loss of conversation and connection. The conversation considers practical ways schools can restore human-centered teaching while using digital tools with greater purpose.

“It’s just the culture” gets a serious challenge as Gene Tavernetti explores how schools really change. The conversation covers daily decisions, behavior before beliefs, focused instructional routines, consistent coaching, shared walkthrough expectations, and the shift from isolated classrooms to a collective identity. It also examines why leadership follow-through is essential to protecting new commitments.

Instructional coaches can quickly become the school’s catch-all problem solvers, leaving little time for actual coaching. This conversation explores how undefined roles, emergency requests, and class coverage quietly dismantle coaching programs. It also examines protecting classroom time, setting clear expectations, and weighing immediate convenience against lasting improvement.

Summary In this episode of Better Teaching, Gene Tavernetti challenges the belief that effective coaching must be spontaneous and unscripted. He explains why a well-designed coaching script does not make a feedback conversation rigid or inauthentic—it gives the coach a reliable structure for specific, courageous, and useful feedback. Gene connects coaching scripts to classroom-management routines, surgical checklists, crisis-response training, and his own experiences as a counselor, principal, and coach. The practical takeaway is simple: prepare the sequence, transitions, and language of a feedback conversation so you can be fully present when the conversation begins. Chapters 0:00 — Welcome to Better Teaching0:45 — The coaching trap: unplanned and unscripted feedback2:57 — Why educators distrust scripts3:57 — Scripts, checklists, and professional responsiveness4:49 — How preparation helps coaches face fear6:25 — Using scripts in high-stakes conversations8:01 — What happens when a coach goes off script8:47 — A practical standard for scripting feedback conversations9:37 — Resources and closing Show Notes **Host:** Gene Tavernetti**Featured idea:** Script coaching conversations with the same intentionality teachers bring to well-planned lessons.**Gene’s books:** *Teach Fast, Focus Adaptable Structure Teaching* and *Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles***Website:** TESS Consulting Group**BlueSky:** @gtavarnetti**X/Twitter:** @gtavarnetti**BE Podcast Network:** bepodcastnetwork.com About Better Teaching Better Teaching is hosted by Gene Tavernetti and focuses on practical ideas for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and everyone who supports better work in classrooms—no clichés, no buzzwords, only stuff that works. Added/created/modified by Codex on 2026.09.14 17:27 PT on ombee This podcast sponsored by:The Bell Ringer, a weekly newsletter providing news, tools, and resources on the science of learning, written by education reporter Holly Korbey. Subscribe here. 

Faith Howard, an adolescent-literacy leader and creator of Literacy Lab, discusses replacing ineffective study halls with focused intervention for grades 6–12. She explores teacher-led instruction, decoding, morphology, vocabulary, grade-level novels, and making structured literacy teen-friendly. The conversation also covers practical support for secondary teachers, coaching, and building sustainable schoolwide literacy capacity.