Rethinking Learning Podcast

Rethinking Learning Episode #8

Dr. Jackie Gerstein has been teaching in-person and online for several decades. Currently, she teaches master’s level online courses in educational technology for Boise State, Walden, and Western Governors’ Universities as well as gifted elementary education where she focuses on STEM, STEAM, and Maker Education.

I was so lucky to present with Jackie at ISTE 2017 in San Antonio and participate in a webinar with her about maker education. I am constantly learning from Jackie and am always blown away by how much she knows and shares with the world. When Jackie agreed to have a conversation with me, we had to talk about maker ed and her life. I captured some of the conversations from the podcast and referred to references mentioned in her blog below.

 

Can you share about you, your background, and how you decided to focus on maker education?

I was one of those painfully, bored kids in my K-12 education [ Freedom to Learn 2017]. I hated school and didn’t think it was fair. In college, I took a course in environmental education. For part of that course, we went out to the local camp where I worked with 5th and 6th graders for a week. We studied marine life by walking down a creek. To learn history, we went to a local cemetery and did gravestone rubbings to look at their lineage. This just made sense. It was real and kids were learning content. So I thought, “why wasn’t my education like this?” Maker education is just a form of experiential education and now I am thrilled that it is becoming very popular in schools and libraries right now.

Why did you come up with A Framework for Maker Education? 

Coming from the experiential ed field, it’s this idea that if we just have an experience, then we leave learning up to chance. It’s based on the experiential learning cycle where you do a front load by framing experience, doing the experience, then reflecting on the experience. The cycle is not anything new. I just tweaked it to be more modern day and applicable to Maker Ed, STEM and STEAM, and to include more technology.

How do you connect making with what kids are supposed to be learning?

When you give someone a worksheet, they are learning one skill that’s often no related to anything else. You and I have talked about learning in context. If you give a kid a sheet with just math problems, they don’t connect to anything else in their lives. So you’re spending that time on things kids will probably forget and often do because it doesn’t have a context they can relate to. When we do Maker and STEAM activities, it is so easy to go through them and say how you are addressing cross-curricular common core standards within the activities. The kids are excited because they are learning skills not only related to the standards that teachers are asked to address, they are learning how to talk to each other, how to present orally, how to work together in a team, how to be innovative, how to use their creativity, and addressing the standards. We have this huge list of things kids are learning from a one-hour activity versus one or two things they might have learned from that hour long worksheet. [Games or Worksheets]

What is the connection with maker education and social-emotional learning?

I’m not a big fan of step-by-step activities where kids all end up with the same product. I call it the Thanksgiving Turkey where kids are all given a hand that they trace out on brown paper and stick on feathers. They all look the same except their name on the back. There are things like Gami-bots or different kinds of projects that are open-ended where kids can put themselves in them.

Episode #7

Noa Daniel, MEd Teacher, is a consultant, coach, and passionate educator from Ontario, Canada, co-host of #ONedchat, Chief Building Officer of Building Outside the Blocks (BOB) and hosts the Personal Playlist Podcast.

I follow Noa Daniel on Twitter, joined her as co-host of #ONechat, and have enjoyed the conversations online with her. Then she reached out to me to be on her podcast show, Personal Playlist Podcast #P3. I really enjoyed picking three songs for my playlist and having conversations around those with her. So I asked Noa if I could have a conversation with her. I captured excerpts from the podcast for the post below.

 

Can you first tell me a little about you?

I live outside of Toronto with three beautiful daughters, an adorable dog, and a wonderful husband. In the last 22 years, I’ve been teaching in two independent schools. The first one I taught there for 14 years. I’ve loved teaching at both schools, but I’ve decided that now is the time to launch my consulting practice. I’ve been doing a lot of consulting over the years on the side. People would ask me to do things when I was teaching full-time. I just didn’t have enough time to help them. Now I’m going to say yes to pretty much everything I want to do that I wasn’t able to do when I was in the classroom.

 

Can you share why you call yourself a passionate educator and inspired learner?

People tell me that I’m so passionate even after 22 years in the classroom. You see, I love learning and I’m inspired all the time to the point of ridiculousness. When I’m on Twitter, people, information, and conversations are available 24/7. I have access to learning and engagement where people are doing such cool things. Who wouldn’t be inspired if you’re in touch with what’s going on out there?

 

What is your role as an educational coach?

Over many years, I’ve mentored new teachers formally and informally. When a new teacher comes to the school, I’m often that person they hang out with. Sometimes, I’m asked to mentor them and sometimes it just happens. I really love helping people and listening to their stories. I see the power of coaching one-on-one the same way I see it in the classroom when we work with a learner. It’s really about making people feel significant so they know what they like, know and want to do matters. Teaching can feel so difficult sometimes. It’s nice to have someone in a non-evaluative position to talk to and work through ideas. I’m so grateful for my mentor who coached me. If I can give back a tiny percent of what I received and she continues to give me, then I would be so happy.

One of the scariest things about teaching is that it is messy. Not all teachers feel comfortable with messy especially educators who like all their ducks in a row. Telling them it’s okay and modeling it for them, that you lived in messy and survived it, is always helpful.

 

What are some of the strategies you do for coaching?

Coaching is about relationship building and that’s how you teach individual learners. I feed off of people’s energy. I can tell when I need to work with them to think teaching idea through, a model for them, or help them to be themselves. I love helping talk through new ideas, lessons, projects and more. When people feel free to communicate with someone else and tap into who they are as a person, they can soar. The truth is, though,  we don’t always soar. Sometimes we have to figure it out on the fly. But if we don’t take those leaps, then we never get that feeling of elation of actually not hitting the ground. It turns out that you are floating above it and making it happen. The wind will rock you, but if you can find a way to ride it, you can do such cool things in life. I’m the kind of person who takes risks and builds wings on the way.

 

How did you become co-host of #ONedchat?

Rethinking Learning Episode #6

Shelly Sanchez Terrell is an international speaker, adjunct professor, and the author of three books. Her newest book is Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Her most rewarding role is being the mother of Savvy and Rosco the pug.

I connected with Shelly on Twitter long ago and met her in person around eight years ago at the ISTE conference. I love her energy. At ISTE in San Antonio this year, I had the honor of meeting her beautiful daughter, Savvy. In fact, Savvy interviewed me — actually Shelly asked the questions. It was so much fun so I asked Shelly if I could have a conversation with her. Her podcast is episode #6 and when I listen to it, I remember the smiles and giggles we had when I was with Savvy. I captured some excerpts from the podcast and added them in the post below for you.

 

Why are you so passionate about digital learning?

One of the reasons why I am so excited and passionate about digital learning is because of access. Now with the Internet and so many digital tools, students around the world especially so many who do not have the opportunity to learn, now can learn so many dynamic things because of their access to tools. Now if students want to be a scientist, doctor, or inventors, they can actually talk to innovators in those fields. I find that really exciting.  

 

Why is social media so important for educators?

One reason is that our learners use social media. I think to be able to teach them the skills they will need to prepare learners for their future, we need to experience these skills ourselves. For many educators, social media is scary which is really a good thing. We have to think about the things that we tackle like imbalance or getting addicted to social media. We need to know how to handle that or decide what and what not to post, publish and share. I shared Rosco the Pug who connected with others like you so it made it personal for me and comfortable for others to share online. All of that really helps us with our learners’ journeys. Another great thing about social media is that you get to connect with other educators around the world that really inspire you. That’s the way we met and many other educators who I eventually met in person, presented with, interviewed, and even created conferences with. 

 

The world is in love with your daughter. Can you explain why you share Savvy on social media?

I wrote about sharing so much of my daughter’s life in my book right now. Some people might question that, but Savvy had a digital footprint before she was born. For me being on social media, I thought it was important to start her digital footprint early. There is no way of avoiding what people were going to know about her because I was always on social media when I was pregnant. Another reason is that our learners today start their digital footprint before they are born. For most of them, people announce they are pregnant on social media like I did. Our children especially those really young or not born yet have no control over what people write, say, or what pictures they put up on social media about them.

I thought it was really important to put positive information up there about my child. Because I shared her digital footprint early, you and other great people followed and connected to her even before you met her in person. She is making people happy with her presence right away before she has to tackle any negative activity on social media. I love sharing her not only virtually but face-to-face with people who I love. I took a picture of Savvy interviewing you at the Badge Summit before ISTE 2017 in San Antonio.

 

 

 

We have to mention #edchat since you are a co-founder. What a difference #edchat has made for so many.  Can you tell me how #edchat started and about ...

Rethinking Learning Podcast Episode #5

Adam Welcome is currently the Director of Innovation and Technology for Mount Diablo Unified School District in California, and former Elementary Principal for six years. He is the co-founder of Kids Deserve It with Todd Nesloney where their book is a bestseller on Amazon and they co-host the podcast series “Kids Deserve It.” As part of the Rethinking Learning Podcast series, Adam shares personal stories with me that I know will touch your heart. His new book, Run Like a Pirate is amazing so there is a link at the end of this post.

I met Adam Welcome eight years ago and worked with him when he was Assistant Principal at an elementary school in San Ramon, CA. I knew then big things were on the horizon for Adam. I am excited about the movement of “Kids Deserve It” that he and Todd Nesloney started. So Adam is my 5th conversation for the Rethinking Learning Podcast series. Please listen to the podcast, read the post below, and go to the bottom of this page for Adam’s bio, contact information, and how to access his book and resources he mentioned. Below are a few excerpts from my “Conversation on Learning” with Adam Welcome.

 

Can you share a little about yourself, your background, and your current role?

I’m a former elementary school teacher and principal and currently am the Director of Innovation and Technology at Mt. Diablo Unified School District in Concord, CA. I am an author of “Kids Deserve It” with Todd Nesloney. I have a beautiful wife (Stacy) who I met at my first half marathon. We have two amazing children (Greta and Tilden). I am a big runner. This year I’m running 13 marathons and also a 24-hour marathon on New Year’s Eve. In fact, I plan to run one marathon backward to help me reach my goal which is to raise $100,000 for homeless students. I thought of this when I realized there are over 2.1 million homeless students in the US. So look for my GoFundMe page later this year. I’m eating vegan which is new for me, and also writing a new book called “Run Like a Pirate.”

 

How did you and Todd Nesloney (@techninjatodd) meet?

We met on Twitter. Todd used to have a podcast called @EduAllstars where I was on his show a number of years ago. Two years ago we were at the National Principals Conference in Long Beach. We both consult for Remind that is a text messaging app and we were at a dinner with them at the conference. It was then that I ranted “Schools don’t exist so we can have jobs. They exist to be awesome for kids and our kids deserve it.” Todd tweeted that out. The tweet blew up and we knew we had something there. Next morning, we wrote a blog post together about relationships. That led to about two dozen blog posts, a domain name, Twitter handle, and Instagram. Our goal was to have 1000 followers on Twitter and now we have about 25 thousand. That was in only a year and a half.

 

So why did you and Todd write Kids Deserve It?

Dave Burgess approached us to write our book, Kids Deserve It. It was so quick. We wrote it in about 3 months. It was our manifesto kind of like Jerry Macguire who wrote his manifesto in one night. We just had to write.

 Rethinking Learning Podcast Series Episode #4

Conversation with Paula Ford, Kindergarten teacher in Cupertino School District, San Jose, California, who facilitates collaborative global projects with her kids. Paula shares with Barbara that most of her career has been working with low-socioeconomic English language learners and why she loves it.

 

 

Tell me a little about you, your school, and your kindergarteners.

I graduated from University of California at Davis with my Bilingual Crosscultural Language and Academic (BCLAD) multiple subject teaching credential, and have been teaching for over twenty years. I began my career in bilingual education and then moved to teaching second language learners.

I taught kindergarten, first grade, third grade, and have been a resource teacher for grades transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. The majority of my career has been teaching low-socioeconomic English language learners. Currently, I am teaching kindergarten at Manuel De Vargas Elementary School. Manuel De Vargas Elementary @DeVargas, is a Title I school in the Cupertino Union School District in California. We have over 29 languages spoken at our school. Our school is in year 2 of transitioning to a STEM Project Based Learning School, and I absolutely love it.

 

Tell me about some of your projects.

I wrote a post last year for this blog in March 2016 about a Kindergarten PBL my kinder kids undertook with a school in Africa with their 4th-grade buddies. The post is called Project-Based Learning gives Kindergarteners Agency.  I’m happy that Barbara has provided a space for me to tell the stories from my classroom collaborating with others. This blog has pictures and tells about the journey my kinder kids went on as they collaborated with a school in Kenya. The kids designed the project called “Change for Change” where they made African inspired crafts to sell at a “pop-up store” on campus to donate the money to the African school and did four video presentations to ask each class to donate coins for this school. They collected $470 to send to the school in Africa.

Project-Based Learning gives Kindergarteners Agency. 

I wrote two other blog posts on Barbara’s site about our school’s work with the  Buck Institute for Education (BIE) and need to add that our school serves children who speak over 29 different languages.  I always find that fact amazing and inspiring. For those who are thinking about PBL or just starting it, it is like swimming for the first time.  You have no idea if you will sink or swim until you try it.  Letting your kids take charge of their learning is a huge risk, but the rewards are tremendous.  The excitement is contagious.  I am as excited about the learning as they are! So the next projects were about comparing cities and farms.

The driving question was “How are the city and the farm the same and different?”

We read the book, Town Mouse Country Mouse to frame the reference of the project. Since my kids only knew about their city, they wanted to learn about life on a farm. So we collaborated with a kindergarten class in rural Indiana. Both classes sent video introductions that I included on the blog along with letters and toy animals each of the kids made.

We made toy mice by decorating computer mice to look like a real mouse. The kids in Indiana make a handmade toy house for each of my children. I wrote the journey in two blogs because there was so many exciting events and stories that came out of this PBL. I included pictures and videos so I hope your readers enjoy them.

Traveling Toy Animals Part One...

Guest post by Shelly Vohra Ph.D., Instructional Coach, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

 

Rethinking Learning Podcast Series Episode #3

Conversations with Shelly Vohra on Her Journey into Inquiry 

Shelly Vohra, Ph.D. @raspberryberet3 shares with Barbara why inquiry connects learners to the real world. She shares how she helps teachers bring voice and choice into the classroom. Shelly shares her story and ideas in the post below.

My journey into inquiry started almost ten years ago. I remember sitting in my Grade 5 classroom at the end of the year, exhausted and thinking, “There has to be a better way to teach the curriculum!”

Connecting Subjects

My main goal was for my students to recognize that the subjects were connected. For example, how are science, geography, language, math, connected to each other? These are not isolated subjects nor are they an island on their own. There are many opportunities for cross-curricular integration, and I had designed and delivered many lessons where students were learning in this manner. However, I felt there was a more effective method in which students could explore issues, topics, and concepts in an integrated fashion, where there were more choices and voice for students. Additionally, as someone who values social justice and equity issues, I wanted to find a way to ensure that social justice was integrated into the teaching and learning.

One of My Best Learning Experiences

I never thought the journey that I started that summer would end up being one of the best learning experiences of my life! I remember sitting at my parent’s kitchen table (I was still living at home at this time) with all the curriculum documents spread out in front of me and doing a scavenger hunt of sorts. I was searching for ways in which the expectations in one subject area overlapped with expectations from other subject areas. I was not only looking at the expectations per se, but I was also examining the skills/verbs that were common amongst the different subjects.

For example, how many times did the verbs “analyze, judge, evaluate, and justify” appear in the various curricular areas? I started with the science and social studies curricula since they would be the best ones in which the “big ideas” would come to light. My next step was to generate a list of these “life big ideas” (as I like to call them) and related questions (which we now know as “essential questions” or “driving questions”). Since I was teaching grade 6 the following year, my first big idea was “Development” and my related essential question was, “Should Canada continue to invest in space exploration?”  I spent the next few weeks planning this unit; designing lessons, looking up resources, mapping out assessment strategies, and drafting a newsletter to parents about the unit. There are different levels of questions and this is another thing I have learned as my learning progressed. For example, the question above is a yes/no question and might be considered a lower level type of inquiry question. It is important, however, that these questions become even more open-ended as students become accustomed to learning through the inquiry process.

Using the Inquiry Method

This type of approach to teaching and learning allows students to use the inquiry method. They are introduced to the big idea and essential question and some initial discussions occur in our “community circle”. Students then engage in their learning by accessing the necessary resources (books, newspaper articles, websites, magazine articles, etc) to answer the question. This is not to say that there is no explicit teaching happening during the unit; of course, there is! These explicit lessons just need to be planned carefully in terms of what information is being disseminated to students and when it is being disseminated in the learning cycle.

This is Barbara Bray sharing Episode #2 of the Rethinking Learning podcast with Tamara Letter about finding kindness through Passion Projects. Tamara added a post below the podcast expanding on what we talked about and included links and a few pictures. Please take a moment, listen and read more about Tamara’s journey to bring passion to learning through kindness. Enjoy!

Tamara Letter, Technology Integrator at Mechanicsville Elementary, Hanover County Public Schools, VA, shares why encouraging kids to find their passion through kindness matters.

 

Celebrating Kindness found my Passion

Five years ago, I was searching for a fun way to celebrate my 40th birthday. I decided to do 40 random acts of kindness and share the stories behind each act I completed. As a mom of three and an educator for twenty years, I know the impact positive actions can have on others. My goal was to sprinkle a little kindness into the world around me for each year I’ve been alive. I created my first blog, http://celebratekindness.wordpress.com, and started sharing my posts on Facebook and Twitter. What I didn’t realize at the time was this birthday celebration was actually a deeper passion of mine to make the world a better place.

Why Teachers Need to be Valued

As an instructional technology resource teacher, my purpose is to empower teachers to integrate technology into their daily instruction. I work in collaborative partnerships with teachers and administrators to find the best ways to engage students while teaching an age-appropriate curriculum. Working so closely with teachers and their students helps me to strengthen relationships and, in turn, support their individual learning needs as we learn and grow together. The role of an educator has changed drastically since I entered the profession in 1997. Teachers are asked to wear a multitude of hats each day as they care for their students’ academic, physical, social, and emotional needs. They are shaping the hearts and minds of our community with each child that enters their classroom; we need to value our teachers with respect and showcase the greatness they do every day!

Passion for Kindness projects

This year I worked in a collaborative partnership with Mrs. Cross, a fourth-grade teacher at Mechanicsville Elementary School. We wrote a grant called “A Passion for Kindness” and were awarded funds from the Hanover Education Foundation to implement a year-long kindness initiative with her students. Each week we would meet to learn more about kindness: reading books, engaging in collaborative activities, and reflecting on the kindness we saw or experienced in our lives. Students used their Kindness Journals to document their stories to #CelebrateMonday or #FlyHighFri and I would share stories with them that were posted on Twitter or other kindness platforms like The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation or the Facebook group Reward for Kindness . Students continued showing kindness to others with activities like creating inspirational posters to display around our school and sharing flowers with school staff.

As the year progressed, we surprised our students with a ten dollar bill, allowing them to create a random act of kindness project to benefit someone other than themselves. Students brainstormed in collaborative groups,

Episode #1 with Andrew Bray

Andrew shares in this first episode of the Rethinking Learning Podcast series how creativity, entrepreneurship, and teaching helped him learn. He explains how acting, music, teaching and beekeeping helped him find his purpose.

Andrew Bray is multi-talented. I always knew that and thought I knew him well. You see, he’s my son. When I asked him to help me set up the Rethinking Learning podcast series, we created a practice podcast that was fun and I learned some things I never knew about him. So we decided to make this podcast our first podcast of the series. Listen and you’ll understand why. Below is a little about Andrew to frame what we talked about in the podcast.

 

As a young boy, Andrew wanted to be a filmmaker and helped me with my claymation workshops in schools and conferences. I taught him about storyboarding, and he took it to another level. I knew Andrew had many talents, but I was not sure which one he would choose. In high school, he loved acting and decided that was the road he wanted to take. He attended the Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts in Santa Maria, CA. He acted, sang, and danced his way through school and then decided to start his acting journey in Portland, Oregon. An annual festival he participates in is the Original Practice Shakespeare Festival

Andrew joined the company Staged Productions in 2007, and even before that he acted in many roles. Some of his favorite roles include Jake in Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom (Defunkt Theatre), Lt. Cable in South Pacific (Lakewood Theater), Matt in Red Light Winter (Bad Badger Productions), and Leo Frank in Parade (Staged with picture on right).

Because of his gift for music, he also became a music director. Some of his favorite plays where he was the music director included Stage’s Les Miserables, Big River, and 13,  and A Civil War Christmas (Portland ART).  Here’s a picture of Andrew directing a 22 piece orchestra above the red flag on the stage for Les Miserables. Yes, above the stage.

Andrew is also teaching acting and is a music director at middle and high schools in the Portland area. He also loves sound design and was just nominated for a Drammy for his sound design on the play Assistance. 

During our conversation, Andrew started talking about another direction he is taking: beekeeping. He started with one hive and working at a local beekeeping store. He now has six hives, builds a unique style of a hive, moves swarms, and teaches beekeeping.

Hope you listen to the podcast and follow Andrew on Facebook.