In this final episode of Series 2, we were privileged to speak to the inspirational Vivienne Porritt (@ViviennePorritt). Vivienne is a former headteacher and the national leader of WomenEd (@WomenEd) which campaigns for equitable balance in terms of gender and ethnicity at leadership level in education.

We certainly learnt a lot from Vivienne who spoke to us at length about the purpose of WomenEd and its global impact. Her drive and passion for fairness shone throughout the interview – by making women ‘believe’, we really feel that the WomenEd movement is empowering women and making a difference to society’s views on educational leadership. We found Vivienne a very humble, wise and passionate professional who cares deeply about making a difference.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The Staffroom and find Vivienne’s educational ideas as inspirational as we did. Please connect with Vivienne and the WomenEd movement on Twitter and have a look at their website, www.womened.org – let’s get involved and remove those labels! After all, there’s no such thing as normal!

In this week’s episode of The Staffroom, we were privileged to speak to author, Apple Distinguished Educator and international speaker, Craig Smith (@wrenasmir). Craig is the National Coordinator working for Positive Partnerships and an expert in Autism pedagogy.

Craig spoke to us about creative educational best practices for young people with autism. He shares his experience of working with students with special educational needs and explains his views on technology to support the social and emotional needs of these students. We were mind-blown by Craig’s passion and expertise and certainly learnt a lot from him.

So, without further ado, here’s a break-down of our chat complete with time-stamps:

We hope you enjoy this episode of The Staffroom and find Craig’s educational ideas as inspirational as we did. If you’d like to learn more about Minecraft, Skoog or find out more about Craig’s numerous projects, you should check out Craig’s wonderful website and blog, www.autismpedagogy.com!

We wish Craig all the best for 2019 and the growing success of his blog.

Until next time!

Jamie, Michael and Tessa

This week we were privileged to chat about creativity in the tech-classroom with Australian teacher Adam Torrens (@AdamTorrens84). Adam is an award-winning teacher, digital learning leader and Apple Distinguished Educator who works at Stamford American International Schoolin Singapore.

With the introduction of Apple’s ‘Everyone Can Create’ curriculum, we had lots to talk about and wanted to find out Adam’s thoughts and how he has utilised these resources. For us, video, photography, drawing and audio have an important role to plan in the modern classroom – Adam inspired us with innovative examples of the way technology is integrated at his school.

Here’s a break-down of our chat complete with time-stamps:

We hope you enjoyed this episode of The Staffroom and found Adam’s ideas and philosophy as inspiring as we did. The idea of putting pedagogy first and technology second has always struck a chord with us and we loved Adam’s views on Apple’s new curriculum. We wish Adam all the best for the future and his journey with digital creativity.

Until next time!

Jamie, Michael and Tessa

In this special episode of ‘The Staffroom’, we spoke to UK based former English teacher, author and director of research, Alex Quigley (@AlexJQuigley). Alex spoke to us about his recent book, ‘Closing the Vocabulary Gap’ and gave us insightful research based expert knowledge on the importance of vocabulary in education.

We found Alex’s ideas and perspectives on vocabulary both inspiring and intelligent. As English teachers, his insights into creating word-rich classrooms where students deconstruct vocabulary and build knowledge is something we found particularly powerful.

Throughout our chat with Alex, we were fortunate enough to speak about the following topics. Here’s a break-down of Alex’s responses complete with time-stamps:

If you’d like further information about Alex, you can check-out his website, www.theconfidentteacher.com. Also, if you’d like to read more of Alex’s published work, you can find a list of his on Amazon where they are available to purchase.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The Staffroom and found Alex’s words as fascinating as we did. We can’t wait to make vocabulary a focus in our classroom practice!

Until next time!

Jamie, Michael and Tessa

Twitter:

@XpatEducator

@Michael_Royall

@tessa_johnson2

In this awesome episode, we were honoured to have spoken with the one-and-only Kelly Croy (@kellycroy). Kelly is an author, speaker, Apple Distinguished Educator and is the voice of the popular, ‘The Wired Educator Podcast’ (@WiredEducator). Across the world, Kelly is known as an innovator and inspirational speaker who is passionate about education and leadership.

In our conversation with Kelly we spoke about podcasting as a medium in education for both teachers and students. Kelly shed light on why he thinks podcasting is a powerful tool to enhance student engagement and creativity and offered some insightful views on his experiences on his show. Want to know what was said? Check out the questions below:

Here’s a breakdown of our chat with Kelly including time-stamps so you can skip through:

Quick Fire Questions (27:25):

We loved Kelly’s enthusiasm and presence – his passion for podcasting was palpable and we certainly learnt a lot! Hopefully, this episode has inspired you to think of ways to integrate podcasting into the curriculum. For us, it’s helped us think of new, exciting and creative approaches to studying texts in English. What about you?

We wish Kelly Croy all the best for 2018 and his continuing success of ‘The Wired Educator Podcast’. If you’d like to pick up a copy of his book, you can buy ‘Along Came a Leader’from Amazon. Awesome!

Until next time!

Jamie, Michael and Tessa

In this episode of The Staffroom, we were lucky to speak to talented Apple Distinguished Educator, edtech pioneer and author, Paul Hamilton (@PaulHamilton8) about Augmented and Virtual Reality in education. Paul also spoke to us about his popular coding picture book, ‘If I Were A Wizard’and his app, Wizard AR and the way they enhance learning in his primary school classroom.

Our chat with Paul gave us some real insight into the potential use of AR and VR and what future learning technologies have to offer.

Here’s a break-down of our chat complete with time-stamps:

If you’d like further information about Paul, you can check-out his website, www.appsbypaulhamilton.com and follow his posts on Twitter (@PaulHamilton8). Also, if you’re interested in coding with your students, check out ‘If I Were A Wizard’available to purchase on Amazon – we highly recommend it!

We hope you enjoy this episode of The Staffroom and found Paul’s innovative ideas and resources as inspiring as we did. We’re excited to dig into the world of AR and VR and explore its potential with our students.

Until next time!

Jamie, Michael and Tessa

In this exciting episode of 'The Staffroom', we spoke about retrieval practicewith Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D. (@PoojaAgarwal) an expert in the field of cognitive science. Pooja is the Founder of RetrievalPractice.org, a hub of research, resources, and teaching strategies based on the science of learning – check this out!

Pooja’s work is being noticed more and more by teachers around the world as she offers practical tips and advice on cognitive psychological research and strategies can enhance and accelerate student learning.

Here’s our conversation with Pooja broken down with time-stamps:

We hope you enjoy this episode of The Staffroom and found Pooja’s ideas on retrieval practice strategies as fascinating as we did. We gathered lots of practical tips and tricks on how to work smarter not harder – remember: retrieval practice is one of the most powerful strategies to use in your classroom – why not give it a go?

We wish Dr Pooja K. Agarwal all the best for 2018 and her continuing success of RetrievalPractice.org. Remember to buy her book once it’s released in June next year!

Until next time!

Jamie, Michael and Tessa

‘The Staffroom’ is back! In the first episode of Series 2, we were lucky enough to speak to Oliver Caviglioli about the power of learning visuals and its basis in cognitive psychology. Oliver (@olicav) is an information designer who is widely known as an expert in visualising educational concepts. In recent years, he has worked with lots of different teacher-authors in illustrating their books.

Our chat with Oliver gave us some real insight into the use of visuals (such as sketch-noting) to conceptualise, categorise and organise information to enhance learning.

Here’s a break-down of our chat complete with time-stamps:

If you’d like further information about Oliver, you can check-out his work with Dr Megan Sumeracki (@DrSumeracki) and Dr Yana Weinstein who are the creators of The Learning Scientists project. Their book is called ‘Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide’ – check this out now!

We hope you enjoy this episode of The Staffroom and found Oliver’s words as fascinating as we did. We can’t wait to make sketch-noting and informational design part of our practice!

Until next time!

In this episode of ‘The Staffroom’, we chatted with English Teacher and author Jamie Thom (@teachgratitude1 ) about the way slowing-down and taking-stock can lead to better teacher well-being and student outcomes. We also talked to Humanities teacher, James Ramsey about the way low-stakes, high-impact formative assessment strategies are making a difference in his learning area.

In our first interview, Jamie Thom speaks about his book, ‘Slow Teaching: Finding Calm, Clarity and Impact in the Classroom’ and refocusing practice so that teachers only do things for the right reasons. Here’s a break-down of Jamie’s ideas:

Head of Learning Area at Corpus Christi College, James Ramsey speaks with us about the practical ways formative assessment and feedback is having an impact in his classes. Here’s a break-down of James’ responses:

We hope you enjoy this episode of The Staffroom and found Jamie and James’ ideas as through-provoking as we did. We certainly will be considering ways to slow down and stream-line our own practice!

We wish Jamie Thom and James Ramsey all the best for 2018 and her continuing success of The Learning Scientists project

Until next time!

Jamie, Michael and Tessa

In this episode of ‘The Staffroom’, we connected with Dr Yana Weinstein (@doctorwhy), an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Psychology at University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Yana spoke with us about the way research-based cognitive science can be applied to education in order to enhance learning.  

Together with Dr Megan Sumeracki (@DrSumeracki), Yana is the creator of The Learning Scientists project. Their website is becoming well-known by students and teachers around the world as it hosts a popular blog and offers a variety of practical resources and materials on cognitive science strategies. They also have an excellent podcast show, The Learning Scientists Podcast. Check it out!

In their work, Yana and Megan have identified what they call, Six Strategies for Effective Learning based on decades of research. In no particular order, here they are:

In this episode, we were fortunate to speak with Yana about, spaced practice, retrieval practice, interleaving and dual coding. Here’s a break-down of Yana’s responses:

We hope you enjoy this episode of The Staffroom and found Yana’s six strategies as fascinating as we did. We can’t wait to build these strategies into our practice and teach students how to study properly! 

We wish Dr Yana Weinstein all the best for 2018 and her continuing success of The Learning Scientists project

Until next time!

Jamie, Michael and Tessa