Danielle Dahlinger is an educator with over 20 years of experience who is doing great things inside the classroom. In this conversation listen as Danielle talks about the power of connecting with students, listen as she dives into ways to create engagement and anticipation inside the classroom, listen as she talks room transformations, Get Your Teach on, Letting Go of the Ego, and so much more.

Topics Covered:
1. Love our students first and teach them second. 

2. Dr. Kagan found that a cooperative classroom exceeded growth capacity in both social and academic.

3. We can learn from the teachers that we had that were fantastic and we can learn from the ones that we did not connect with.

4. Build novelty into your routine.

5. There are daily things that you do that you can build into your classroom to bring novelty and engagement into it. 

6. Look and listen for the small moments of joy.

7. Have a balance between practice and exploration

8. Room transformations - look at students interest and try and incorporate that into the classroom.

9. Room transformation - build it around the tough concepts that need a little engagement boost, you can do it all day, have a build up to it.

10. Room transformations build enthusiasm, engagement, and those experiences stay with the students.

11. Use the downtime to build relationships.

12. Play games with them and talk and have fun.

13. Look for the hidden skills that the different students have and make it visible for them. 

14. Create space in your day to build connections.

15. Bring humor into your day.

16. Open it up to laugh at yourself in front of the students.

17. Create safety inside the classroom

18. If you create safety inside the classroom the students will be more willing to take risks. 

19. Books - The Knowledge Gap

20. Take the ego out of your head and question if your ego is holding things back

21. Don’t be afraid to be uncomfortable. 

22. The world is changing and growing and we need to change and grow along with it. 

23. Our brain has so much plasticity which enables us to do so much.

24. Podcast - Melissa and Lori Love Literacy, Triple R Teaching, Get Your Teach ON (Instagram)

25. Books - The Wild Card 

- You never know what you are to that kid

- Unpack your Impact

- Building Authenticity

26. Don’t let the white noise of your job take away from the joy in the day. 

Connect:
Instagram: coffeecups_n_lessonplans

Bio:
Danielle a Dahlinger and I’ve been an educator for 20 years. I started my journey in education as a fourth grade teacher at a private school. My stay at the private school was short and I went to work for Kagan Professional Development. There, I had the honor of working with some of the greatest minds in education. I learned the value of research and how to design and implement high quality instructional practices. 

After 9 years at Kagan, I missed the classroom. I stated teaching in second grade and I have been there the last 10 years. Second grade will forever have my heart. 

As an educator, I believe loving the child first is the surest way to reach and teach any student. I believe engagement is a shared set of experiences that happen in big or small moments each day. I am blessed to have a career I am passionate about, one that affords me the chance to be a life long learner, and brings me joy each day.