Teacher Formation Podcast

in this episode, we discuss a specific aspect of teaching: activating prior knowledge. We talk about why APK is important and how teachers can use APK strategies to effectively prime students to learn new knowledge. Thanks to Joe Stone for music and sound editing!

We discuss the pervasive neuromyth of Learning Styles and talk about alternative ways to reach all learners with evidence-based teaching practices. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/edu-edu0000366.pdf

Monica and Erin chat about some cool teaching ideas they have seen in their recent classroom supervision visits. Send ideas for future episode topics to Monica at kowalski.42@nd.edu!

There are so many types of assessment that happen in schools. Today we talk about progress monitoring, including curriculum-based monitoring. We discuss how and why these are used in classrooms and what teachers should do with them.Thanks to Joe Stone for the audio editing and theme music!

In this episode, we chat about how teachers can use "talk moves" to facilitate classroom discussions. Talk moves are great for formative assessment and for improving writing. The article we reference can be found here: https://my.nsta.org/resource/?id=10.2505/4/sc16_053_08_24 or by googling Talk Moves by Page Keeley, 2016.

We discuss Kara Newhouse's MindShift article: Four Core Priorities for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning. https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55679/four-core-priorities-for-trauma-informed-distance-learning For more about Trauma-Informed Teaching, we recommend this site: https://www.transformingeducation.org/trauma-informed-sel-toolkit/ We also mentioned the great Catholic resources on this site: https://www.looktohimandberadiant.com/2016/02/from-kids-for-kids-practical-ideas-for.html Thanks for listening, and thanks to our sound editor and music composer, Joe Stone.

Today we chat about how we approach the teaching of reading as we read Lucy Calkins' article "No one gets to own the term 'The science of reading.'" We talk about the history of the "reading wars" and how we both endorse a balanced literacy approach. We also discuss how to support older students who are lacking foundational reading and decoding skills. Read along with the article here: https://readingandwritingproject.org/news/no-one-gets-to-own-the-term-the-science-of-reading Special thanks to our sound editor and theme music creator, Joe Stone.

In this episode, we discuss the article "No one wants to be a loser: High school students' perceptions of academic competition" by Kowalski and Christensen. The article can be read here: https://www.mwera.org/MWER/volumes/v31/issue4/V31n4-Kowalski-FEATURE-ARTICLE.pdf Are students motivated by competition? You may be surprised at the results of this study. How should teachers use competition in their classrooms? Spoiler alert: they shouldn't!

We discuss 2004 Elementary School Journal article The First Days of School in the Classrooms of Two More Effective and Four Less Effective Primary-Grades Teachers by Bohn, Roehrig, and Pressley. The article can be accessed here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3202942?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents In a nutshell? Teachers practices in the first few days of the school year set the foundation for subsequent student motivation and achievement throughout the year. Special thanks to Joe Stone for sound editing and intro music.

From the framework of Self-Determination Theory, we discuss how different kinds of autonomy support students' motivation in the classroom. Our featured article is Supporting Autonomy in the Classroom: Ways Teachers Encourage Student Decision Making and Ownership. This article is from Educational Psychologist in 2004, by Stafanou, Perencevich, DiCinto, and Turner. You can find the article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15326985ep3902_2

Today we chat about a 2008 article in Teaching and Teacher Education- "A Review of Research on the Impact of Professional Learning Communities on Teaching Practice and Student Learning" by Vescio, Ross, & Adams. The article can be accessed here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X07000066 What makes an official PLC? Does the focus have to be academic learning? We share our thoughts in response to this research.

We tackle the issue of effective use of technology in teaching through discussion of Liz Kolb's article Smart Classroom Tech Integration from the Educational Leadership publication. You can find the article through this link: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/feb19/vol76/num05/Smart_Classroom-Tech_Integration.aspx

In this episode, Erin Wibbens and I discuss the article What Shall we do about Grit? by Marcus Créde. We unpack the construct of grit and how it is similar to other ideas like persistence and resilience. We explore problems with measuring grit, interventions to improve grit, and why we feel that other constructs have more promise. The article can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189X18801322

Homework might be one of the more contentious issues in education. How much homework should students have? Should homework be graded? For completion or accuracy? In this episode, we share our thoughts on these and other questions as we discuss a chapter on the role and use of homework in school from Tom Schimmer’s book Grading from the Outside In. The book can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1936763850/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_DPtBCbT3BB9GS

Elementary teachers will be familiar with the tried-and-true practice of assigning students to reading groups and texts based on their demonstrated level of reading ability. But this practice has come under fire in some recent research. In this episode, we discuss the article: “What If ‘Just Right’ Is Just Wrong? The Unintended Consequences of Leveling Readers” by James Hoffman in The Reading Teacher, November/December 2017 (Vol. 71, #3, p. 265-273), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/trtr.1611/full;