During my semester as a sub before becoming a full-time teacher, I had many a days of little to no sub plans. I also had a good handful of days of detailed and thorough sub plans. Days with the full set of sub plans were far better both for me and for the students and I've sought to provide subs in my own classroom with the same direction.

In today's episode I discuss:

• exactly the level of detail I put into my plans (I read out a section of my own plans)
• how I format my plans so they're more readable and easier to reference
• how I communicate with my students ahead of time in a way that the class could run even if a sub didn't show up (which has never happened but that's the ideal)
• my emergency sub plans for days I am unexpectedly out

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Enroll in the 'How to Teach Kids About Money' course today | thomgibson.com/classroomeconomy
• Get my sub plans template emailed to you | thomgibson.com/subplans
• Great emergency sub plans for a math classroom | youcubed.org/week-inspirational-math/
• Letter & number riddles for emergency sub plans | bhavinionline.com/2015/01/whatsapp-riddles-26-l-7-d-w/

CONNECT WITH THOM

• Twitter | @gibsonedu
• YouTube | /gibsonedu
• Instagram | @gibsoneducation
• Email | [email protected]

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

• Enroll in the How to Teach Kids About Money course for educators
• Sign up for the #TeamEdu newsletter
• Leave a podcast rating & review

My guest today is Roberto Germán, director of middle school and creator of the educational consulting group 'The Multicultural Classroom.'

In today's episode we explore:

• the differences between multiculturalism vs. a multicultural classroom vs. social justice
• Roberto's journey from an extremely poor and under-performing school in Lawrence, MA to one of the wealthiest private boarding schools in the nation and how that experience inspired the work he does now
• what a multicultural classroom experience looks like for the white teacher with a variety of ethnicities and races in their classroom
• what a multicultural classroom experiences looks like for the white teacher in a predominately white school
• how to celebrate and honor the different cultures of your classroom without patronizing or stereotyping those cultures
• resources for educators wanting do dive further into teaching in a multicultural classroom

RESOURCES

• The Multicultural Classroom blog
• The Anti-Racist Reading Teacher Instruction Workbook | Lorena Germán
• Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies | Django Paris
• Teaching Tolerance
• Facing History
• Embrace Race
• Montessori for Social Justice
• This Book is Anti-Racist | Tiffany Jewell
• Everyday Antiracism | Mica Pollock
• Courageous Conversations | The Pacific Group

CONNECT WITH ROBERTO GERMÁN

• The Multicultural Classroom
• Lorena Germán on Twitter | @nenagerman
• Lorena Germán on Instagram | @lorenagerman

CONNECT WITH THOM

• Twitter | @gibsonedu
• YouTube | /gibsonedu
• Instagram | @gibsoneducation
• Email | [email protected]

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

• Enroll in the How to Teach Kids About Money course for educators
• Sign up for the #TeamEdu newsletter
• Leave a podcast rating & review

Class jobs in and of themselves have tremendous value in creating a positive classroom culture, building responsibility in students, and saving YOU time as the teacher.

My classroom jobs are part of a larger classroom economy system. If you want to dive into how I do that, check out the course I created for teachers linked below:

'How to Teach Kids About Money' course - www.thomgibson.com/classroomeconomy

20% off coupon code - MONEY

The full list of jobs can be found in Module 1, and all of Module is FREE so check it out.

CONNECT WITH THOM

• Twitter - @gibsonedu
• YouTube - /gibsonedu
• Instagram - @gibsoneducation
• Email - [email protected]
• Newsletter - thomgibson.com/newsletter

It's good to be doing the podcast again after some time off over the holidays!  When I got back to school, I led a PD session for my colleagues on how to save time grading and thought it'd make for a valuable podcast.

TIMESTAMPS

• 0:00 - Intro
• 3:47 - Update on the podcast
• 6:17 - Why grading takes so long
• 7:28 - Hack 1 | Grade fewer things
• 10:23 - Hack 2 | Have shorter assessments
• 11:52 - Hack 3 | Skip written feedback
• 14:55 - Hack 4 | Batch your grading
• 16:58 - Hack 6 | Take assessment yourself (by hand)
• 19:05 - Hack 7 | Use copy & paste efficiently
• 21:55 - Hack 8 | Offer alternative assessments
• 24:28 - Hack 9 | Grade in class as they turn it in
• 27:40 - Hack 10 | Let tech do the grading for you
• 31:47 - TeamEdu newsletter

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Jumpcut  - multi-copy & paste tool
• Khan Academy - not just math anymore
• Google Form Quizzes - auto-graded quizzes
• EdPuzzle - grade flipped classroom videos

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

• Enroll in the How to Teach Kids About Money course today!
• Sign up for the TeamEdu newsletter

CONNECT WITH THOM

• Twitter - @gibsonedu
• YouTube - /gibsonedu
• Instagram - @gibsoneducation
• Email - [email protected]

In this Q&A show, we discuss:

• What are the top three books that guide you in building a self-sustaining classroom culture?
• As a first year robotics teacher, do you compare one class with another as a way to motivate students?  In Brazil, if one class is falling behind another, it's common to say 'the other class is already on the next topic.'  Does this motivate students?
• If you're in a noisy classroom, how do you make sure you are heard without screaming?
• How do you deal with students that refuse to study for tests?
• Working at a private school, how much freedom do you have to experiment with different teaching practices compared to public school?  And how can public school teachers begin to try new and innovative ways of teaching?

Let me know how you like this format.  It was a lot of fun for me to answer and much less editing!

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• My video 'Student Motivation' exploring lessons from 'Drive' by Dan Pink
• My video 'Classroom Management Tips for New Teachers' on lessons learned from 'The First Days of School'
• My video 'What To Do When Students Won't Stop Talking'
• 'Drive' by Dan Pink on Amazon
• 'The First Days of School' by Harry Wong on Amazon
• 'Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire' by Rafe Esquith on Amazon

QUESTIONS FOR NEXT TIME

Email me at [email protected] with your questions for the next Q&A show

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

• Sign up for the newsletter : thomgibson.com/newsletter
• Sign up for the 'Create & Manage A Classroom Economy' course : thomgibson.com/classroomeconomy
• Leave a rating & review

A conversation on Facebook with my friend Jake led me to ponder the nature of teaching kids how to do creative work. Jake Ritter is a broadcast journalism teacher and John Mulvany is an artist and art teacher of 26 years.

In this episode we chat about:

• what the schools of thought when it comes to teaching creativity are
• what the most challenging aspects of teaching creativity are
• how to help kids who just don't know where to start
• how to structure creative assignments
• the balance between teaching skills and opening up opportunities to be creative
• how to balance giving students creative freedom and wanting to give them guidance
• how to structure collaborative creative projects
• meeting deadlines vs. feeling creatively satisfied
• how to structure self and peer assessments
• how to assess a creative project as teachers

Plus you'll hear audio from both Jake's and John's classroom in how they support their students.

The original video I posted on Facebook that sparked this conversation was titled '5 Biggest Mistakes I've Made As A Teacher' and you can watch that HERE.

Just for fun, here is the final product for 'The Bachelor' piece the students did

____

CONNECT WITH JOHN MULVANY

• www.johnmulvany.com

CONNECT WITH JAKE RITTER

• Email - [email protected]
• RoHawk Talk YouTube Channel

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

• Sign up for the newsletter : thomgibson.com/newsletter
• Sign up for the 'Create & Manage A Classroom Economy' course : thomgibson.com/classroomeconomy
• Leave a rating & review

Chris Nesi and Jeff Bradbury are two of the biggest names in educational podcasting. Chris is the creator of the House of Ed Tech podcast as well as the Education Podcast Network, which is a community of educational podcasters that includes the likes of The Cult of Pedagogy with Jennifer Gonzalez and The Google Teacher Tribe.

Jeff Bradbury from TeacherCast is the creator and host of NINE different educational podcasts, including Educational Podcasting Today which is a podcasts all about educators getting into podcasting!

In this episode, we discuss:

CONNECT WITH CHRIS NESI

CONNECT WITH JEFF BRADBURY

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED

Join me as I sit in on Chalimar Chieza's 9th grade World Geography class as they dive into a socratic seminar. Hear students form hypotheses around the question**"why do people around the world have different skin tones?"** as well as my discussion with Chalimar on how she structures the socratic seminar so all students have a voice.

We discuss the following:

CONNECT WITH CHALIMAR CHIEZA

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

Michael Hernandez & Don Wettrick are two educators that are actually assigning students social media homework; tweet at least three times a week, connect with an influencer on LinkedIn, discuss how the new Instagram updates will change your content strategy.

They're not utilizing social media for it's own sake, but to leverage the greater work of students telling stories and directing their own learning.

In this episode, we discuss:

This is part 2 of a 2-part series. Listen to Part 1 with YouTuber/Instagrammer teacher CJ Reynolds - Leveraging Social Media As Educators [Part 1]

CONNECT WITH MICHAEL HERNANDEZ

CONNECT WITH DON WETTRICK

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

CJ Reynolds is a high-school teacher in West Philadelphia with an active YouTube and Instagram channel where he documents the meaningful learning experiences in his classroom with the goal to inspire, engage, and motivate new and veteran teachers to be the teacher they always wanted to be. Reynolds uses "real rap" to share teaching tips and strategies and to give an authentic look at what it means to be a teacher in inner city Philadelphia.

In this episode, we discuss:

This is part 1 of a 2-part series. In part 2, I will be chatting with a couple educators who are having their students create social media content as part of the class curriculum.

CONNECT WITH CJ REYNOLDS

CONNECT WITH THOM GIBSON

SUPPORT THE PODCAST