Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to incorporate computational thinking into all content areas. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Jorge Valenzuela, of Lifelong Learning Defined, in Virginia.

In this episode we discuss:

• Jorge’s path to becoming a teacher

Find out more about Jorge:

• Jorge's bio

Resources mentioned:

• Jorge’s book Rev Up Robotics (You can read the chapter on Computational Thinking for free)

If you want to find out more about what innovative educators are doing around the world, check out www.lessonimpossible.com. And if you like the podcast, please consider rating, reviewing and subscribing or forwarding it to a colleague. You can also follow Lesson: Impossible on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to consider a new resource: GooseChase, an app for creating scavenger hunts. The resource specialist assigned to help you with this task is Rebecca Yaffa, Director of Customer Experience, from Toronto, Canada.

This is the third installment in the ‘Meet the Resources’ series, where I feature the educational equivalent of Gecko Gloves, Smart Contacts, or Flute Guns: technology that has been created to make your impossible lessons actually possible! A reminder that Lesson: Impossible receives no compensation for featuring resources, just the satisfaction of knowing that somewhere a student might be more engaged in their learning or a teacher might be able to leave work a little bit earlier.

In this episode, Aviva and Rebecca touch on a variety of topics including:

• Who uses GooseChase EDU? (Hint: It's not just teachers!)

Links:

• GooseChase’s website

If you want to find out more about what innovative educators are doing around the world, check out www.lessonimpossible.com. And if you like the podcast, please consider rating, reviewing and subscribing or forwarding it to a colleague. You can also follow Lesson: Impossible on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to help students enjoy writing as they discover how to improve their written work. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Shannon Anderson of Rensselaer, Indiana.

A transcript is available for this episode.

I’ve really enjoyed the last few weeks of episodes that were looking at some resources and grappling with some big philosophical questions about teaching: what is my teacher identity? How can I infuse meaning into my curriculum? Is there a way to prevent teacher burnout? However, today’s episode has us focusing again on something very concrete, but incredibly important: how can I teach writing? As I, and you, my wonderful listeners, will soon discover, it’s easily done at any grade, if you have the right mindset and strategies. Fortunately Shannon Anderson was willing to share some of her writing wisdom when we spoke at the end of April over zencastr.

In this episode we discuss:

 Links:

If you want to find out more about what innovative educators are doing around the world, check out www.lessonimpossible.com. And if you like the podcast, please consider rating, reviewing and subscribing or forwarding it to a colleague. You can also follow Lesson: Impossible on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to put students’ own values at the center of their learning in order to make school meaningful beyond academic skills. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Lauren Porosoff of Scarsdale, New York.

 A transcript is available for this episode.

In this episode we discuss:

• Parents advocating for meaningfulness

Links:

• Lauren’s Twitter, Facebook and Website

If you want to find out more about what innovative educators are doing around the world, check out www.lessonimpossible.com. And if you like the podcast, please consider rating, reviewing and subscribing or forwarding it to a colleague. You can also follow Lesson: Impossible on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

MEET A RESOURCE:  The Park Based Learning Project creates free lessons and resources using project based learning, and game based design, principles. They provide ready-to-use lessons and differentiated assessments, as well as opportunities to collaborate on specific local, state, or national park-based projects. The founder and leader of the Park Based Learning Project is James Fester who is also a teacher, consultant, author, and state and national park volunteer interpreter currently living in Minnesota.  

A transcript is available for this episode.

Links:

• Parks Based Learning Website & Twitter

For more on what innovative educators are doing around the world, check out www.lessonimpossible.com, where you can also reach out with recommendations for new guests.

Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to examine the factors contributing to, and find strategies to prevent or recover from, teacher burnout. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Dr. Marquita Blades of Atlanta, Georgia.

In this episode we discuss:

• Marquita’s many educational projects

A transcript is available for this episode.

NOTE: Former guest/special agent, Charles Williams, has started his own education podcast! It’s called the Counter Narrative Podcast and its goal is “to challenge the dominant narrative surrounding our marginalized populations by highlighting the amazing work being done around the world by educators, students, and communities as they face daunting odds.” Dr. Marquita Blades also has a new podcast, Powarrful Teaching Strategies, where she recently interviewed another former guest of mine, Kwame Sarfo-Mensah, which just goes to show what a small world education can be!  

If you want to find out more about what innovative educators are doing around the world, check out www.lessonimpossible.com. And if you like the podcast, please consider rating, reviewing and subscribing or forwarding it to a colleague. You can also follow Lesson: Impossible on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to create positive relationships with students and families in a kindergarten class for English Language Learners. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Mandy Yom of Skokie, Illinois.

In this episode we discuss:

• A game to put yourself in the shoes of an English Language Learner (ELL)

Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to transform your passions for innovation and design into relevant assignments and global professional projects.   The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Evo Hannan of Dwight School Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

In this interview we discuss:

• His path to teaching design in Dubai

If you want to find out more about what innovative educators are doing around the world, check out www.lessonimpossible.com. And if you like the podcast, please consider rating, reviewing and subscribing or forwarding it to a colleague. You can also follow Lesson: Impossible on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Your bonus lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to explore how you think COVID-19 will change education. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is Kwame Sarfo-Mensah, owner and founder of Identity Talk Consulting.

I chose to air a bonus episode in addition to Kwame’s full-length interview about teacher identity for two reasons: one, I thought his insights were worth sharing, and two, I liked the idea of creating a record of how COVID-19 has been changing the ways teachers view education. I spoke with Charles Williams at the end of March about this issue for an entire episode, and then spoke with Kwame a little over a month later, though that month felt like it actually lasted several years. In that time, almost all districts have switched to a distance education model, especially for younger students, with mixed results.

Moreover, while some parents are seeing their children struggle with distance education or miss school keenly, other parents are seeing their children bloom in a situation where they don’t need to face the racism, homophobia, or ableism that they are forced to deal with daily.

Another important change is that larger issues of equity in education have been highlighted publically and sparked mainstream conversations about how learning opportunities are distributed. Many districts seem to be waking up to the fact that just because all students enter the same building every day does not mean that every one of them has equal access to technology, the Internet, and time to try and replicate the school experience at home, not to mention the 1.3 million American students who experience periods of unstable housing.

All of this to say, we are having more productive national and international conversations about education than I ever thought possible, and stake holders like parents are looking critically at our education systems now that many of its faults have been exposed. This is not to imply that there are not amazing teachers and districts that are doing wonderful things, and I do want to acknowledge their incredibly hard work. However, unless we’re willing to call out the places where we’re failing students, there’s no way we can change.

This excerpt from our conversation begins around at the 24-minute mark of episode twenty.

Links:

• Kwame’s website

• From "Inaction" to "In Action": Creating a New Normal for Urban Educators

If you want to find out more about what innovative educators are doing around the world, check out www.lessonimpossible.com. And if you like the podcast, please consider rating, reviewing and subscribing or forwarding it to a colleague. You can also follow Lesson: Impossible on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

MEET A RESOURCE: Valerie Cerra, of Lesson aLIVE, a marketplace that connects educators and learners to experts and motivational speakers.

We discussed:

• Valerie’s background and her journey towards founding Lesson aLIVE

NOTE: If this is the first episode of the podcast you are listening to, just a note that this episode is different than the rest. If you’re looking for interviews with educators about innovations in their practice, you can check out the most recent episode with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah, where we discuss teacher identity. However, if you’re interested in something new… give this episode a listen!

A little background: Occasionally I will get messages from businesses asking to come on the podcast. It has been my policy to say no (sorry Mensch on a Bench, aka the Jewish Elf on the shelf) but after some reflection, I realized that there are a lot of online educational resources out there, and it might make teachers’ lives a little bit easier during this pandemic if I were to highlight a few. Therefore, I’m starting a new series of bonus episodes that I’m calling “Meet the Resources” where educational product innovators can discuss the resource that they have created. To relate this to the Mission: Impossible theme, I am hoping to feature the educational equivalent of Gecko Gloves, Smart Contacts, or Flute Guns: technology that has been created to make your impossible lessons actually possible!  I want to make it clear that I am not endorsing any products that I feature, though I’ll only cover them if I think they have merit for working teachings, nor am I receiving any compensation whatsoever.

Please feel free to share any feedback on whether or not I should continue with this bonus series, or if you have a suggestion for a resource I should reach out to, at [email protected].

You can find out more about what innovative educators around the world are doing at:

• Lesson: Impossible’s Website