powerED Up

powerED Up

By Ken EhrmannEducation
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powerED Up episodes

  • Show 76: Summer PD Series 3 Love Your Local

    Creating meaningful, real world experiences for students can be a huge undertaking. Our guest co-host Laura Boyd showcases amazing ways to facilitate these experiences involving the local community. We break down the strategies needed to start these experiences from the ground up. We also share the impact it can have on the way students approach learning in the classroom and the academic progress it promotes.

    In This Episode We Cover:

    • Examples of experiences for students involving local community members and businesses.
    • Strategies to prepare your students to actively engage and feel successful when interacting with local community members.
    • Examples of activities to bring local into your own classroom.
    • Ideas to look inside your own district for connections and collaborative experiences.
      • 35 min
    • Show 75: Summer PD Series 2, One to World

      There is a whole world out there for students to learn from, and it is our job to break down the four walls of our classroom.  Dr. Rhett Oldham has amazing stories and resources for making all of this possible. It can seem like an overwhelming experience, but we can take small actionable steps to work towards grand goals of worldly connections. We can create memories that will last forever for students, and those connections can drill down directly to the standards.  

      In This Episode We Cover: 

      • Create opportunities for students to connect with other students from around the world.  We should not always look for the experts. 
      • Reach out to experts in the field that can showcase the content in the real world and students can ask questions. 
      • Clear concrete steps to create opportunities for one to world connections. 
      • Connect with local businesses to see who they are connected to, because now all businesses are global. 
      • Even when the experiences aren't as great as we planned, students still had an opportunity to connect with people from around the world. 
      • Comparing the use of these experiences as summative versus formative experiences.  We can culminate a unit with an expert but we can also engrain the experts into the instruction to make it more rich. 
      • Creating real world experiences is always a positive gain for students.  Even if the lesson doesn't pan out as well as planned, the real world experiences will still provide the time well spent.  
      • Visit www.powereduup.com/show75 for helpful resources.
        • 50 min
      • Show 74: Summer PD Series 1, Summer Goal Setting

        Summer time is for rest, relaxation, and recharging our batteries at teachers.  However, summer is also a great time to reflect, set goals, and think outside the box.  Matt and Ken breakdown their goal setting strategies and how it has made major impacts on their teaching over the years.  It is the perfect time to think with a clear head and let the creative juices flow!

        In This Episode We Cover:

        • Goal setting strategies for the summer.
        • Appropriate ways to free yourself of all thoughts of teaching while still pushing forward to improve for the following year.
        • The art of clearing your headspace and walking with a piece of paper.
        • How to play offense instead of defense.
        • Ken's previous summer goals and how it rolled out into a school year.
        • 2022-23 goals from Matt and Ken
          • 47 min
        • Show 73: Summer Send Off 2022

          Summer is here and we couldn't be more excited! The show will continue and we are bringing a new product to our audience this year.  We can't wait to enjoy our summer vacations and launch our summer PD series.  We are bringing back amazing guests and diving deep into specific topics that will help teachers grow and set goals for the upcoming school year.

          In This Episode We Cover:

          • Thank you's to our guests, our listeners, and ourselves.
          • Reflect on the amazing conversations we've had.
          • Reflect on the growth of the show during the 21-22 school year.
          • Highlights from this school year and our own personal growth.
          • Specific topics and conversations that have led to noticeable changes in our own classrooms.
          • Professional and personal plans for the summer.
            • 31 min
          • Show 72: Tell Our Stories and Students Will Listen

            Justin Belt is a driven, compassionate, well-rounded educators dedicated to improving the student experience. His passions all circle back to maximizing the student experiences and relationships.  He isn't afraid to tell his stories about his past to impact his students for the future.

            In This Episode We Cover:

            • Justin began his career in human resources and pulled away many learning experiences that impact his classroom on a daily basis.
            • The feeling of tossing your curriculum to the side to provide students what they need in that moment.
            • Creating classroom experiences that empower students to be themselves.
            • Give them space.
              • 1 hr 11 min
            • Show 71: Aspiring for Better Student Experiences

              Joshua Stamper is an assistant principal focused on creating a better experience for students in school after his own experiences as a child.   Josh was able to leverage his own personal experiences with trauma-informed training to become a better leader for students. Josh's leadership team and the teachers have created systems to facilitate more student ownership and agreements. He has partnered with his teachers to create systems to involve everyone in the relationship-building process with students.

              In This Episode We Cover:

              • How experiences like subbing and working as a para-professional can have a positive impact on your teaching.
              • Using the whole child approach to handle discipline as opposed to detention.
              • Understanding the trauma influenced students and how that impacts their daily interactions in school.
              • Strategies for embedding ownership into the classroom each and every day. They use a strategy called treatment agreements that they visit throughout the year.
              • We need to stop expecting that students "should know" behavioral norms.  We need to directly teach SEL skills like we do decoding or math facts.
              • Creating systems for student behavior to be addressed in the classroom with the teacher as opposed to sending them to the office.
              • The truth and purpose of standards-based grading.
              • The value of incorporating real-world experiences into content.
                • 1 hr 17 min
              • Show 70: Supporting Learners through Speech

                Rose Griffin is dedicated to supporting students in learning speech skills and language development. Her professionalism is shown through her work with students, her collaboration with colleagues, and her thriving business. Rose is committed to being an advocate for her students to find a path of confidence and success. Her programs and resources at ABA Speech are now impacting parents and children from all over that need the best support possible.

                In This Episode We Cover:

                • Understanding what a pull-out speech small group lessons
                • Students are receiving two main types of service: learning speech with particular sounds, and understanding language including directions.
                • Replicating experiences that will help prepare them for the real world.
                • Implementing specific systems to create collaboration amongst all teachers.
                • As a speech pathologist, try to gain time speaking to the faculty as a whole to open up communication.
                • The path for graduating students from speech and the best exit strategies.
                • How to identify when a student needs more services and the legal ways to approach this discussion.
                • Strategies for keeping data organized, relevant, and legally sound.
                • The structure is key for supporting students in inclusive environments.
                  • 1 hr 1 min
                • Show 69: Empowering English Language Learners

                  Lee Perez is the 2022 Nebraska Teacher of the Year, and he is the first-ever ESL teacher to win the award in his state.  Lee provides unbelievable information on EL students and strategies all teachers can use to support their success. It takes seven to ten years for a person to learn a language to fluency. Can you imagine going to another country and being expected to pass a standardized test two weeks later? Lee is using his newfound platform as Teacher of the Year to change what we think, believe, and know to be true about EL learners. Education will be better because of Lee's efforts.

                  In This Episode We Cover
                  • There are two types of language: social and academic
                  • Support students' social language development by covering every aspect of your room with sticky notes.  "scissors" on scissors, and "handle" on door handles.
                  • The best way to learn a language is to be immersed in a social language experience.
                  • Lee reminds us we need to believe EL students can achieve.
                  • Students "shouldn't know" unless we teach them.  It is our job to set our students up for success in all capacities.
                  • EL students' parents want to learn English, they just don't know the resources that are available.
                    • 1 hr 25 min
                  • Show 68: The Truth About Effective Inclusion

                    Jessica Saum is a passionate, empathetic, inspirational teacher.  It is quite obvious why she is the 2022 Arkansas Teacher of the Year. There is nothing typical about a typical day in her classroom. She is creating an environment where students will feel empowered, challenged, and supported to succeed. Jessica prioritizes providing her students the experience to participate in general education classrooms as well as real-world experiences. She shares what inclusion should truly look like, not just putting someone in the room.

                    In This Episode We Cover
                    • Starting every day with a morning meeting, a song, and movement together.  Remember why we are at school and what to expect for the day.
                    • Navigating different learning modalities and designing best practices to support students.
                    • Creating real-world experiences to practice skills students are not able to enjoy outside of school.
                    • She vividly describes what inclusion is NOT and how we can best create environments to help students reach success.
                    • Stories of how raising the expectations for students can have a massive impact.
                    • Strategies for regular education students to successfully included special education students.
                    • Using key cards for each student to identify important information to help that student reach success.
                    • Setting realistic expectations of growth so we can gradually pull back support from students.
                    • Efforts to support our military families.
                      • 1 hr 23 min
                    • Show 67: Live Your Excellence

                      Jimmy Casas is an experienced, passionate, honest educator focused on making a difference in the culture of classrooms and schools.  After spending over 25 years as an administrator, he is now focused on coaching others. The culture of a school starts with every individual working towards a similar set of values and goals. The way he addresses individuals showcases why he does what he does.  He wants every person to live their excellence, and do it as best as they possibly can. The greatest gift we can give anyone is the gift of time. Jimmy walks us through why this is so important and how he lives this every day.

                      In This Episode We Cover
                      • How to evaluate the culture of your classroom through the eyes of students with very intentional questions and systems.
                      • Developing systems in all layers of a district for a conversation around culture.  District office, down to building principal, down to classrooms.
                      • Transparency about our expectations, values, intentions, and explaining why. Follow up these high expectations with an incredibly high level of support.
                      • Investing time in relationships and learning the skills of all individuals to inspire them to be great.
                      • Creating cycles and systems to build up teachers to be the best versions of themselves.
                      • Undercurrents are anything that causes a negative impact on culture.  Leaders are the ones always causing the undercurrents.  We have to accept it to address it.
                      • We need to move away from perimeter leadership towards personal leadership.
                      • Why proper support in delegation is so important.
                      • Jimmy coaches Ken on how he potentially caused more undercurrents when trying to support teachers.
                        • 1 hr 32 min

                      About powerED Up

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                      We are powering education up by empowering you! Join us to talk about everything education with the hosts and weekly interviews. We will interview teachers to find out what makes great teachers and…