Mike Roberts Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Mike Roberts has been a middle school Educator for more than twenty years. In that time, he has taught English, has been an instructional coach, and is currently an Assistant Principal. Over the course of his career, he has received numerous awards for his outstanding teaching, including being named the 2014 Utah English Teacher of the Year and the 2018 Utah Middle Level Teacher of the Year. Mike also teaches college classes focused on classroom management and literacy in the content areas. He has served on many educational committees, and has been a featured speaker at dozens of state, regional, and national conferences.

Mike's most recent book, Hacking Modern Teaching - 10 Ways to Build Student Engagement, Maximize Success, and Inspire Authentic Learning, offers a variety of strategies to help teachers and students thrive within today's modern classroom. Mike is also the author of Chasing Greatness: 26.2 Ways Teaching is Like Running a Marathon, where he shares advice from some of the best teachers and runners from across the country as a way to help you reach your highest potential. Mike is also the author of Hacking Classroom Management - 10 Ideas to Help You Become the Type of Teacher They Make Movies About, which identifies a variety of strategies that empower students in the learning process.

When he's not teaching or presenting, Mike can usually be found running ultra-marathons in the mountains. And even after all these years, he's still not sure which takes more energy...a week with middle schoolers or running a 100 mile race.

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FocusED Show Notes with Mike Roberts

Mike starts the show with a reminder that we need to take risks, show students more about ourselves by connecting beyond the curriculum, and try new ways to support learning.

We’re not so far into this podcast episode before Mike is challenging the status quo of teaching the way that we were taught.

Joe asked about “engagement beyond the curriculum” and Mike talked about using simple themes in books to apply that concept to popular music. The connections are key.

Mike says he’s the king of the cameos. Don’t miss what he says about how teachers and leaders can “show up” without losing all of their nights.

Teachers need to be authentic to who they are; don’t miss what Mike says about authenticity and teacher style.

You want to hear what Mike says about seating charts and late work--some is better than none and late is better than never.

MIke’s insights on using self-assessments is powerful. Too many of us jump to conclusions without trying the new strategy.

Mike’s explanation of classroom management is really about creating classroom culture, doing school with students versus to them. Joe delineates this between a controlled environment and an empowering one.

We talked about self-reported grades as having a high effective size.

Mike talks about providing students with tons of options--the more options the better--and the benefits of this for teachers.

He talks about giving students a challenge: “do something that impresses me.”

Mike talked about setting goals and bite-size challenges. Big goals are overwhelming but small ones are inspiring. Don’t miss what he says about manageable chunks and 1% better.

He talked about Jim Knight being an influence when he was an instructional coach.

Don’t miss why Mike follows Malcolm Gladwell, Jocko Willink, and David Goggins.

Mike wants to help lift up teachers to help them to be the best that they can be.

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