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.

-------------------

Thanks to Grouper for sponsoring this EduTip!

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

-------------------

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.

--------------------------------------------

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. 

--------------------------------------------

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

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

Books are one of the most powerful ways to learn about others and about ourselves. But for that learning to happen, we need a wide range of stories that represent a whole spectrum of people and lives. In many schools and classrooms, however, the offerings are far too narrow. Curating the kind of library that truly reflects the diversity of human experience takes time, intention, money, and good tools. This episode will help you make that happen. Joining me are three exceptional librarians — Cicely Lewis, Julia Torres, and Julie Stivers — who share their advice for building more inclusive collections. They also recommend a handful of outstanding titles to add to your shelves.

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

For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 237. 

Any time we teach our students something, we need to check to see how well they learned it. If we only do this check at the very end, after all the teaching is done, and we find that our students haven't learned the material, it's too late to do anything about it. That's why we really need to do formative assessment — checking along the way — so if there are problems, we can fix them. In this episode, we're talking about five important things we need to do to make sure we get formative assessment right.

Joining me are two people who really understand what works in education: The Marshall Memo's master curator Kim Marshall, and Jenn David-Lang, the mind behind The Main Idea. Together they have published the Best of the Marshall Memo website, a fantastic, free collection of the best ideas in education.

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

For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/effective-formative-assessment/. 

If our students are going to thrive, they all need to feel safe, accepted, and loved while under our care. This week, we're focusing on what that looks like when it comes to gender-expansive students — kids whose gender expression or identity is different from what they were assigned at birth. For these students, creating a school that feels safe and accepting isn't simply a matter of being nice to them; there are some specific do's and don'ts that can make a huge difference in how they experience school. My guest is Dave Edwards, an educator who teaches these principles through his website, Gender Inclusive Schools, and his brand-new book of the same name. As the parent of a transgender daughter who has experienced discrimination, Dave's mission is a personal one. In this episode, he shares specific things schools can do to proactively create safe learning environments for these students.

Thanks to The Wired Classroom and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For links to Dave's book and a full transcript of our conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com/gender-inclusive-school.

Students learn better when movement is included in a lesson. In this episode, theater educator Jocelyn Greene teaches us four fun improv games that can work in most classrooms to get students actively engaged and make the learning really stick.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to EVERFI and The Wired Classroom for sponsoring this episode.

To watch videos of all four games, visit cultofpedagogy.com/theater-games.