Podcasts Archives - TeacherToolkit

Our 120th interview is with, Katja, a secondary school and MFL teacher specialising in French and German.

*This podcast contains conversations about self-harm, suicide, paranoia and other similar themes.*

In this podcast, listen to Katja and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

Borderline Personality Disorder and the associated symptoms 

Navigating the professional world and different careers

Katja's experiences of teaching during the pandemic

Support for teachers with BPD - What are the signs?

Treatments and the statistics for BPD

The challenges of being an MFL teacher in general, and with BPD and,

New focuses for MFL.

Katja has set up a petition for all schools to become Disability Confident employers, to ensure teachers with BPD have equal opportunities during recruitment and as employee. Visit: https://www.change.org/p/disability-unit-encourage-schools-to-become-disability-confident/

Your employer can also support teachers by signing up to be Disability Confident.

How can all schools be supported to provide the technology our young people need?

Our 119th interview is with, Ben Mansell, UK Country Manager of Wireless Connectivity provider - Kajeet. Across the UK, 9 per cent of households do not have an internet connection.

Listen to the podcast (29 minutes)

https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Podcast-120.-Ben-Mansell-Kajeet.mp3

In this podcast, listen to Ben and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

* What digital exclusion is and how it can be resolved

* Kajeet’s white paper ‘The Impact on Digital Exclusion in Children's Education 2021’

* Why 9 per cent of UK households are not digitally connected

* How Ben worked with computers and mobile technology in the early days of the technology

* How Kajeet supports schools and households

* Schools and parents balancing IT and technology provisions

* Kajeet’s ‘SmartSpot’ portable WiFi device and,

* How technology will evolve across education.

If we do not want our young people to be left behind, our government must provide better internet access to every household. This will ensure that no students are disadvantaged by online teaching.

This is a promotion

Our 118th interview is with, David Rodger-Goodwin, geography teacher, head of year 10 and 11 at a secondary school in Lincolnshire and very soon, an author!

In this podcast, listen to David and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

David's background and his educational journey

David’s interest in ‘Graphic Organisers’ and metacognition

Teaching geography in the modern age

Being a head of year during the pandemic

Current workload challenges for teachers

Divided opinions on graphic organisers and teacher application, plus

Take a look at David's new book, published in September 2021.

David says "I have a very simple ethos; if there is a better way of doing something, show me. I want to be the best teacher I can for my students."

Thanks for listening.

How can we keep relationships at the heart of school improvement?

Our 117th interview is with, Armand Doucet, Canadian educator, author, speaker, and former soccer coach.

Listen to the podcast (36 minutes)

https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Podcast-117.-Armand-Doucet.mp3

In this podcast, listen to Armand and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

* Being a soccer coach and that fuelling the fire to work with youth

* What it was like to be a former Global Teacher Prize top-50 nominee

* Mixed subject specialisms, as well as teaching social studies

* T4 conference, the world's largest teacher conference

* Writing papers to guide teaching practice during the Pandemic 

* A free ebook story of 6 children who experienced the pandemic: Hope Where Are You?

* Armand’s contribution to ‘Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ book discussing how to approach education in the digital age

* The importance of keeping humanity in education

* Challenges around creating productive inclusively, and

* Attitudes towards marking and co-planning with students.

I hope that I can give the foundations to hundreds of thousands of teachers and students that we can move forward in an inclusive and sustainable world.

Watch the video

https://youtu.be/DaIbukBXjt4

[Tweet "During the pandemic, many teachers are feeling unheard in the decision process; professional input is not sought. Decisions made disrupt classrooms and there is little understanding of the day-to-day lives of teachers."]

How do teachers get to know their pupils and how can we act as role models in our subject teaching?

Our 116th interview is with, Renaldo Lawrence, PE teacher, ectech and IT specialist educator at Glyn School in Epsom, and author of a self-help and a comic book. 

Listen to the podcast (32 minutes)

https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Podcast-116.-Renaldo-Lawrence.mp3

In this podcast, listen to Renaldo and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

Renaldo's childhood and professional basketball career

Giving advice to your children

His start in teaching in the UK

Getting to grips with teaching IT and his experiences of attending SLTeachMeet

Racism, white privilege and diversity

Representation in all subjects across education, writing books, and

Lessons learned from the pandemic.

 

I'm just interested in people; I'm interested in how systems work and I started teaching on a whim. What started out as 6 weeks has so far, been 12 years...

Watch this podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFkOEzzcZgY

[Tweet "One of the biggest issues we have is our curriculum: Why do we expect pupils to select subjects so early on in their education?"]

Our 114th interview is with, Jenna Neal and Zachary Neal, Associate Professors of Psychology at Michigan State University.

In this podcast, listen to Jenna, Zachary, and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

Their educational paths;

How Jenna and Zachary became interested in social networks;

Research into how educators use their social networks to learn about programmes and practices to adopt;

Facilitating knowledge sharing between on the ground teachers and researchers via social networks;

How do physically and online networks make educators better at what they do;

Understanding how social networks form in cities and neighbourhoods, and

How researchers can make their work more useful for teachers.

Jenna’s work focuses on social networks in a Public school context. Zachary’s work centres around the methodology behind measuring, modelling, and understanding social networks.

Thanks for listening.

Our 113th interview is with, Jon Smedley, founder of Teach Active, an online resource tool providing teachers with lesson plans to teach primary school students English, maths, and science through physical activity.

In this podcast, listen to Jon and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

Reflect back on sports role in Jon’s school life

Getting good grades in your teacher training vs. the ability to inspire students

The rewards of working in underprivileged areas 

How Jon began using physical activity as a way to teach other subjects

Teach Active’s journey from its beginning to benefiting 300,000 students a week

Overcoming the misconceptions of using physical activity as a teaching agent

The importance of making homework an enjoyable and sociable activity

Research that highlights the benefit of learning through physical activity

Working on the parliamentary review with Teach Active, and

Top tips for running a business.

Learning doesn't just happen sitting down. Teach Active curriculum plans will improve standards; over 1,000 primary schools already benefit from helping their pupils to learn English and maths through physical learning.

Why not rebuild your primary curriculum with Teach Active? Get in touch with Jon!

Visit: https://www.teachactive.org/free-trial

This is a promotional post.

Our 112th interview is with, Toby Greany, Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham, a seasoned researcher in school improvement.

In this podcast, listen to Toby and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

Why and how Toby got into school improvement

Talking about teaching English in Brazil and China for over 4 years

How Toby ran a large-scale action research program on learning to learn in schools

The study Toby is most proud of called Hierarchy, Markets and Networks with Rob Higham

Studies that tackle academisation

Successes and pitfalls of academisation

Links between vision, values, and school improvement

The challenge of school improvements in large Multi-Academy Trusts

The similarities between corporate mergers and new schools joining a trust

and the costs of the ‘middle tier and MATs providing a support structure doing the lockdown.

The impact of multi-academy trusts have no discernable difference on school standards; although small MATs do have a positive impact (2018).

Visit the website to find links to Toby's research papers on the ‘self-improving system’ which best captures Toby's main interests in system governance and how leaders respond, plus an open-access article which builds on that to focus on the changing role of Local Authorities.

Our 111th interview is with, Dr Erika Maldonado, course development lead at 2U, working with universities to make graduate degrees and higher learning courses accessible online.

In this podcast, listen to Dr Maldonado and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

The difficulty of quickly producing online courses during the pandemic

Discuss Erika’s 16yr old ambitions

Summarise cognitive load theory (CLT)

The research behind why 5-7 minute online education content is more effective

Top tips for Zoom lessons with CLT in mind

Dr Erika’s doctoral research on organisational change in leadership

Top tips for teachers wanting to get into academic research and,

Trends in online education.

One thing that Erika said which resonates: "Distance learning isn't new; academics have been mailing back and forth since 1800s to engage with other academics who are far away. The pandemic has placed a large focus on online learning..."

Follow Dr Erika on Instagram and find out more about her work: http://edtecherika.com/

Our 110th interview is with, Juliette Ryan, product manager for community education at the British Red Cross.

In this podcast, listen to Juliette and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill discuss:

The Red Cross campaign to get first aid embedded into the curriculum 

The creation of the First Aid Champion resource

Juliette’s schooling experiences, her pathway into education and her product manager responsibilities

The 150 years British Red Cross history in the area of First Aid

How teachers and young people can use the First Aid Champion resource E.g. head injuries

How Juliette designs the First Aid Champion resources with the workload of teachers in mind

Plus, teacher feedback and how the British Red Cross help build the First Aid confidence of teachers.

The First Aid Champions is a toolkit in which there are differentiated activities for 5-18 year-olds. Teachers can pick and mix from quizzes, films, and engaging and practical activity ideas.

The resources are structured in a modular fashion to make them easy to navigate.  The curriculum follows a ‘learn and practise’ approach, with activities to help children develop understanding and then try out what they have learned. Examples include: First aid skills, kindness and coping and safety E.g. learn how to call 999.

All schools must teach first aid as part of the new statutory Relationships and Sex Education curriculum. As a leading provider in first aid education, the British Red Cross is on a mission to make first aid simple to teach and easy to learn!