When we make certain choices, often without even realizing it, we can turn a teaching moment from one that should be clear into one that's confusing. Luckily, these choices are pretty easy to spot and fix once we know what to look for, and cognitive science can help us understand what's going on. In this episode I'm going to talk about three of these with Blake Harvard, who writes the Effortful Educator blog and has just published a new book, Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning.

Thanks to Boclips Classroom and Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this episode.

To read a full transcript of this episode and get links to Blake's book, visit cultofpedagogy.com/cognitive-overload.

In a classroom that is emotionally "cool," no one is preoccupied with any kind of anger, hurt feelings, anxiety, or fear, and this frees them up to concentrate on academics. One way to make that happen is by using neutral language: By choosing words that are less judgy and more neutral, we keep things professional, calm, and cool. 

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Thanks to Explore Learning for sponsoring this EduTip!

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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As our understanding of the human mind gets more sophisticated and nuanced, we're learning how to identify neurodivergence, how to appreciate it, and how to help those who fit under that umbrella navigate the world better. In this episode I'm joined by Emily Kircher-Morris and Amanda Morin, authors of the new book Neurodiversity-Affirming Schools. The book offers all kinds of specific guidance that will help teachers reshape their classrooms into places that offer flexible options for students with a wide range of "wiring." In today's episode, they'll share four actionable changes you can make right now to begin that reshaping.

Thanks to Boclips Classroom and Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this episode.

To read a full transcript of this episode and get links to all the resources we talk about, visit cultofpedagogy.com/neurodiversity-affirming/.

As you move through your career, you'll discover new ways of doing things that you're excited about — so excited that you want to share them with colleagues and convince them to try them, too. But trained professionals aren't always open to changing the way they work, and we don't want to come off as the know-it-all telling everyone what to do. So the most effective way to share a new idea is to talk about it in terms of "I."

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Thanks to Grouper for sponsoring this EduTip!

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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To become skilled readers, our students need reading instruction in all of their classes, not just English language arts. But if other subject-area teachers don't know how to support readers, how can they do this? In this episode, literacy expert Jen Serravallo walks us through the steps of a close reading lesson, one of nine re-usable lesson structures she offers in her new book, Teaching Reading Across the Day. By the time you're done with this episode, you'll be able to teach a close reading lesson yourself.

Thanks to Wix Tomorrow and Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this episode.

To read a transcript of this episode, links to Jen's book, and a video of Jen teaching a close reading lesson, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 242.

When student behavior starts driving you bananas, and you feel like you're going to yell, this simple notebook technique can regulate your nervous system and calm your class down fast.

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Thanks to Grouper for sponsoring this EduTip!

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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It's our annual round-up of tools for educators, and this time along with it, we're announcing the launch of the online version of our Teacher's Guide to Tech! This year we're talking about three new AI tools, a platform for creating interactive lessons, a video editor, and a tool that makes text more accessible to everyone, plus a replacement for any teacher who really misses Flip! My lead technology specialist, Marnie Diem, joins me to talk about them.

Thanks to Alpaca and Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this episode.

To see videos of these tools in action, visit cultofpedagogy.com/6-ed-tech-tools-2025.

It can happen to the best of us — classroom management deteriorating over time. Don't despair! By figuring out where the problems are, you can turn things back around. My guest is Claire English, who runs an incredible platform called The Unteachables, where she shows teachers how to manage their classrooms with confidence and calm. We talk about three reasons why classroom management can fall apart midway through a school year and what teachers can do to get things heading back in the right direction.

Thanks to Scholastic Magazines+ and Alpaca for sponsoring this episode.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 240. 

Learn more from Claire through her courses*, That'll Teach 'Em and The Low Level Behaviour Bootcamp. and her membership site, The Behaviour Club,.

*I am an affiliate of the Unteachables Academy. This means Cult of Pedagogy receives a commission on every purchase made through these links.

Multitasking isn't great for our brains, it compromises our mental health, and ultimately it doesn't even work, but that doesn't stop many of us from trying to do it all the time. What we may not realize is that it also sneaks into our classrooms and interferes with learning, and it's happening in ways you may not even notice. In today's episode, I'm talking with cognitive scientist Megan Sumeracki about the pitfalls multitasking creates in schools, and what we can do to avoid them.

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Thanks to The Gilder Lehrman Institute and Alpaca for sponsoring this episode.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 239.

For many this week, the discomfort and pain of living side by side with people who see the world so differently from us has hit hard. But this is where we are right now, and we can either succumb to our current divide and let it get bigger, or keep trying to figure out how to close it. Though I didn't plan it this way, this week's podcast just happens to address one of the ways we might start to do that in our classrooms. I'm talking with Peter Johnston, author of Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning, about the prompts and phrases teachers can use to equip students not to avoid or be afraid of differences, but to approach them as opportunities to learn. 

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Thanks to The Gilder Lehrman Institute and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/democratic-classroom.