Mike Andriulli joins us as our first-ever guest on the podcast! In this episode, we’re talking all about ASCD Empower 2017, as well as conference attendance benefits. Mike shares his experience at the west coast conference, highlighting a session with education power-house, Baruti Kafele, one of the most sought-after educational speakers in the country. Other conference highlights include using math performance tasks, which Mike plans to turnkey to his district in the near future, as well as personal conversations had during downtimes. Mike’s biggest regret/criticism was his inability to attend all the sessions he wanted to attend; the offerings were so robust that he could have easily attended more than one offering per session — we should all have that problem!

Mike goes on to discuss his role in bringing new strategies to the teachers of his district and passionately shares his views that it is NOT ok for teachers to say, “I’m just not a math person.” We hope you enjoy our conversation with Mike as much as we did.

Mike Andriulli is the Supervisor of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, at Hillsdale Public Schools (NJ). A former elementary and Math teacher, Mike has degrees from both Rowan University and Ramapo College. He is a well-respected educational leader with experience in curriculum design, staff development, and technology integration. Mike is also a member of the North New Jersey Chapter of ASCD.

• ASCD
• Baruti K. Kafele – @PrincipalKafele, PrincipalKafele.com
• Mathematical Mindsets – http://amzn.to/2ooHulL
• Denis Sheeran – @MathDenisNJ; denissheeran.com
• Gretchen Bridgers – Always A Lesson’s Empowering Educators Podcast

AJ is continuing to research and learn about ways to help students create a growth mindset and change the culture of the middle school social studies classroom. He is also taking the time to learn more about the use of learning menus, asynchronous and personalized learning, which will hopefully create a stronger student-centered classroom experience.

Chris continues to learn a lot about 20% Time and has implemented it for the last marking period with his High School Social Studies students. He has limited prior experience when it comes to this topic but is not afraid to try and put this opportunity in front of the students.

Stacey has recently learned how not to deliver PD at a recent conference/PD Day. She was also able to pick up a few copies of Denis Sheeran’s book Instant Relevance and hope to be leading a book group with my team. It was a great book with ideas that can easily be brought back to her team.