Catholic Teachers' Lounge Podcast

LIVE in the lounge today is Heather Reinbolt, principal of Zion Lutheran School in Bay City, MI. Heather shares ideas about some of Jill and Colleen’s favorite topics–innovative practices in multiage classrooms and microschools. From flexible grouping to customized scheduling, Heather is a master innovator striving to create the just-right learning experience for every student.

Jill & Colleen recorded LIVE at the Michigan Great Lakes Unity Conference October 15th and 16th. In this episode, they interviewed Emily Hoffman hot off her presentation on social inclusion of students with disabilities at West Catholic High School. Emily shares how the culture of inclusion has been built up during her 15 year tenure and how much the student drive and own what happens at WC to ensure all students find places of belonging and flourishing. Stop in for insights and inspiration.

Jill shares how a community book study and a personal read impacted her and her school community. Stop in the lounge for some highlights about St. John Paul II and St. Gianna Molla, two modern saints with important, inspiring messages for today’s busy families.

What do you think should be the top prioirity of your parish pastor or your school chaplain? Likely, everyone has a different opinion and priests are challenged to be all things to all people, especially if they are involved in school leadership. Enjoy this conversation that includes priest formation, responsibilities, and expectations in today’s episode of the Catholic Teachers’ Lounge.

Will Dennis (of Unscripted Productions) joins Jill and Colleen in the lounge once again to talk improv! Will shares how he has used improv in the classroom using 5 basic rules and how these rules extend to work environments and even teach professional development. It’s all about building community, acceptance of everyone’s contributions, and valuing one another’s unique role and perspective. You won’t be asked to act out a scene in the lounge today, but after this conversation, you might want to lead one with your students.

Jill unveils the 2 campus-wide goals she and her principal rolled out at the start of this year and provides the status of their goal progress so far. Good intentions prevail in this ambitious set of goals at West Catholic High School where training brains and hearts to seek out and acknowledge the good, true, and beautiful help to shape school culture.

This episode continues the converstion about classroom activities available to kids who arrive early, who finish work quickly, or who stay after. Every classroom has activities and learning opportunities for unstructured time, and this episode runs through several ideas that work in almost any classroom!Stop in the lounge for some affirmation on some of the ideas you already implement and maybe pick up a few new nuggets to use tomorrow.

In this episode, Jill shares a question from a Catholic school in Erie, Michigan about what to do with early arrivers in the morning. What is the most productive or effective way to ease kids into the school day while the room is still quiet and the day hasn’t quite begun? Teachers share ideas and Colleen and Jill grapple with ideas and suggestions.

Did you ever wish you had a group of people to solve your problem? So does Colleen! In this epsiode Jill and Colleen explore the idea of community inquiry learning to solve a real life problem. Stop in the lounge for inspiration on a community learning project that might work for you and your students.

Today in the lounge, Jill and Colleen talk about approaches to lesson, unit, and course design. What’s better–following curriculum chronologically or thematically? How do we focus on standards AND make sure lessons are hitting if a way that ensures student connection? Stop in the lounge for a theoretical conversation and agreeable conclusion.