The Student-Centered Learning Podcast

Nerd culture and student-centered learning for STEM, with Roberto Gonzales, Founder and Director of Steambox Rhode Island. Interview by Reza Clifton.

Today we continue a series of very special episodes - 15 interviews of Student-Centered Educators brought to us by guest producers. You're about to hear from Lauren Bidell, a graduate student in Providence College's Urban Teaching Program, who interviews Dr. Anthony Rodriguez - a 3rd timer on the podcast!, and who is an Assistant Professor in the Elementary/Special Education Program at PC, and a teacher of over 20 years working to create equity in his classrooms through a student-centered approach. They talk about mastery-based education and other SCL concepts. Enjoy the interview!

Today we continue a series of very special episodes - 15 interviews of Student-Centered Educators brought to us by guest producers. You're about to hear from guest producer, Kerri Biagiotti, who interviews Nicole Rossi of Blackstone Valley Prep about Literacy Circles and other SCL strategies in the second grade ELA classroom.

Today we continue a series of very special episodes - 15 interviews of Student-Centered Educators brought to us by guest producers. You're about to hear from guest producer Julio Alvarez, who interviews Lisa Pacitto, a teacher at Providence Career and Technical Academy, as they discuss a structure called Personalized Learning Time.

Today we continue a series of very special episodes - 15 interviews of Student-Centered Educators brought to us by guest producers. You're about to hear from Jennifer Bandy, a student at Providence College, who interviews Kinte Howie, a 2nd-grade teacher at Martin Luther King school in Providence, RI. They discuss several student-centered strategies.

Student-owned learning through self- and peer-assessment. An interview with Maurice Louis by Pascal Despeignes.

Today we continue a series of very special episodes - 15 interviews of Student-Centered Educators brought to us by guest producers. You're about to hear from Edmicelly Xavier, a Spanish teacher at Paul Cuffee Upper School, an inner-city charter school in Providence, Rhode Island. Edmicelly grew up in Providence and is a product of the underfunded and underperforming inner-city schools. Now she is earning a Master of Education in Urban Teaching at Providence College this month. She interviews Keith Morton, Public and Community Service professor at Providence College, who has particular interests in community building, nonviolence and youth development. Edmicelly and Keith have a broad conversation about student-centered learning, the power of it, how to do it, and what systems and structures that need to change to enable it. Enjoy!

Guest producer Katelyn Veyera reflects on how she designed a project-based learning curriculum to help her 3rd grade students learn about the history of the town they live in: Cranston RI.

Today we continue a series of very special episodes - 15 interviews of Student-Centered Educators brought to us by guest producers. You're about to hear from Elizabeth Boucher, a second year teacher at The Met High School in RI, and a candidate for a masters in Urban Education at Providence College. She interviews Matthew Guertin, a Quantitative Reasoning Specialist at The Met High School, who talk to us about revisioning high school math class as more relevant and student-centered.

Today we continue a series of very special episodes - 15 interviews of Student-Centered Educators brought to us by guest producers. You're about to hear from Nick Mosher, a 3rd and 4th grade special educator at Blackstone Valley Prep, a charter school in Rhode Island that focuses on putting all kids on a path to college. He interviews Kim Carter, a founder and Executive Director of the QED Foundation and member of the team that developed the Learner Sketch Tool which you will hear about in this interview.

Guest producer Jewell Williams, teacher at The Met High School in Providence, RI, talks with her students about the importance of learning about social justice issues, and what they gained from reading Angie Thomas' book, The Hate U Give.

Dr. Anthony Rodriguez, an Education professor at Providence College, comes on for a second time to talk about personalized, student-owned and project-based learning. Interview by Reed Fraser.

Welcome back and today we continue a series of very special episodes - 15 interviews of Student-Centered Educators brought to us by guest producers. You're about to hear from Amy Gingras, the choir director and one of two music teachers at North Providence High School. She interviews Lisa Leaheey, a North Providence High School teacher for the past 18 years, and Rhode Island Fuse fellow, who is serving as a Blended Learning resource across the state of Rhode Island. Enjoy the interview!

Malika Ali of the Highlander Institute on leveling the playing field for all learners, interviewed by Bryant Estrada. https://highlanderinstitute.org/

Listen to kindergarten grade teacher Marlene Medeiros of Highlander Charter School talk about how she uses centers, technology and personalized learning time to make sure all of her students succeed.

Listen to Kindergarten teacher Marlene Medeiros of Highlander Charter School talk about how she uses centers, technology and personalized learning time to help each of her students succeed.

Listen to 3rd-grade teacher Lindsay Robinson of Highlander Charter School talk about how she uses various tech products to sustainably personalize learning for her students, and keep them engaged.

Listen to LCCS middle school teachers Erin O'Neil, Domenique Rossi and Cathy Huang and Director Josh Johnson discuss how to implement the workshop model in literacy, math and science classrooms to achieve deeper, personalized, authentic and student-owned learning.

Blackstone Academy Charter humanities teachers Syeda Menebhi & Victor Ha discuss The "Station Rotation" strategy for student-centered instruction.

Eva Dayon - educator, trainer and activist - talks to us about the top 3 most important ways teachers can be allies to their gender nonconforming students.

Jennifer Fredricks is a Professor of Psychology at Union College and has published over 50 journal articles and book chapters on student engagement, family socialization, adolescent development, and extracurricular participation. She's the author of Eight Myths of Student Engagement: Creating Classrooms of Deep Learning. https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/eight-myths-of-student-disengagement/book240322

What are the principles of democratic practice in the classroom environment that lead to deeper student-centered learning? Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg (@CIRCLE_KKG), one of the United State's leading experts in civics education, helps us answer this question and others. Professor Kawashima-Ginsberg is the Director of CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, part of Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. CIRCLE is a nonpartisan research organization producing and translating knowledge about how young people acquire civic skills and identities through a variety of experiences, and what makes certain learning experiences more effective than others. Drawing on her background in positive youth development and community psychology, her core scholastic interests are in understanding how young people interact with the cultural, educational, and institutional factors and shape their civic and political developmental trajectories over time. While Kei is interested in ensuring that any educational solutions target all young people, she is especially interested in diminishing learning opportunities gaps, including civic opportunities gaps. She comes on the SCL Podcast to help us understand how teachers can cultivate the habits and mindsets our students need to be civic minded and active agents in their learning and in their communities. Also, shout out to Generation Citizen (@gencitizen https://generationcitizen.org) for their great work in this field.

Students-at-the-Center Distinguished Fellow Mary Bellavance discusses how to organize your classroom space for SCL and how to develop a culture of a SCL in your classroom.

Joy Souza is Head of School at Blackstone Valley Prep Middle School 1 and the Rhode Island Department of Ed 2017-2018 Educator Excellence Leadership Fellow. She comes on the pod to discuss how her school integrates intentionally diversity, student-owned and competency-based assessment, personalized interventions, Socio-Emotional Learning, Culturally Responsive Teaching and high academic achievement into an excelling middle school. For more information, go to www.blackstonevalleyprep.org or email her at jsouza@blackstonevalleyprep.org.

Frank LaBanca is the award-winning Founding Principal of Danbury Connecticut's Westside Middle School Academy Magnet and Students-at-the-Center distinguished fellow. He is also a national expert on project-based learning and comes on the pod to talk to us about the open-inquiry process, and how to help students define a meaningful and well-defined problem that guides deep and rigorous personalized learning.

On this episode of the pod, Meghan Dillon, a high school Social Studies in Providence, Rhode Island, conducts a guest interview as part of her work in a graduate course I teach called Student-Centered Learning in Urban Schools at Providence College. Meghan interviews Bryan Colahan, the Director of Curriculum Development at Project Engin, an educational consulting firm dedicated to the inclusion of more Engineering in K-12 education. Mr. Colahan works with classroom teachers to create projects and curriculum that deal with global issues and challenges. He comes onto the pod to discuss best practices in project-based learning for STEM instruction.

Guest podcaster Laura Briggs interviews educator Jessica Waters and her student Rachel about how students and staff transition into Summit Personalized Learning, and they also give some other excellent tips about SCL classroom implementation.

Guest host Hailey Heater interviews educator Victor Nasir Terry about being a black teacher among mostly white, New England colleagues and administration. They also discuss Victor's culturally relevant pedagogy.

Patrick Kavanaugh, guest podcaster and teacher in Providence, interviews Met High School teacher Omar Valerio and his student Julian about how they worked together to help Julian transition from a traditional teacher-centered high school to a student-centered model.

In this episode, high school biology teacher Joe Altongy guest interviews Principal Arzinia Gil and science teacher Mrs. Maruska of Del Sesto Middle School in Providence, RI, who are piloting the Summit Learning platform to transform their struggling urban school into a competency-based, student-owned and personalized model.

In the final part of this three episode series, host Arthur Eduardo Baraf talks with Alin Bennett, an instructional leader at The Met, about free resources for student-centered learning educators who want to hit the ground running as they begin their careers. All of the resources are linked to the Students at the Center Hub: http://studentsatthecenterhub.org/

In this episode, the tables are turned and host Arthur Eduardo Baraf is interviewed by Alin Bennett, an instructional leader at The Met, about free resources for the student-centered learning educators who want to hit the ground running as they begin their careers. All of the resources are linked to the Students at the Center Hub: http://studentsatthecenterhub.org/

In this episode the tables are turned and host Arthur Eduardo Baraf is interviewed by Alin Bennett, an instructional leader at The Met, about free resources for the student-centered learning educators who want to hit the ground running as they begin their careers. All of the resources are linked on the Students at the Center Hub: http://studentsatthecenterhub.org/

The SCL Podcast welcomes Elina Alayeva, who talks about the importance of Agency (aka Autonomy) and how teachers can develop that in their students. Learn more and read the paper on Youth Development at http://www.springpointschools.org/

Dr. Dave Lehman of the National School Reform Faculty and founding principal of The Lehman Alternative Community School in Ithaca, NY joins The Student-Centered Learning Podcast to talk about how schools can be democratic and have more equity in voice, how classrooms can include more student voice, and how teachers can interrupt intolerance.

The SCL Podcast stopped by Tansey Elementary in Fall River Massachusetts, led by Principal Chris Audette, to talk with 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Lisa Furtado, her student Lyric and Lyric's mother Brooke about student-led conferences. They talk about what they are, how to implement them, why they are important, and missteps to avoid.

Why is it so important for school systems hoping to implement student-centered learning to be coherent in terms of systems, structures and culture? And what happens when they are not? And what initiatives can help bring that coherence? And what can a teacher leader do to help? Answers to these questions and more from Doug Knecht, the Executive Director at Bank Street Education Center on this week's episode of The Student-Centered Learning Podcast.

Dr. George Wood, Superintendent of Federal Hocking Schools in Ohio, and author of several books, talks about how good Superintendents "protect the perimeter", "find the cracks", and empower teachers to engage students in deeper learning. He gives advice on how to work with your administrator, and sometimes around them, to innovate and lead student-centered learning in your schools.

On this week's episode, Director of Curriculum and Staff Development for Project Look Sharp Chris Sperry talks to us about how to train your students to decode how media messages are constructed, produced for different purposes, contain embedded values and points of view, can influence beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors and the democratic process and much more.

Ron Berger (teacher, author, and Chief Academic Officer at EL Education) talks about giving students authentic assignments with a public audience and purpose, showing students models of high quality work, teaching them to critique their own work, and develop an ethic of excellence more important than any test score.

In this interview, Baraf and Jacobs discuss the "what" and "why" of Competency-Based Learning, and the "how" of implementation. Courtney Jacobs is a veteran teacher and coach and works with schools through the Great Schools Partnership in New England.

Dr. Amber Kim, who teaches Education at UC Boulder and who is a writer and consultant, talks to us about teaching equity literacy. Learn about internalized oppression, anti-oppression and how student-centered learning educators can help students from marginalized communities tap into their socio-cultural identity in their project-based learning classrooms.

In our second episode of season 2, listen to an interview with Sean McClung, Principal of Envision Schools' Impact Academy in California, which focuses on many student centered learning practices, but especially learning through internships and portfolio defenses. If you are interested, feel free to contact Sean at sean@es-impact.org

Listen an interview with Jill Davidson of the Coalition of Essential Schools discuss the history of CES, the upcoming Fall Forum, and CES' next steps.

Listen to Nikki Pulito's reflection on Personalized Learning and finding a job as a teacher.

Listen to Kaitlin Neidmann, of Blackstone Valley prep Mayoral Academy, discuss her plan to Personalizing homework in her classroom this year.

In this episode, Arthur shares an essay about the intellectual journey of the late Student-Centered educator, Michael Armstrong, who passed away this May, based on interviews Arthur did with Michael in 2009.

In this episode, Rebecca Boswell describes the what, why and how of Student Led Conferences, a method of building student ownership over educational goals through making them key agents in progress monitoring and communication. She also tells us how she plans to implement these practices in her school this fall.

Listen to Nichole Phelp's interview of Joe DiMartino, Founder and President of the Center for Secondary School Redesign.

Listen to Devyn Pryor's interview of Teacher Leader Linda Chick of West High School in New Hampshire.

Listen to Russ Bond's review and summary of Creative Schools - The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education, by Sir Ken Robinson.