Heather Lyon, the author of, "Engagement is Not a Unicorn, It’s a Narwahl" and "The Big Book of Engagement Strategies," shares her insights on student engagement and teacher strategies from her new book, "50 Ways to Engage Students with Google Apps." Teachers' knowledge and understanding of pedagogical choices is key to tech tools tapping student engagement.

Find Heather’s many resources here.

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Just as teachers use a focus on communicating interest and positiveness to inspire, motivate, and foster a positive learning classroom environment, coaches need to communicate the same with their coachees. Interest and positiveness can impact an individual's self-esteem, motivation, and performance. Communicating interest and positiveness is not just about what you say but also how you say it. The effectiveness of your communication lies in your ability to make the other person feel seen, heard, and valued.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

With many years of experience as a Success Coach supporting the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged students, Liz Keable provides concrete "do and don’t do" guidance for parents and caretakers.  Learn ways to build students’ understanding of their own role in the learning process, their belief in their capability as a learner, and the internal motivation to face challenges.

To receive a free copy of 'The A-Z of Supporting Learner Achievement," e-mail Liz at: [email protected]

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes! 

How do coaches increase teacher voice and reflection in post conferencing? Too often the coach’s voice can sound more like a report being given (similar to supervision conferences) rather than a conversation. You’ll gain some mindsets, strategies, and questions in this podcast.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

What do you want grades to communicate? What do you want to be sure that your grading doesn’t do? When grades are used to teach life lessons, such as responsibility, or punctuality, the intrinsic value of learning for its own sake can be diminished. Does the lack of consistency among teachers’ use of grading create a grade fog because we are asking a single letter grade to communicate too much disparate information?

Read, "The Problem With Grading" here.        

Listen to the podcast with Sarah Morris here. 

Read Tom Schimmer's article here. 

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes! 

According to a Harvard Business Review article, "curiosity helps employees engage more deeply in their work, generate new ideas, and share those ideas with others." Certainly, these are all benefits we would want for staff in our schools. The questions that leaders and coaches use can support tapping into curiosity.  Find out why "what" is a good start for your questions.

Listen to the podcast with Tanya Sheckly and Tom Willis here. 

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes! 

When we are engaged in growing and learning as educators to reach a student success goal, reflecting on evidence gathered along the way is key both to the goal’s success and to educator learning. Evidence that shows changes in teacher actions and in student learning production behaviors should appear before changes in learning outcomes. With school leadership team goals, changes in leaders’ behaviors should be some of the first evidence that’s observed. Coaching is a great tool for gathering and reflecting upon evidence. 

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!