Talks with Teachers

Episode #86
Christopher Bronke has been teaching English for 13 years and is in his 5th year as English Department Chair at Downers Grove North. In this role he teaches 9th-grade honors, evaluates teachers, oversees the literacy coaching program, plans and implements PD, and works with other district leaders on CCSS integration/implementation and common assessments and rubrics. He has presented nationally on CCSS integration across all subject areas, creating a teacher brand, blogging to empower teacher voice, collaborative leadership, teacher blogging, teacher leadership, literacy leadership, as well as social media in the classroom. Christopher’s work with social media has been featured in the Atlantic, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on EduTalk Radio, and on the social media platforms MightyBell and Celebrate Teaching.

How he empowers his students to do more while he does less
How Chris Bronke redesigned his assessments to better serve his students
How he shifted the purpose of his class away from content and toward skill development
What were the deciding factors that enabled him to switch schools mid-career
Why he co-founded The National Blogging Collabotative
Why he is a firm believe in the book, Falling in Love with Close Reading: Lessons for Analyzing Texts--and Life

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Dr. Monica Burns is a Curriculum and EdTech Consultant, Apple Distinguished Educator and Founder of ClassTechTips.com. As an educator, Monica was part of her school’s Federal Magnet Funding leadership team and was a vocal advocate for bringing 1:1 technology into her 5th grade classroom. During her tenure as a classroom teacher, Monica used iPads to create engaging, differentiated learning experience to meet the unique needs of her students. Realizing the power of tech tools in the classroom, Monica started ClassTechTips.com to provide a resource for educators and administrators on implementing EdTech in the classroom.

Since starting ClassTechTips.com, Monica has presented to teachers, administrators and tech enthusiasts at numerous national and international conferences including SXSWedu, ISTE, and EduTECH. She is a webinar host for SimpleK12 and a regular contributor to Edutopia and Channel One News.  Monica is the author of Deeper Learning with QR Codes and Augmented Reality: A Scannable Solution for Your Classroom (Corwin Press, 2016) and #FormativeTech: Meaningful, Sustainable, and Scannable Formative Assessment with Technology (Corwin Press, 2017).
In this episode you will learn:

How Monica leads professional development for teachers around the country
Why instructional coaches should listen as much as their share
How to transition from the classroom to instructional coach
How to develop quality interactions with technology
How to personalize tech professional development for teachers
How to use technology to aid in assessment
How to grow a teacher blog
Why Harry Wong's The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher should be required reading
Why webinars are the future of PD
How virtual reality can transform education

Follow Monica on Twitter at ClassTechTips or read her blog, Class Tech Tips

The post Monica Burns: Class Tech Tips (Episode #85) appeared first on Talks with Teachers.

Episode #83 of the Talks with Teachers podcast
Allison Marchetti  (Co-Founder of Moving Writers) currently teaches English 8 and Reading Writing Workshop 9 at Trinity Episcopal School in Richmond, Virginia. Previously, she taught English 9, 10, Creative Writing, and AP Language at James River High School in Midlothian, Virginia. Allison earned her B.A. in English with a Poetry Writing Emphasis and her Master of Teaching from the University of Virginia. Allison is a professional development provider with Heinemann PD.  You can connect with her via email atallisonmarchetti@trinityes.org or Twitter @allisonmarchett.

Rebekah O’Dell (Co-Founder of Moving Writers) currently teaches Reading Writing Workshop 9 and 12th gradeInternational Baccalaureate students at Trinity Episcopal School in Richmond, Virginia.  Rebekah previously taught English 9-12 at Atlee High School in Hanover County, Virginia. As a member of Virginia Commonwealth University’s clinical faculty, Rebekah also has extensive experience teaching and mentoring pre-service teachers. Rebekah earned her B.A. in English and  her Master of Teaching from the University of Virginia. Rebekah is a professional development provider with Heinemann PD. You can connect with her via email at rebekahodell@trinityes.org or Twitter @RebekahOdell1.
In this episode you will learn:

 How Allison and Rebekah define the term mentor text

Why there was a need in the curriculum to create a mentor text unit

Where you can go online to find good mentor texts

What is the first step you should take to develop a mentor text unit

What students gain from using mentor texts

How Rebekah and Allison developed their book, Writing with Mentors

If you enjoy the interview, I highly recommend Writing with Mentors: How to Reach Every Writer in the Room. 

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Sean Gaillard is Principal of John F. Kennedy High School in North Carolina. He founded#EdBeat and #CelebrateMonday, and is a#Read4Fun co-founder. He is also a co-organizer for EdCamp Global.

Natalie Krayenvenger is the sherpa of learning to some amazing 4th graders in Maryland.  She is a reader, blogger, positive warrior, presenter for Kahoot! and #Buncee Ambassador.

In this episode you will learn:

The power of being a connected educator
How to get started on Twitter
How you can incorporate ideas found on Twitter into your own classroom
The value of going to ISTE
The ways in which you can encourage other educators to become connected
How to ditch the desks in your classroom
Why Buncee is such a valuable e-portfolio platform

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Les Burns is an Associate Professor of Literacy at the University of Kentucky and a former high school English language arts teacher in rural and suburban Kansas. He is the Program Chair of English Education for the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Les served as the chief curriculum consultant for the state of Kentucky’s P-12 Model Curriculum Framework for all content areas and grade levels, which was awarded the John I. Wilson National Award for Innovation in Education in 2010. He is a winner of the Edward B. Fry Book Award for Empowering Struggling Readers in 2011 for the advancement of knowledge, research, and intellectual risk-taking in the field of literacy, and served as the Higher Education Representative for English language arts in Kentucky’s Teacher Leader Network, which developed the standards and learning targets for teaching P-12 language arts in classrooms throughout Kentucky.
"What can we do as teachers to be responsive to who our students are, what they want, and what they will do in their futures?"
In this episode you will learn about Les Burns, responsive teaching, and so much more.
Les shares:

How he transformed his students into readers on the high-school level
Why co-collaboration and co-construction of the curriculum with students is so important
Why getting to know who you students are is the best data you can collect
What he did to help his students read 27 books in a year
How responsive teaching can change your classroom and activate learning
How to manage a responsive classroom and create, what Les calls, primary knowers
How to develop student relationships by "embracing the cheese"
What Les did to go from no classroom library to a 1,500 volume library
How to go from triage teaching to responsive teaching
The 6 steps you can take to incorporate responsive teaching into your classroom
Why being a voracious reader is essential to good teaching
The way in which handwriting is so important to student development

Get your copy of Les' new book, Teach on Purpose! Responsive Teaching for Student Success.

Follow Les on Twitter.

The post Les Burns: Responsive Teaching appeared first on Talks with Teachers.

Jodi Rice teaches AP Language and Composition, a social science course online, administers the online courses at The Bishop Strachan School. She also works on the AP Language and Composition Test Development Committee and coaches the Public Speaking and Debate team. In this episode you will learn:

-- How Jodi incorporate more nonfiction into a Literature-based course

-- How to understand the construction of arguments, whether implied or explicit

-- Why English teachers should read Everything's an Argument

-- The ways in which online learning can be effective

-- What technology has yet to solve to make online learning truly effective

-- How Jodi prepares for a new course

-- What her lesson plans look like on a weekly basis

-- What goes into making a standardized test like the AP Language and Composition exam

-- The amazing amount of work that goes into to development of each question on the AP Language exam

-- Jodi recommends all English teachers read is Thank You For Arguing, Revised and Updated Edition: What Aristotle, Lincoln, And Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion. It is the summer reading assignment for her students, along with Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

-- Why your students should read their work out loud and how that can impact their writing

-- What Google apps for education can do for teachers

-- Why Jodi is proud to be a part of the AP Language community

The post Episode #81 — Jodi Rice appeared first on Talks with Teachers.

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Anita Jordan is a skilled, caring professional to work with educational professionals building effective programs and strategies for Advanced Placement English.

In this episode you will learn:

how she knew she was best suited for teaching high school instead of middle school
why middle school kids are neither fish nor fowl
how she was able to get her students to think for themselves
why a teacher should not answer questions but provide more questions
how to do a cold reading in class and why that is so important
what a think aloud is and how to do it with your students
how to get students to read with all their faculties
why every class she taught was different

Anita's daughter, Hillary Jordan, is an acclaimed novelist. If you have not read Mudbound
I encouraged you to do so. It is one of the best novels I have read in the past five years.

The post Episode #80 with Anita Jordan appeared first on Talks with Teachers.

Dan Tricarico is The Zen Teacher. He has been a member of the West Hills High School English Department for over twenty years.  He is author of The Zen Teacher: Creating Focus, Simplicity, and Tranquility in the Classroom and the teaching methods text You're a Teacher. . .So Act Like One!  Improving Your Stage Presence in the Classroom (Writer's Club Press 2002). Additionally, he spent a full year as columnist for the writing website Scribophile.

In his spare time, he enjoys writing fiction, listening to music (especially Roots Rock and The Blues), reading mystery novels, staring out of windows, and watching movies.  One of Dan's first loves is writing poetry, and he has published many poems both in print and on-line.
In this episode you will learn:

How his background in drama influenced him as an English teacher
The way in which Jane Schaffer trained him to be a better teacher
How an entire department can overcome teacher isolation
What works well when teaching poetry and novels
Why spontaneity is so important in the classroom

What true teaching means, and how that is different from what many teachers have been told
Why the best professional development costs very little and why everyone should read Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life
How Weebly makes it easy to start a teacher blog
The way in which The Zen Teacher can help educators avoid burnout and focus on well-being.

Follow Dan on Twitter @thezenteacher and read The Zen Teacher blog

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Sarah Donovan

Ethical ELA provides teachers with that which is compassionate, just, and good in English Language Arts for the human beings with whom we are entrusted. Written by teachers, teacher educators, parents, and students for the good of humanity.

 
In this episode Sarah and I discuss:

Her transition from social work to education
What she brought from her social work background into the classroom
The lessons she learned as a new teacher
How to effectively navigate the systems of a school
How a unit of genocide changed the trajectory of her teaching career
Why vulnerability is important in the classroom
How Ethical ELA contributes to the conversation of responsibility, ethics, and dignity in teaching
Why blogging is more empathetic than narcissistic
Check out Sarah's post on oversharing

The post #78 Sarah Donovan of Ethical ELA appeared first on Talks with Teachers.

Erika Nielsen Andrew is the Chief Academic Officer at Teaching Channel. She started her career as a high school social studies teacher in several Bay Area schools. After a short stint as a high school administrator, she earned her doctorate at University of California, Berkeley, and went on to found and lead several coaching groups at the School of Education, including the Urban Schools Network and the Teaching and Learning Alliance.
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In this episode you will learn:

How she and Teaching Channel are working to make professional learning as invigorating and inspiring as can be.
Where she began her career and how it ultimately led to a career at Teaching Channel.
Why we need to open the doors on more classrooms
The two similarities between coaching athletes and coaching teachers
Two sure-fire ways to give feedback to large numbers of students
How Teaching Channel establishes its culture of respect and collaboration
The primary reason why most professional development is inadequate
The struggles teachers still face with the Common Core
The 3 easy things any teacher can do when they first arrive on Twitter chat
Why a personal passion outside of the classroom is so important inside the classroom

Follow Erika Nielsen Andrew on Twitter @thenewready

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