Conceptually Speaking

Karine Veldhoen, M.Ed., is the founder of Learn Forward™ and a creative force in education. As Chief Learning Officer at Willowstone Academy she created the first model Learn Forward™ school while simultaneously Founding and serving as Executive Director of Niteo Africa. She’s taught Teacher Candidates at both UBC-O and UNBC and served as an education consultant for Fresh Grade. In all of her roles, she considers herself a modern-day pilgrim who stands for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. In this episode, she chats with Julie and Kayla about

LeanForward

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This week on Conceptually Speaking science lead Julia Briggs and I are joined by the CEO and Founder of Organize Binder, Mitch Weathers. Mitch’s experience as an educator, department chair, and coach has provided ample opportunities for him to see the difference between students who have a clarity of purpose and sense of agency and those who feel lost in the swirling chaos of bells, lectures, and homework assignments. Through a combination of firsthand experience and diligent research, Mitch founded Organized Binder in 2005 as a way to create systems and routines to help students hone academic skills and executive functions like personal goal setting and time management. They are the types of skills many teachers are struggling to foster in their classrooms as students return to school, and more importantly, they’re the skills students need to reclaim or claim for the first time, a sense of agency in their learning. Though there are myriad systemic and structural problems facing education that must be tackled, there are also some simple, but powerful, steps educators can make in the interim to better equip students to navigate their academic journey. Our conversation with Mitch about his Organized Binder system sounds like it could be a great place to start.

https://organizedbinder.com/
https://organizedbinder.com/products/
https://twitter.com/organizedbinder

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This week on Conceptually Speaking I’m joined by Joe Schmidt and our very own Nichelle Pinkney—coauthors of the upcoming book Civil Discourse: Classroom Conversations for Stronger Communities from Corwin Press. With the current state of our dumpster fire national discourse, this book could not be coming at a better time. For posterity, at the time of recording this podcast, there are dozens of bills being drafted in state legislatures around the country attempting to censor any dialogue of so-called divisive concepts, historical injustices, and the fraught, complex nature of America’s past. Now, more than ever, educators require reliable, research-based scaffolds and frameworks to foster the types of dialogue, discussion, and debate required to continue our shared democratic project. To that end, Joe and Nichelle’s book details how to go about co-constructing classroom communities using the CUBED method to make that make civil discourse possible. It's no surprise that two humans who wrote a book about the nuances of productive conversation were such fantastic podcasts guests. Stay tuned for an informative and lively discussion about Civil Discourse.

Link to Buy Civil Discourse
Link to Joe's Website
Link to Nichelle's LTT Bio

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On this week's episode of Conceptually Speaking Elementary Lead Jess Mattei and I sit down with college professor turned content creator, Zoe Bee. While Zoe’s eponymous YouTube channel is a cornucopia of videos on composition, culture, and education she recently released a video that was near and dear to my nerdy English Heart—Are the Classics Dead? A Professor Explains. Throughout the video Zoe dives headfirst into the fraught framing around literary canon; what is it? Why does it exist? What are the systemic and structural forces that shape it? I won’t spoil the results, but it’s the type of binary-busting nuance that we love. Our conversation goes beyond the content of one video though, as we explore the writing process, the shifting tides of English Studies, and the intersections between her work in academia and as a Youtuber. At the heart of Zoe’s work and this episode though, is her deep passion for inquiry and ideas. As you’ll likely be able to tell, Jess and I were incredibly amped for this episode and it didn’t disappoint. Enjoy!

Zoe's YouTube Channel
Zoe's "Are the Classics Dead?" Video

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Hello listeners. Conceptually Speaking is returning from its Holiday hiatus with an episode we’ve been itching to release. This week, Kayla joined Julie to have a conversation with Danny Bauer, author, podcast host, and the brain behind Mastermind—a coaching group and leadership development community. His recent book, Mastermind Unlocking Talent within Every School Leader is a fantastic book for anyone looking to upskill their capacity to serve and lead others. Danny’s passion for supporting and sustaining the growth of educators—specifically leaders—that shines through the entire dialogue. It’s clear he has devoted time and effort to cultivate his unique vision for effective leadership, quoting everyone from Seth Godin to Walt Whitman in under an hour ALL while sharing how he brought the Mastermind model to education. Danny's innovative approach and philosophy on leadership make for some compelling stories and actionable advice for anyone in educational leadership. We hope you enjoy

https://www.betterleadersbetterschools.com/meet-daniel/
https://www.amazon.com/Mastermind-Unlocking-Talent-Within-School/dp/1071837087

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Joining me on this week’s episode is our new Elementary Specialist, Jessica Mattei. Jess and I were lucky enough to chat with Dr. Miah Daughtery, Director of Literacy for NWEA and a powerful advocate for students' right to read and write. Over the course of our dialogue, Miah takes us through the rich tapestry of her career, sharing insight into her experiences leading initiatives focusing on everything from state-level curriculum projects to middle school yearbook programs. The obvious connective tissue between Dr. Daughtery’s variety of educational entry points, though, is a clear devotion to student agency and empowerment. In addition to having some in-depth discussion around literacy practices and research, a special bonus of this episode is the wealth of practical advice shared about the right (and wrong!) ways to approach disciplinary literacy instruction in schools. Whether you’re a teacher or superintendent, there’s plenty here for you to enjoy!

Follow Miah here! She is one of my favorite accounts on Twitter. 

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Our guest this week is Dr. Traci Scheepstra , CEO and co-founder of Embodied Learnings. Joining Julie this week is our effervescent elementary lead and resident chair yoga expert, Nathalie Lauriault. It’s her first episode of Conceptually Speaking and we could think of no one better to join Tracy in a dialogue exploring the relationship between affect, embodiment, and education. Following a trend of some of our recent episodes, Dr. Scheepstra's message is one that invites and encourages us to take a step outside our current brain-bound conceptions of learning and consider all that is lost when we treat learners as though they’re merely a brain in a vat. It’s a conversation filled with practical tips and thought-provoking ideas, but the main through-line is how we can help students feel their learning, not just think about it. So, in the spirit of the episode, find a calm, quiet place to listen, close your eyes, and prepare to feel the conversational wisdom being weaved for the next fifty minutes. 

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In this week's episode of Conceptually Speaking, Julie and Kayla are joined by Kwame Sarfo-Mensa—mathematics teacher as well as Founder & CEO at Identity Talk Consulting. Throughout this powerful conversation, Kwame details his perspective on Belonging, Identity, and Authenticity—each of which is a foundational concept in the culturally sustaining pedagogy that anchors his teaching practice. As you’ll soon discover, at the heart of Kwame’s teaching practice lies a commitment to honoring and uplifting all students' identities in ways that allow them to bring their authentic selves to the classroom. Stay tuned for the rest of the episode to hear more about how you can leverage an asset-based approach to create an environment that liberates and educators students.

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On this episode of Conceptually Speaking, Julie and I are joined by, the ineffable Annie Murphy Paul a writer covering science and cognition and the author of The Extended Mind:  The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain. To say that Julie and I were excited about this episode would be a mild understatement. Both of us had ravenously consumed The Extended Mind prior to recording and were blown away at both its ambition and clarity. Over the course of her book, and this conversation, Annie details the power of what she calls extending our mind through practices like externalizing information, making abstractions tangible, spatializing information, and even using our bodies to make meaning. This ability to extend our mind challenges many of the deeply held myths about the separation of mind and body that have come to dominate the ways we conceive thinking, learning, and reductive notions of intelligence in Western Society. In fact, Annie’s work even transformed her own beliefs about practices about thinking. So much of Annie’s compiled research has immediate and tangible applications to education, aligning beautifully with our work with Learning that Transfers. As educators and researchers, her debunking of De Carte's error truly captured our imaginations. We hope the episode will do the same for you. Enjoy!

Buy the Extended Mind
Check out Annie Murphy Paul's Website
Follow her on Twitter

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Dr. Mike Johnston from Frankfurt International School joins Julie and LTT's Science Lead Julia Briggs to discuss complexity, sustainability, systems, and authentic assessments.

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