Imagine a high school girl from Texas deciding to venture to Denmark as an exchange student. Talk about a culture and a climate shock. I’m describing the young Jennifer Burke-Hansen. What’s interesting about Jennifer is that she became enchanted with this tiny nation of 6 million on the scenic Jutland Peninsula. So much so that she’s resided there for the last three decades and taught high school for the bulk of her stay.

info@reenchantedteaching.com

http://www.reenchantedteaching.com/

https://www.facebook.com/reEnchantedTeaching

Jennifer embodies the growth mindset. She continually pushes herself outside of her comfort zone. Teaching school is hard enough in your hometown. Imagine teaching in a different culture where the students don’t even speak your native language. 

The challenges of returning to in person instruction this fall is making many anxious. Jennifer is here to help. She’s offering free training entitled How to create your personalized back-to-school reEntry plan! Just click on the link to access. Here’s also a post from her reEnchanting Teaching Blog. The post is titled Redefine your Normal. I love this idea and we talk about teaching in the post-COVID world a lot in this episode. I also love the theme of her blog reEnchanting Teaching. I was a successful teacher, but there were seasons in my career where I had doubts. Jennifer’s blog addresses questioning educators. You’re not alone and Jennifer is here to help. 

Episode Template

The Problem:

Teachers may be anxious going back into the classroom after COVID.

The Solution:

Redefine your normal.

What you can do Tomorrow:

• Check out the Jennifer’s links in the show notes
• Make a list of aspects of virtual instruction tactics and tools that worked well for you and your students. 
• Brainstorm ways to incorporate these concepts into in person instruction. 

In this episode, Jennifer and I mentioned how many teachers promote a growth mindset. This fall will provide educators with a magnificent opportunity to walk that walk. 

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I’m going to describe a student. I’ll bet you can picture one similar. This kid seems unenthused by many of the prompts and activities that are issued or done in class. It isn’t that they are incapable, in fact just the opposite. They master directives quickly and effortlessly. Unfortunately, they complete their efforts without much enthusiasm. The student feels stuck in the endless wave of mundane requirements that overpopulate the typical k12 experience. They are disillusioned with the one size fits all approach to education. 

I’ll bet you can think of a student like this. Picture that young person in your mind. I’ll bet you worked hard to personalize this their instruction to give them room to grow and explore. Such efforts on your part are noble and I applaud you for it. But the fact remains that we probably don’t offer students enough intellectual freedom. We probably don’t leverage curiosity enough.

And this dear listener is where Collin Jewett makes a dramatic appearance. Collin was a classic bored student, but he doesn’t come to my podcast to vent. He’ll vent a little, but he’s more interested in helping. Think of Collin as a customer who actually completes a consumer feedback prompt and does so in the spirit of constructive criticism. We can learn a lot from students and former students like Collin if we have the courage and humility to listen. 

But Collin is not just an amicus curiae. He’s also invested in helping improve the educational experience. Collin is an impressive young man. At the ripe age of 24, he’s authored two books, he’s a learning coach, a blogger and a podcaster. He’s created a Facebook Group called Schools of Tomorrow, which will soon be a podcast. Collin gave a me a heads up to three blog posts that may be of particular interest to listeners:

• Attentional Disposition and Why You’re Probably Not an “Auditory Learner”
• Curiosity, Creativity, and Memory and How They are Connected
• RE-Awakening Your Creative Genius

Collin’s interest in improving schools is not just dinner party talking points. He’s acting on this passion. He provides a fascinating perspective in this episode that just may inspire you to try some novel approaches. 

Episode Template:

The Problem:

Many students are uninspired.

The Solution:

Offer students more academic freedom.

What you can do Tomorrow:

• Analyze an upcoming unit.
• Insert a prompt or activity which affords students intellectual and creative freedom. 
• Reach out to a former or present student who seems similar to Collin. Ask how you could improve a student’s academic experience. 

When one is curious and independently seeks answers, it can become a magical experience. 

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I think that every educator has heard the following, “I didn’t do well on this assessment because I have test anxiety.” The fact that every teacher has heard this should be a red flag. Certainly, a bit of test anxiety is healthy—I mean you have to be motivated enough to study. The problem is when test anxiety results in diminished performance. Not only is this stressful and demoralizing, but it also creates inaccurate results. We need to do assessment better. 

Assessment should be less like judgement day and more like growth events. And this is where Aaron Cook, the Director of Secondary Curriculum and Assessment at the Delaware City Schools in suburban Columbus, makes a dramatic appearance. Aaron is an assessment savant. In this episode, he’ll promote assessing the whole child. My wife and I strive to eat a whole foods diet. We feel a lot better when we’re not scarfing down all of those preservatives that we can’t pronounce. A whole child approach to assessment will be just as healthy. Not only will Aaron’s ideas inspire you to empower your students through assessment, but he’ll also guide you to creating much more accurate probes.  

Episode Template

The Problem:

Contemporary assessment produces anxiety in students which can lead to inaccuracies. 

The Solution:

Take a more holistic approach to assessment. 

What you can do Tomorrow:

• Consider using a multidimensional approach to assessment for your next assessment event. 
• Consider helping to facilitate an outstanding classroom culture through the use of restorative circles.
• Check out the book Late Bloomers. 

Create a positive assessment culture that inspires growth.  

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I went to grade school in a small town. Our school was right on Main Street in the town center. A few of my most vivid memories were the brief class excursions into town. On various days, we visited the post office, the dairy, the glass blower, and the bakery. I had no aspirations to be a postman, a dairy farmer, a glass blower, or a baker. Regardless, I loved these field trips. It got us out of the stale classroom. It unveiled to us how products that we regularly consumed were produced and distributed. I loved these experiences and my classmates did too. We’d cheer every time a new scenic detour was announced. Those experiences happened 50 years ago. 

And here, dear listener, is where Brent and Molly Watson make their dramatic appearance. Brent and Molly have created the Garden Learning Lab. It’s an awesome community resource. It’s exciting and humbling to think that in the year 2071, some old-timer will be waxing eloquently about the trip they made to the Garden Learning Lab all the way back in 2021.

Brent and Molly’s Learning Lab Website

Episode Template:

The Problem:

Kids are too isolated in the classroom.

The Solution:

Inspire a local resident, or business person to create a learning experience for your students. 

What you can do Tomorrow: 

• Study your curriculum for outside learning opportunities.
• Check with your administration about the feasibility and logistics of taking a class excursion.
• Recruit a local to host your class and help create this experience.

And finally, if you feel moved to donate to the Watson’s Garden Learning Lab, visit this Kickstarter site. 

Creating a community learning opportunity for your students could inspire a future calling and create a vivid enduring memory. 

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The bubblefication of the United States is much written about and much talked about. We tend to live around, interact with, watch media outlets populated, and are entertained by…people who think like we do and probably look like we do. That’s too bad, because while bubbles can feel safe, they are also limiting. 

The scary part of our bubbles is that they are reflected in our schools. Many American students learn in monochromatic settings. Their peers largely look like they do and probably think like they do as well. Youth should be a time of healthy exploration. What can be done? 

Today I’m going to talk to David McCullough. He has an interesting idea on how to get students at your school out of their bubbles. His creation, the American Exchange Project offers a 10-14 day summer experience for graduating seniors. It’s like a mini gap year. Students will live and experience, for a brief time, a community that’s different than their own. This experience is:

• Free
• Open to All

I was drawn to his program because I understand the power of experiences. When I think back on formative elements in my life, I usually focus on powerful experiences. Some of these events were brief. Some were long. Some were free, while others came at a price. Regardless of whether these experiences were positive or negative, I grew as a result. 

David is a positive experience creating catalyst for contemporary American youth. Think of students at your school that could benefit from such a program. I’ll bet you can compile a long list. 

Episode Template

The Problem:

American students learn in bubbles.

The Solution:

Create opportunities for students to experience life in a different community.

What you can do Tomorrow:

• Visit the American Exchange Project Website
• Share this idea with your administration

Become a positive experience creating catalyst for contemporary American youth like David McCullough.

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This seems like a totally incongruent title. How in the world can you use assessment to forge strong relationships with students? And yet in this episode. My guest and I will attempt to answer this question. The key is student revision based on teacher feedback. Two tech tools that are instrumental in this process are the Google extension Mote and an app called Voxer. Both will be featured in this episode.

Educators need to stop conducting assessment as an event and transform it into more of a process. Students learn so much when they go back and fix and improve. Successful revisions typically take a healthy collaboration between students and teachers. That, dear friends, is fertile ground for relationships to evolve. 

To help in this interesting exploration, I conscripted one of my students. Layne Neuhart is a wonderful person. She has a bottomless intellectual curiosity and is a blast to interact with. She’s going to be a champion at forging positive relationships with the lucky students that will one day be in her language art class. 

 Layne Neuhart lneuhart1@muskingum.edu

Before we get to the episode, I want to give a shout out to the text we utilize in my assessment class. Classroom Assessment for Student Learning by numerous authors is a wonderful resource. It’s in this text that I found a template that I apply to all of my lessons. This template is called The Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning. Below are the seven. I would strongly urge listeners to start applying this template to all of their lesson creations:

1. Make certain that students understand the learning target.
2. Provide examples of strong and weak work.
3. Provide regular descriptive feedback.
4. Teach and then encourage self-assessment.
5. Focus on just 1 learning target per prompt.
6. Teach and encourage students to revise their work.
7. Encourage students to collaborate.

Episode Template

The Problem:

Teachers need to form stronger bonds with students. 

The Solution:

Teachers need to leverage assessment to bond with kids.

What you can do Tomorrow: 

• Apply the The Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning to tomorrow’s lesson plan.
• Explore possibilities with Voxer. 
• Explore possibilities with Mote.
• Insert revision and collaboration opportunities into your next assessment. 

Stop thinking about assessment as an event and think of it as more a process. The resulting collaborations you have with students could be magical. 

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Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an iconic Democratic senator from New York. One of his most famous quotes was, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Decades ago, Americans embraced this stance. 

On January 6, 2021, a mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. These insurrectionists were inspired by their own set of facts. Their claims of election fraud have been roundly rejected by Republican appointed judge after Republican appointed judge. The Supreme Court, which includes 6 conservatives, declined to even hear the case. These are inconvenient facts for those who laid waste to the capitol that day. Why would normal members of far flung communities be willing to risk their reputations, their jobs, their family relationships, and their freedom for an idea that has not stood the test of objective judgement? The answer is that they have undermined Senator Moynihan’s directive and now live in a world created by their own set of facts. Most came to this paradigm through a wholesale diet of unreliable online sources. 

The attack on the capitol should be a wakeup call for educators. We have a moral obligation to help students evaluate online sources. Perhaps through our efforts, kids will develop a healthy skepticism about all sources. Unfortunately, many contemporary adults have trained their young to reserve their skepticism only for those sources that emanate from the other side of the political divide. Contemporary media literacy should encourage a healthy skepticism toward all sources. 

Before I describe my guests, I’d like to first promote the text that we use in my Education Technology class. Educational Technology for Teachers by Dr. Gregory Francom is user-friendly, interactive, and engaging. Dr. Francom dedicates an entire chapter to information literacy. This chapter was our focus this past week. 

To help tell this story, I deputized two outstanding aspiring teachers. Kaylie Callihan and Josh Hilgenberg are both students in my technology class. They consistently produce stellar creations. 

kayliec1@muskingum.edu                                    joshh1@muskingum.edu 

Last week, our focus was information literacy. My students were challenged to create a prompt for their future classrooms. This prompt would encourage students to evaluate online sources. A key aspect of their creations was a short informational flipped presentation. This would provide the class with basic information about information literacy. I challenged Kaylie and Josh to use PowerPoint and YouTube to create this flipped presentation. They put together marvelous videos. Here’s a link to Kaylie’s and here’s a link to Josh’s. But the bulk of our conversation is dedicated to the dissemination of the acronym CRAP. Intrigued? I thought so. 

Episode Template

The Problem: Students lack an evaluative template for online sources.

The Solution: CRAP

What you can do Tomorrow: 

• Utilize Kaylie or Josh’s flipped presentations.
• Gather some reliable and problematic online sources in your subject area.
• Challenge students to evaluate these sources utilizing CRAP.

Encourage your students to think objectively, to think critically, and to question the legitimacy of all sources. 

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I’ve always been fascinated as to how calamities, such as war, lead to innovations that benefit humankind long after the conflict abates. WWII, for example, sponsored all of the following:

• Antibiotics
• Radar
• Jet Aircraft
• Computers
• Satellites

The old adage Necessity is the mother of invention could be applied to each of these quantum technological leaps. In each case, one side in the conflict was attempting to develop advantages that would lay waste to their enemy. The unintended consequence, however, was that these inventions vastly improved civilian existence after the conflict. I could not fathom my life without any of these WWII byproducts. This realization got me thinking. I wonder if the catastrophe of COVID will spawn better ways to educate kids. 

To help explore this rhetorical question, I tapped a former guest, Ryan Mocarski. 5 years ago, on Episode 31, Ryan promoted the idea of self-directed learning. In this episode, we’ll speculate about transitioning out of COVID.

Episode Template

The Problem:

Teachers struggled when they were forced to become virtual educators during COVID–and now that it’s winding down, they’re struggling making the transition back to more traditional teaching. 

The Solution:

COVID has changed education. Embrace this and be willing to change as well. 

What you can do Tomorrow:

• Take an inventory of how you’ve taught differently over the last 12 months.
• What strategies have worked and what have not?
• What have you liked about teaching this way?
• What strategies or tactics that you utilized during COVID could you perhaps utilize in more traditional leaning settings? 
• Collaborate with colleagues about these questions.
• Be open to new ideas that your administrators propose. 

My old high school Biology teacher had a saying, Species can either migrate, mutate, or lay down and die. In order to thrive you must be willing to mutate. 

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The best thing about social media is that it keeps you connected with significant people. It’s kept me connected to many former students. I’m going to talk to one today. Ty DeLong was a student in my Economics class almost 2 decades ago. Ty lives in Nashville. He’s a software engineer. He’s a devoted husband and father. I’m really proud of him.

A few years back, I ran into Ty’s parents at a local store. My wife and I caught up on the doings of Ty and his siblings, but at one point in the convo, his parents mentioned the positive impact of a lesson from my class on Ty’s life. WOW–that thrilled me.

Today’s episode is going to be on that lesson, why and how it impacted Ty, and the incredible responsibility and potential for every educator whenever the bell rings each period and each day.

Episode Template:

The Problem: Teachers sometimes forget the potential for each lesson.

The Solution: Each period, before you utter your first word, keep in mind the potential legacy of the lesson.

What you can do Tomorrow:

1. Make a list of intense learning experiences that impacted you. Evaluate what it was about these experiences that caused great impact.

2. Make a list of lessons that former students have complimented you upon. Evaluate that lesson. Why do you think it made an impact?

3. And finally, evaluate tomorrow’s lesson. Are there any adjustment’s that you could make which could improve its legacy

Teaching is a powerful job. You may be totally unaware of the impact you’re having. Just make certain, that when someone walks up to you decades later and reminisces about your class, that it’s a positive memory.

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Last week was exhilarating. My wife and I had become determined to install a subway tile backsplash in our kitchen. I thought to myself, There’s no way I’m going to pay someone to do that. I’ll learn how and do it. Of course, I went to the greatest educator in the world–YouTube. I watched a number of how-to videos, gathered my courage, and then installed that backsplash. It was a profitable and empowering exercise. I love my new backsplash and the experience gives me confidence to take on more such challenges.

Are you willing to gather your courage and try something new in your classroom? Covid has forced us to adapt and take risks and wouldn’t you agree that there have been experiences over the past few months that have evolved you as a teacher? I’ll wager that when this crisis abates that you’ll find yourself teaching differently than before Covid. Times such as these afford you the opportunity to try new things and take risks. 

And this, dear listener, is where Shane Neiffer makes a glorious appearance. Shane is a middle school science teacher in Eastern Pennsylvania. She’s developing a sparkling reputation as an innovator. She takes a subject that many students dread–Science and makes her class the one her students are gabbing about around the dinner table that evening. 

In this episode, we’ll talk about exactly HOW she does it. It’s one thing to hear about someone doing something, but it rises to a whole new meaningful level when they demonstrate. Think back to my subway tile backsplash example. Without YouTube, I’d have been lost. That is the magical thing about what Shane has done for you in this episode. You simply must navigate to my show notes and then access the link to Shane’s Resources. This doc is a student engagement roadmap. She indicates the objective and then provides the tool to fix it. She’s compiled 30 different tools that can be utilized to achieve the various objectives she has listed. This is a powerful resource that I’m going to apply in my classes next semester. I challenge you to take a look and NOT find something that you’re going to use tomorrow. That is why in the title of this episode the word HOW is in all caps. Shane, like YouTube, gives you the how. This is a magnificent resource for Covid and beyond. 

If you’re an administrator and you’re looking for PD for your teachers, Shane would be an excellent choice. I definitely see instructional coaching in her future. But after having said all those wonderful things about her, I would be remiss if I left out the most important part–she’s a really neat person. I’ve known her for a grand total of two weeks and I feel like I’ve known her most of my life. This woman is a technocrat and a highly engaging person. That dear friends, is a wonderful combo. I love this interview!

Episode Template

The Problem:

Teachers are adverse to taking risks which would make their classes more engaging. 

The Solution:

Utilize Shane’s Resources and follow her pioneering example of being willing to try new things. 

What you can do Tomorrow:

Focus on a way that you’d like to improve your instruction.

Search Shane’s Resources for a solution,

TRY IT TOMORROW.

Tomorrow, you’re going to utilize a new approach to teaching an old lesson. Your world will never be the same. 

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