My first day in the classroom was as a sub. I went in with ambitions to change young peoples lives; to see the student who isn't seen, to hear the student who isn't heard. The sub plan read as follows: "have the students work on odd problems on page 114 in the workbook." There were about 4 different workbooks amidst the pile of papers on her desk and I don't know which one she was referring to. Needless to say amidst my complete lack of classroom management skills and lack of direction, the day was a total wash and one of my worst days in the classroom.

A multicultural classroom is a celebration of the ethnic and racial groups in your classroom, particularly those that have been historically under represented. How do you do that in a meaningful way, whether you have a variety of cultures in your classroom or you teach in a predominately white school?

Stop doing things in your classroom that your students can do. In this episode I share all of my classroom jobs and what you need to think through as you develop jobs in your own classroom.

We want to do meaningful and memorable work in our class, but a lot of times we don't have the time to plan those types of lessons. The burden of grading is often the culprit. Today, we explore 10 ways to cut your grading time in half.

How do you handle the noise level in your classroom and get your students attention without screaming? What do you do about students who just refuse to study for tests? How do you create a self-sustaining classroom? We answer these and more in this first Q&A show!

Working with students on creative projects is challenging. What exactly is creativity and how do you teach it? What role does structure and deadlines play in the creative process? How do we guide students in collaborating together on creative work? What's the importance of self-assessment and peer assessments? How subjective or objective should our assessment as teachers be?

Podcasting has served as an amazing avenue for reflection on my own educational practice, both from using classroom audio and sharing it as well as getting the opportunity to sit with master educators to talk with them about their craft. Teacher blogging started to boom about 10 years ago and it's been said that podcasting is the now the new blogging. So should you start your own teacher podcast? And if so, how do you do it?

Having undistracted conversations about important ideas is where some of the most meaningful learning happens. It was the preferred method of education, all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, most education today is focused on student acquiring knowledge rather than exploring ideas. I chat with an educator today who is taking a different approach and and utilizing socratic seminars to give each student a voice and provide opportunities for them to explore important ideas.

A common narrative around social media in classrooms is 'how can we get the kids off their phones and off social media during class?' Today, I speak with two educators that are weaving social media directly into their classroom curriculum instead.

Many educators are hesitant to use social media in their classrooms, and for good reasons; most of the stories you hear in the news show do not showcase it as something that's positive for the educator or their students. I sat with an educator who's is looking to flip the script in regards to how he is leveraging social media in his classroom for good.