School of Practice

It started with a student writing a joke on a sticky note: “I hope we have no tests this year.” 

Five years later, high school teacher Jodie Deinhammer’s science classroom remains test-free—and her students are still learning and retaining the content at a fast clip. 

In this episode, host Kristin Leong talks with Jodie about why and how she replaced high-stakes testing with projects, labs, open-note checks, and daily formative assessments. She’ll offer advice on handling this major shift with parents, and explain why she listens closely to her students’  feedback. Plus, she’s got deeply vetted takeaways for teachers who are ready to rethink their approach to grading—while keeping rigor high and stress low.

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Have you ever had a lesson get derailed by a power struggle with a student? Or is there a student in your class who you got off on the wrong foot with, and you’re not sure of the best way to repair the relationship?

In this episode of School of Practice, ELA teacher Tyler Rablin shares some of his favorite classroom management strategies—and they’re ones that you probably didn’t learn in teacher prep. From a simple change involving a squat, to three magic words that aren’t the ones you’d expect, Tyler breaks down how to shift a chaotic classroom to a calm one. And the good news? These strategies work across grade levels and subjects. And you can start using them tomorrow—no extensive prep or fancy incentives required.

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Did you know that drawing can be a learning superpower—even for students who claim they’re not good at it? 

Research shows that when kids attentively sketch something they’re learning about, they tap into the visual, kinesthetic, and linguistic parts of their brains. This generates rich connections across the brain’s neural network and encodes learning more deeply compared to passive learning tasks like reading or listening to a lecture. 

We revisit our 2025 conversation with science educator Selim Tlili to uncover how drawing to learn works across grade levels and subjects. Plus, he’s got special tips for engaging even the most reluctant sketch artists.

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Everyone makes mistakes—including teachers.

While educators are quick to reframe student mistakes through a growth mindset lens, they’re less forgiving when it comes to their own slipups. But teacher errors often follow familiar patterns and can be a source of exceptional personal and professional growth.

In this episode of School of Practice, ELA teacher and instructional specialist Miriam Plotinsky digs into the most common teacher mistakes and identifies key strategies for quick, effective resets that get learning back on track. We’ll also hear from a few classroom teachers about their own missteps, and examine the research about how students benefit when teachers address their own mistakes head-on.

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Like a lot of other educators, Nicholas Ferroni is trying to find his way back to a time before technology was the default classroom mode. He thinks he was a better teacher back then—and kids acted more like kids.

Last year, Nick published a viral Instagram post in which he pledged to go back to basics in his teaching, back to “more paper, more writing, more eye contact, more conversations.” In this episode, Nick tells us how he turned the clock back, what he thinks his students have gained from less tech time, and why he’s not giving up on classroom tech completely.

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Before there’s curriculum or calendars or lesson plans, there’s the classroom space itself, stripped of last year’s posters and anchor charts. Where should teachers begin? We’ve got the answers.

In this back-to-school episode, editors Youki Terada and Steve Merrill review over 30 high-quality studies on classroom design and boil them down to five big takeaways, from how to use wall decoration to maximize student attention to why potted plants can alter student perceptions of the classroom—and the teacher, too!

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How do you lay the foundation for real community in your classroom? Teachers know (and the research supports this) that when kids feel safe and connected in school, they’re better equipped to focus on learning. The start of a new school year is a crucial time for this type of work – and it goes beyond icebreakers. 

In this episode of School of Practice, we’ll hear from three educators who’ve developed powerful activities for building robust classroom cultures, including a strategy for co-creating classroom norms, an exercise that gets students discovering what they have in common, and a memorable 60-second trust-building activity. Together, these activities go beyond typical icebreakers – and set the stage for a classroom where students feel they belong.

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Do you want to build a vibrant classroom community this year, but you’re not sure where to start?

Research shows it’s well worth the effort—and the first week of school is the perfect time to lay that foundation. When students feel a strong sense of belonging at school, they tend to be more motivated to learn and achieve higher academic outcomes.  

In this first back-to-school episode from School of Practice, teacher Marcus Luther shares a simple activity that helps him get to know his students from day one, and sets the tone for the year ahead. Then, he shares two easy strategies for keeping that feedback practice going, so you can continue to build belonging and engagement all year long.

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Teaching is hard (often draining) work, and educators’ instincts about what will bring relief are frequently wrong—just as they are for most people. 

That’s because our minds deceive us, says cognitive scientist and Yale professor Laurie Santos, one of the world’s leading researchers on well-being and happiness. “One of the most annoying features of the mind is the fact that we all have these intuitions about the kinds of things we should be doing to feel better. But the research shows that many of those intuitions are just incorrect.”

In this episode of School of Practice, Dr. Santos joins host Kristin Leong to debunk some of the most popular and persistent myths about happiness—more money *mostly* doesn’t buy more happiness, for example, and a values mismatch at work may be more consequential for burnout than you think—and shares a set of evidence-based tools teachers can begin to apply right away to reclaim a sense of balance. 

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What’s your take on eliminating zeros from the grade book? Does your school have a no-zeros grading policy? Even if it doesn’t, you probably have opinions about it. 

Setting 50% as the minimum grading threshold is a well-meaning effort to more accurately assess student learning, but it can also create new—and frustrating—challenges for teachers and students.

In this episode of School of Practice, teacher and instructional coach Tyler Rablin explores the tradeoffs of eliminating zeros from the grade book. We’ll hear from teachers in our community with firsthand experience navigating the policy, and discuss exceptional strategies for building motivation and accountability without relying on numerical penalties.

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