At a time when student behaviors and attitudes seem more troubling than ever before, we may need to approach their behavior in a different way, too. In this episode, Alex Shevrin Venet returns to talk about unconditional positive regard, a philosophy that offers students care no matter what — they don't have to earn it, and nothing they do can make it go away. This approach can transform some of the most difficult student-teacher relationships, but it's not easy. Venet shows us how it works, why it works, and how teachers can get the support they need to navigate it.

Thanks to Listenwise and EVERFI for sponsoring this episode.

Read the full transcript and find links to Alex's book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education at cultofpedagogy.com/unconditional-positive-regard/.

Giving students time for reflection on their learning is so good for them: It builds their metacognitive capacity, it teaches them to take agency for their own learning, and it helps them and YOU see more clearly what they have learned and what they need next. But when we have so much other stuff to do, reflection often gets shoved out of the way. In this episode, high school teacher Marcus Luther returns to share a simple, completely free system he developed for giving students regular time for self-reflection. It's a year-long document we're calling a Learning Story.

Thanks to Listenwise and EVERFI for sponsoring this episode.

Read Marcus's full blog post about this strategies, view images, and grab a free Learning Story template at cultofpedagogy.com/learning-stories.

When it comes to teaching kids how to read, what is the big debate about? And what does research say we should be doing? In this episode, literacy expert Jen Serravallo and researcher Dr. Kelly Cartwright help us understand the different perspectives on effective reading instruction and what research says teachers and school leaders should be doing now to help kids learn to read.

Thanks to EVERFI and Verizon Innovative Learning HQ for sponsoring this episode.

You can read a full transcript of this podcast at cultofpedagogy.com/reading-instruction/.

Students who have learned enough English to do well socially may still need scaffolding to thrive academically. In this episode, I talk with Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton, authors of the book Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals, about the specific strategies teachers can use to help these learners reach their full potential across the curriculum.

Thanks to Grammar Gap Fillers and Giant Steps for sponsoring this episode.

You can read a full transcript of this podcast at cultofpedagogy.com/experienced-multilinguals.

Positive, accurate representations of Arab voices and contributions are largely missing from our classrooms. In this episode, four educators — Sawsan Jaber, Reem Fakhry, Fatma Elsamra, and Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi — teach us how we can change that.

This episode is sponsored by JumpStart.

Read a full transcript of this episode and find a robust list of excellent resources for integrating Arab narratives into your curriculum at cultofpedagogy.com/arab-narratives.

Trauma-informed teaching has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, and my guest, Alex Shevrin Venet, is a wonderful guide to help us better understand how it works. Her book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education, offers a holistic, nuanced exploration of what this work looks like in practice, and it does so with equity at the center. In this episode, we talk about what trauma-informed teaching looks like in practice, how some approaches to this work miss the mark, and how teachers can start applying some basic principles of good trauma-informed teaching right away.

Thanks to EVERFI and Giant Steps for sponsoring this episode.

Read a summary of this interview and a full transcript at cultofpedagogy.com/trauma-informed-education.

Do you ever feel like you're just marching through your content, trying to get it done? Like your students are just regurgitating it back, but not really learning it? Would you love to design deeper learning experiences in your classroom, but you're just not sure how? This episode may have some answers for you. I talk with Sarah Fine, co-author of the book In Search of Deeper Learning, about the specific elements found in classrooms that offer richer, more engaging learning experiences for students, and how you can apply those elements to your own teaching.

Thanks to EVERFI and Giant Steps for sponsoring this episode.

The core activity of this after-school program is boxing, but it offers so much more to students. In this episode, I talk with Jamyle Cannon, executive director of The Bloc Chicago, about why this program has been so wildly successful at helping students achieve personal and academic success, and how other educators can follow the same model by building engaging programs around student interests in their communities.

Thanks to EVERFI and Giant Steps for sponsoring this episode.

When we ask a broad question to a large group — students, an audience, attendees at a meeting — we often get nothing in response. Plenty of the people probably have something to say; they just haven't been asked the right question.

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

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Thanks to The Modern Classrooms Project for sponsoring this episode.

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In too many classrooms, our students aren't really thinking. What they're doing instead is more like mimicking, and my guest Peter Liljedahl is determined to change that. In this episode, we'll learn about his Thinking Classroom approach to instruction, where students are up on their feet, actively and collaboratively problem-solving, in a format that has taken the math world (and beyond) by storm.

Thanks to Listenwise and Wipebook for sponsoring this episode.