Schoolutions: Curious Educators. Evidence-Based Strategies. Classrooms Where Every Child Thrives.

November on Schoolutions is about learning that goes beyond the classroom and stays rooted in place, community, and tradition. I talk with educators who build school culture, student belonging, and student engagement by connecting kids to the world around them.

I open the month with Kristin Page and Dr. Melissa Cullen, co-teachers of a multi-age class at Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary in Tulalip, Washington. They share the routines and rituals they create with students, strong examples of classroom belonging, student participation, culturally responsive teaching, and inclusive classrooms.

Dr. Annalies Corbin, anthropologist, archaeologist, and founder of The PAST Foundation, shows how active learning and real-world problem-solving boost student motivation and inspire students who show low engagement.

My friend Gwyneth Hagan joins me as her book Wild Design launches this month. She invites us to move from a factory model of school to a forest model, using patterns in nature to help school ecosystems flourish. It's innovative teaching and school change grounded in the whole child.

I close with Dr. Chelsea Craig, instructional leader at Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary. She talks about instructional leadership, school improvement, family partnerships, and the home-school connection as she reclaims her school community one story, one song, and one morning at a time.

Subscribe to the Schoolutions Podcast now and learn with me all November. 

Chapters:
0:00 November theme: learning rooted in place and community
0:12 Kristin Page and Dr. Melissa Cullen on co-teaching and rituals
0:30 Dr. Annalies Corbin and The PAST Foundation
0:44 Gwyneth Hagan and her new book Wild Design
1:08 Dr. Chelsea Craig on whole child leadership
1:28 Join me this November

#Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #EducationPodcast #WholeChild #SchoolCulture #CulturallyResponsiveTeaching #InstructionalLeadership #TeacherCoaching #ProKidMindset #StudentEngagement #WildDesign #OliviaWahl

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

Jason Blair planned a fort-building challenge for 30-40 minutes. It took two weeks. One student stood on a chair shouting orders. Another group snuck off with supplies to build their own. Someone cried because nobody was listening. The fort was never the point.

In part two of my S6E7 Schoolutions conversation with Jason, we get into what an artist mindset looks like on a Tuesday morning in a real classroom. Jason shares the exact debrief questions he asks kids after a group project, including "What successes found you?" and "Who did you become in the process?" These questions build classroom belonging and shift student motivation from the finished product to the child doing the work.

You'll hear how empathy interviews become active learning when students redesign a classmate's desk or cubby with cardboard, tape, and paint, then present it back to them. Jason explains why his most valuable routine is having no routine. He tapes a sign to his locked door that reads "Meet me at the front of the school," and kids talk about it all year. If you're fighting low engagement and a scripted curriculum, try this innovative teaching tomorrow with zero prep budget.

Three questions I invite you to consider:
1️⃣After your next group project, will you ask students who they became or only what they made?
2️⃣Which routine could you break this week so students walk in surprised?
3️⃣What hobby does a teacher in your building love, and how could it become the backbone of your next professional learning session?

💫Check out part one & more from Jason: 

🔗Jason's Website

🔗Instagram

🔗LinkedIn

🔗Substack

⭐Columbus Museum of Art (these are links to projects, but also a TON of resources to use in the classroom tomorrow)!

🔗Cultivating Creative and Civic Capacities- collaboration w/Project Zero

Chapters:
0:00 Three questions to carry through this episode
1:00 Welcome back, Jason Blair Part Two
1:45 The fort challenge origin story
3:00 A 40-minute lesson becomes two weeks
4:30 Reflection and the power of a callback point
5:10 Action vs. goal: are the children flourishing?
5:50 Debrief questions: body language and "What successes found you?"
6:45 Loud leadership vs. quiet leadership
7:10 Do community building every single day
8:00 Asking eight-year-olds "Who did you become?"
10:20 The 100 Languages and a piano in algebra class
11:20 Empathy interviews that go deeper than favorite colors
13:30 When kids share someone else's thinking
14:30 Redesigning a classmate's learning space
16:20 Why no routine is the best routine
17:50 Imagination Island on day one
19:30 Lock your door: "Meet me at the front of the school"
20:40 Turning teacher hobbies into professional learning
22:50 What IDEO teaches us about process
24:20 Pollinating best practices as a coach
25:15 Your challenge this week and coming next week

Did Jason's fort challenge or cookie PD spark an idea for your building? I partner with schools and districts on instructional coaching, teacher coaching, and leadership support. Together we can plan a professional learning session built on staff passions, design a community-building experience your students will remember in June, or coach your team through debrief questions that put flourishing ahead of the final product. Book a conversation with me here.

Coming Next Week:
Multi-age co-teachers Kristin Page and Dr. Melissa Cullen from Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary in Tulalip, Washington, join me for a two-part conversation. You'll learn how to cultivate resilience, create routines that honor your community's traditions and cultures, and inspire students to extend and apply their learning beyond the classroom. If culturally responsive teaching and family partnerships matter to you, subscribe now so it lands in your feed.

Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book, Forever Getting Better: Five Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. I hope to have the book in your hands by June 2027.

#Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting 

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

Jason Blair turned his classroom into Imagination Island, and his students walked in on a boardwalk under black-light stars.

Jason lined the tables up right in front of the door. Kids chose to "swim under the water" or "walk on the boardwalk" to get to their seats. The oohs and ahhs started before anyone sat down. That's classroom belonging built in the first 30 seconds of class, and it shows what student engagement looks like when you design for wonder.

Jason's argument is simple. When we focus only on the product, the data point, or the test score, kids lose. He believes every child is born an artist, and the real question isn't what students learned. It's who they're becoming along the way.

In this clip, you'll hear:
➡️ How one small move, locking your door and meeting students outside, becomes the moment they talk about all year
➡️ Why the artist mindset drives student motivation and student participation
➡️ The pause point every teacher and parent needs, and why slowing down helps kids think
➡️ How a pro-kid mindset and whole child focus lead to thriving students

These are teaching tips and instructional strategies you can use during lesson planning this week. Active learning doesn't need a big budget. Black lights, a rearranged table, and a story will hold attention in class better than another worksheet.

Watch part one with Jason on the Schoolutions. Part two releases on Friday, 10/30.

Want help building this kind of school culture in your classroom or across your campus? I work with teachers, instructional coaches, and school leaders on innovative, inspired teaching that puts kids first. Book a call here.

Chapters
0:00 Welcome to Imagination Island
0:20 Why test scores alone fail our kids
0:28 Every child is born an artist
0:38 Meet students outside the door
0:45 The pause point for teachers and parents
0:52 Welcome to the podcast, Jason Blair

#Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #ClassroomBelonging #StudentEngagement #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #TeachingTips #ActiveLearning #InnovativeTeaching #WholeChild #ProKidMindset #SchoolCulture #TeacherTips #creativeclassrooms

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

Empathy interviews show you how a student (or teacher) actually feels about the challenge in front of them. Run them one-on-one, or teach kids to interview each other. They sit at the center of design thinking.

Start with introductions. Each student shares their name plus the project they're working on or the problem they're stuck on. Then ask follow-ups:
➡️What successes have you found? Why did those work?
➡️What challenges came up, and what caused them?
➡️What are you proud of?
➡️What did you learn along the way?

Let kids tell stories. Give them time to pause and think before they answer.

Want to learn more? Street Data by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan describes equity-centered empathy interviews on pages 177 to 179 and in Appendix 8.1.

My Schoolutions podcast guest this week, Jason Blair, shows how he redesigns learning spaces based on what students say in these interviews.

Chapters
0:00 What empathy interviews are
0:15 Start with student introductions
0:27 Follow-up questions to ask
0:48 Street Data book resource
1:05 This week's podcast guest

#SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #TryitTuesday #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #TeachingTips #TryItTuesday #EmpathyInterviews #DesignThinking #StudentEngagement #ClassroomBelonging #CulturallyResponsiveTeaching #EquityInEducation #TeachingTips #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherPD #StreetData

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

Jason Blair graduated high school ranked around 340th out of 360. He walked out with a diploma and the belief that he wasn't smart. College told him a different story. The way he was smart had never been valued in school.

Jason is a creativity specialist, practicing artist, and elementary art teacher with more than 24 years in the classroom. I've followed his LinkedIn posts for years. They push my thinking every time. In part one of our S6E7 Schoolutions conversation, I asked him why schools treat test scores as the goal when they were only ever meant to be a step toward student success.

His answer changed how I walk into buildings.

In this conversation, you'll learn:
💫Why achievement and flourishing are two different things, and how a student can earn the diploma and still leave feeling small
💫The question I want every IEP and 504 team to ask: which adult who sees this child's strengths is missing from the table? This one is for school counselors, instructional leaders, and school administrators who say they serve the whole child
💫Why Jason believes every child is born an artist, and how schools quietly train curiosity, risk-taking, and play out of kids by first grade
💫The artist mindset as an approach to AI: notice, make, revise, and stay comfortable with a messy process
💫Jason's daily research question, "What happens when...?" and the third grader who slid across the art studio floor
💫A spilled paint palette that became a moment of awe instead of a cleanup lecture
💫Why Jason would stop assigning homework tomorrow and replace it with relational homework: make a gift for someone, take a walk with a neighbor

Three questions to carry into your week:
1. What would you notice if you watched who your students are becoming with the same care you give test scores?
2. When your team plans for an IEP or 504 meeting, who's at the table?
3. The next time a student runs or slides into your room, can you pause before you correct and ask why?

One move you can make Monday: Get into the art room and the music room. Watch how the same kids show up differently there. That's teacher coaching and professional development that costs nothing and shifts school culture fast.

More from Jason:
🔗Jason's Website
🔗Instagram
🔗LinkedIn
🔗Substack
⭐Columbus Museum of Art (these are links to projects, but also a TON of resources to use in the classroom tomorrow)!
🔗Cultivating Creative and Civic Capacities- collaboration w/Project Zero:

Chapters:
0:00 Ranked 340th out of 360
0:30 Three questions to carry into your classroom
1:10 Meet Jason Blair, creativity specialist and art teacher
2:40 The product is not the purpose
4:50 The artist mindset as an approach to AI
5:50 Who are students becoming? Project Zero and an ensemble of personas
7:30 Why we marginalized the arts and why that has to end
8:50 Lean into the art specialists in your building
9:20 Getting teachers into each other's classrooms
10:20 Achievement vs. flourishing
11:50 Who's missing from the IEP and 504 table
12:50 Flourishing is a collective act
13:10 Ask students before the meeting
14:20 Every child is born an artist
15:40 After the Bell: stop assigning homework
16:40 "What happens when...?" and the student who slid into class
18:20 The paint spill that sparked awe
19:20 What Jason reads
20:40 Who Jason hopes to become this year
21:20 Coming in Part Two

Coming in Part Two:
Jason takes us inside a fort-building challenge that stretched from 40 minutes to two weeks. You'll hear how his students run empathy interviews with each other and what happened the first day he turned his art room into an imagination island. Bring your lesson planning notebook. This is active learning and innovative teaching you can steal.

Want to respond to classroom behavior with curiosity instead of correction? Want your IEP and 504 meetings to start with strengths? That's the work I do with schools and districts. I partner with teachers, instructional coaches, and school leaders to build a pro-kid mindset into daily instructional strategies, coaching cycles, and team meetings. Book a conversation at oliviawahl.com under Coaching and Consulting.

My book, Forever Getting Better: Five Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, releases in 2027.

Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book, Forever Getting Better: Five Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. I hope to have the book in your hands by June 2027.

#Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting 
#JasonBlair #ArtistMindset #StudentEngagement #WholeChild #ClassroomBelonging #ThrivingStudents #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherCoaching #ProKidMindset #InclusiveClassrooms #SchoolCulture #InnovativeTeaching #ArtEducation #CreativityInEducation #EducationTransformation #schoolleadership 

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

Your core program already holds more than you could teach in a year. So where does a whole book go?

In part two of my S6E6 Schoolutions conversation with Jennifer Serravallo, we get practical about Whole Book Comprehension, her new Heinemann resource launching in November 2026 for grades 1 through 6.

Jen's answer to the time question is specific. If your core program has six modules, take one week between each module for a whole book intensive. You can also use a WIN block or independent reading time with book clubs. She walks through the same five steps she planned into every lesson: background knowledge, vocabulary, strategies and prompts, writing about reading, and conversation.

I asked Jen what to do when half the class finishes chapter 4 before the other half starts it. She groups kids by pace, by support level, or by the strategy they need, so one group gets the read-aloud while another reads independently. Everyone stays in the same grade-level book and moves to the next lesson together.

Then we get into why this can't wait. Jen shares a study by Westbrook and colleagues where students left a short-text core program for six weeks of novels read at a brisk pace. They made months of progress and came out believing in themselves as readers. She connects that to Maryanne Wolf's work on deep reading and Kelly Cartwright's research on executive function. Kids only build the attention and stamina for long texts by reading long texts.

I also share what happened when my colleague and I brought Socratic circles and fishbowl conversations into middle and high school classrooms. Kids who avoided eye contact in the fall were prepping notes ahead of time by spring. The quietest students started tapping in. That's student participation and student engagement you can't get from a one-page passage.

💫Check out part one & more resources from Jen: 

• Links to Whole Book Comprehension: https://www.heinemann.com/programs/whole-book-comprehension/
• A few of Jen’s blogs for further reading: https://www.heinemann.com/blog/topic/whole-book-comprehension
• Westbrook study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lit.12141
• Jen’s podcast with Dr. Maryanne Wolf: https://www.jenniferserravallo.com/blog/maryanne-wolf

Next week: How will you grow the creative minds in your organization? That's the question my guest, Jason Blair, asks educators. You'll hear how to embrace your artist mindset so it turns into fresh perspectives, new routines, and real leadership moves. Jason is a creativity specialist, a practicing artist, and an elementary art teacher with more than twenty-four years of experience who helps schools grow imaginative, curious, and connected learners. Learn more about Jason at https://www.growcreativethinkers.com

Chapters

0:00 Questions to consider before you listen

1:00 Welcome back, Jen

1:50 Where whole books fit in a full schedule

3:05 Read-aloud, shared reading, or independent reading

3:35 The five steps in every lesson

5:00 Coaching writing and talk, not just assigning prompts

5:55 When kids read at different paces

7:15 The research on why kids need whole books

9:30 Socratic circles, fishbowls, and the quietest students

11:15 Literacy is reading, writing, speaking, and listening

12:05 Jen's hope for the next three years: both/and

13:40 Takeaways and how to work with me

14:40 Next week: Jason Blair

Does your literacy block run on short passages and leave no room for kids to talk? I coach teachers and leadership teams to change that. We sit down with your core program, mark the weeks where a whole book intensive fits, and protect time every day for writing about reading and real conversation. Then I help you build the grouping routines, discussion structures, and feedback loops that keep it going after I leave. Book a conversation at oliviawahl.com under Coaching & Consulting.

Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book, Forever Getting Better: Five Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. I hope to have the book in your hands by June 2027.

#Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #JenniferSerravallo #WholeBookComprehension #ReadingComprehension #ReadingStamina #BookClubs #SocraticSeminar #LiteracyInstruction #ScienceOfReading #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherSupport #SchoolLeadership #EffectiveTeaching #StudentEngagement #ElementaryTeachers #TeachersOfInstagram #EducationPodcast 

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

Teachers keep telling me the same thing. Their students can't stay with a book. Jennifer Serravallo sees it in classrooms across the country and at her own kitchen table, where her daughters leave books untouched.

Short passages are part of the reason. When kids read one-page texts every day, they never practice holding a detail from chapter two until it pays off in chapter nine. That's a skill, and skills can be rebuilt. Jen points to research where students read whole books at a brisk pace and made several months of reading progress in six weeks.

So what stops teachers? A school culture where leaving the script feels risky. That's where school leadership and instructional leadership come in. Principals and school administrators can name whole-book reading as a priority and help teachers decide what to cut from a crowded core program.

Watch part one with Jen. Part two drops Friday, October 23, on Schoolutions.  Subscribe so it lands in your feed.

Want help finding room for whole books in your schedule? I work with schools and districts on exactly that through instructional coaching and professional development: oliviawahl.com/coaching-and-consulting

Chapters:
0:00 Teachers sound the alarm on reading stamina
0:13 What kids lose with short texts only
0:22 Training our way back to whole books
0:32 The culture of fear around the script
0:42 Six weeks, several months of progress

#Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting  #JenniferSerravallo #WholeBookComprehension #ReadingStamina #StudentEngagement #SchoolLeadership #InstructionalLeadership #ReadingInstruction #ScienceOfReading #TeachersOfYouTube #LiteracyMatters #EducationPodcast

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

Try It Tuesday: Read the whole book before you teach it.

That habit changed my lesson planning more than anything else I've tried. We hear "use data" and "plan with students in mind" all the time. You can't do either until you know where the text will trip kids up.

Here's my process. I read the full picture book or chapter book first. I flag characters, plot structures, text features, vocabulary, and figurative language that could cause confusion. If I find eight to ten tricky words, I cut the list to two or three that every student will understand by the end of the chapter. You don't front-load all of it. You keep it on your radar so your instructional strategies are ready when kids hit the hard parts.

My example is World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky. It's dense, it's heavy, and it's full of complex text features. Two parts of it do a lot of work in class:

1️⃣The graphic novel section at the end of each chapter. I ask students, "How does this story help you synthesize what you learned in the chapter?" It's active learning that boosts student engagement and student participation with tough nonfiction.
2️⃣Chapter Eleven. The book is a warning, not a guaranteed future, and Chapter Eleven lays out action steps. After hard content, kids go back to it and ask, "Okay, what can we do next?"

Want a partner to consider text challenges with in your classroom or school? Learn more at oliviawahl.com under Coaching & Consulting.

Chapters
0:00 Why I plan with text challenges first
0:30 Reading the whole book before teaching it
0:40 Mapping text features in World Without Fish
0:55 Narrowing vocabulary to two or three words
1:15 Using graphic novel sections to synthesize
1:35 Chapter Eleven and taking action

#SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #TryitTuesday #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #TeachingTips #TryItTuesday #LessonPlanning #TeachingTips #EffectiveTeaching #StudentEngagement #ActiveLearning #InstructionalStrategies #NewTeachers #InstructionalCoaching #ProfessionalDevelopment #ReadingInstruction #Homeschool #TeachersOfYouTube

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

When did your students last read a book from page one to the last page?

Teachers keep telling me the same thing. Kids are struggling to stick with a book. Low engagement and short attention in class get blamed on phones, but in this S6E6 Schoolutions conversation, Jennifer Serravallo points to something else on the teacher's desk. Core programs built on one-page passages that look like the test.

Jen and I talk about Whole Book Comprehension, her new Heinemann resource launching in November 2026 for grades 1 through 6. Each grade's kit holds four fiction and four nonfiction books by award-winning authors. Every chapter comes with four instructional strategies, vocabulary and knowledge building, writing about reading, structured book talk, and rubrics students can use themselves.

Jen explains what a whole book asks of a reader that a short passage never will. A clue planted in chapter two that pays off in chapter nine. A flashback. A character who acts one way at home and another way at school. Ten nonfiction chapters that connect to one big idea. She also shares the biggest shift in her own lesson planning. She stopped starting with student data and started with the text challenges.

Check out resources from Jen:

• Links to Whole Book Comprehension: https://www.heinemann.com/programs/whole-book-comprehension/
• A few of Jen’s blogs for further reading: https://www.heinemann.com/blog/topic/whole-book-comprehension
• Westbrook study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lit.12141
• Jen’s podcast with Dr. Maryanne Wolf: https://www.jenniferserravallo.com/blog/maryanne-wolf

Part two drops Friday. Jen and I get into the nuts and bolts. Where do whole books fit into a schedule that's already full? What does every lesson look like? What do you do when half your class finishes chapter 4 before the other half starts it?

Chapters

0:00 Questions to consider before you listen

1:00 Meet Jennifer Serravallo and Whole Book Comprehension

1:30 Short passages, stamina, and the "post-literate" headlines

2:45 How my son Henry got back to reading whole books

3:45 What changes when a text gets longer

6:00 Inside the Whole Book Comprehension kits

8:15 Time to draw, write, and talk about reading

9:00 How this differs from Complete Comprehension

10:30 Lightning round: choosing books for whole book reading

12:15 What keeps Jen going outside of work

13:15 What Jen would change about national reading tests

15:30 How leaders can make room for whole books

17:00 Let the text drive the planning

20:20 Coming in Part 2 and how to work with me

Is your team staring at a packed pacing guide and wondering where whole books could fit? That's the work I do with schools and districts. I sit down with your leadership team and your core program, and we decide together what comes off the plate. Then I help you build the time and routines for daily whole book reading, so teachers feel confident making the change instead of nervous about it. Book a conversation at oliviawahl.com under Coaching and Consulting.

Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book, Forever Getting Better: Five Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. I hope to have the book in your hands by June 2027.

#Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #JenniferSerravallo #WholeBookComprehension #ReadingComprehension #ReadingStamina #LiteracyInstruction #ScienceOfReading #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherSupport #SchoolLeadership #EffectiveTeaching #StudentEngagement #ElementaryTeachers #TeachersOfInstagram #EducationPodcast

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. 

If most of your reading assessments ask for a claim plus three pieces of evidence, some of your readers may never show up in the grade book.

In part two of our S6E5 Schoolutions conversation, Angela Lathem-Ballard returns to show why. She teaches fifth- and sixth-grade humanities at the Center for Teaching and Learning in rural Maine, and she explains inductive and deductive reasoning the way she does with her students. Start with the evidence and build toward an idea. Or start with the idea and hunt for evidence that supports or complicates it. Good readers and writers switch between both all day.

Angela refuses to label kids as one kind of thinker. She asks a student who notices patterns, "What are you noticing across these moments?" She asks a student who opens with a polished claim, "What in the text led you there?" Teachers, instructional leaders, and education coaches will leave with assessment questions that support inclusive teaching and equity in any reading block.

She also walks through a simple system for student engagement in writing workshop. Every student keeps a writing-in-process folder. The left pocket holds brainstorms, heart maps, and drafts set aside to rest. The right pocket holds pieces worth revising. At the start of class, each writer decides which pocket to pull from based on their energy that day. One folder gives kids a daily decision about their own process, and it pulls in students who usually tune out. This one works for new teachers, mentor teachers, and homeschoolers writing with kids at the kitchen table.

💫Check out part one where Angela shares her four roles, her daily schedule, and the story of the grieving fifth grader whose poem won a national contest.

Three questions to carry with you:
1. If most of your assessments ask for a claim plus three pieces of evidence, which student's understanding never shows up in the grade book?
2. Do your students hear "What are you noticing across these moments?" or "What in the text led you there?" more often, and who gets left out?
3. How many decisions about their own writing process do your students make in a week?

Coming Next Week:
Jennifer Serravallo returns for a two-part conversation about her new Heinemann resource, Whole Book Comprehension, launching in November 2026 for grades 1 through 6. Jen shows how to close the gap between short, testable reading passages and understanding an entire book, with a research-backed approach you can use in your classroom the next morning.

Picture the student who spots three small details in a novel, connects them, and still freezes when the prompt says "state your claim." I partner with teachers and leadership teams to write assessments that catch that student. Together we design two or three ways for kids to show what they understand, then plan lessons that teach the reasoning moves they're missing. Start at oliviawahl.com under the Coaching and Consulting tab.

Chapters:
0:00 Three questions to carry with you
1:10 Welcome back, Angela
2:00 Inductive and deductive reasoning, in kid language
3:15 Why readers switch between both
4:00 Don't turn "inductive thinker" into a label
4:50 Writing isn't a straight line to publishing
6:00 Two folders and the left-pocket "safe"
7:00 Picking a pocket at the start of class
8:00 Why kids tune out when work feels fake
8:40 What claim-plus-three-evidence misses
9:15 Questions that reveal pattern-noticing readers
10:00 "I can't explain it this way" vs. "I don't understand"
10:45 Teenagers learning to switch reasoning modes
11:40 Thank you, Angela
12:30 Next week: Jennifer Serravallo and Whole Book Comprehension

Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027. 

#Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #InductiveReasoning #DeductiveReasoning #WritingWorkshop #ReadingWorkshop #LiteraryAnalysis #StudentAgency #StudentChoice #InclusiveTeaching #TeacherCoaching #InstructionalCoaching #MiddleSchoolELA #WholeBookComprehension #JenniferSerravallo #teacherpodcast 

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.