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In this episode of the Structured Literacy Podcast, Jocelyn provides essential guidance for educational leaders navigating the complex process of selecting instructional programs. 

She introduces a research-informed practice model that balances research findings, professional knowledge, and student outcomes, while emphasising that the goal should never be simply to "get a program" but to genuinely improve student learning. Jocelyn outlines the NICE framework for decision-making and shares critical criteria to evaluate when choosing programs. 

She warns against relying on social media recommendations and stresses the importance of evidence-based decisions that prioritise struggling students, offering practical advice on how to evaluate programs through sample lessons and gradual implementation approaches that set both teachers and students up for sustained success. 

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Too much professional development feels like a box-ticking exercise with little to show for the time invested. In this episode, Jocelyn unpacks decades of research findings to reveal the seven elements that make PD truly effective, and shows how leaders and teachers can stop wasting time and start creating lasting impact in classrooms.

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Sustainable school improvement happens when change is done with teachers, not to them, and when professional learning builds genuine understanding rather than just compliance with programs.

• The key difference between compliance and commitment in school change
• Why program implementation alone isn't enough to transform practice
• Starting with strengths rather than deficits when approaching improvement
• Understanding the "why" behind instructional decisions, not just the "what"
• Creating genuine space for reflection and ownership in professional learning
• How collaborative approaches lead to more sustainable changes
• Balancing clear expectations with teacher professionalism
• The importance of understanding context before implementing solutions
• Why the "messier" path of collaborative change leads to better outcomes
• Helping all staff become data-informed practitioners

Join us next episode as we dive into the research on effective professional learning and explore what makes it truly transformative.

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In this episode, Jocelyn unpacks a crucial distinction in the world of education: the difference between professional learning that simply ticks a box and learning that leads to lasting transformation in classrooms. Drawing on her experience as both a teacher and professional learning facilitator, Jocelyn explores the essential elements of impactful PL—from long-term commitment and real-world relevance to leadership support and collaborative action. If you’ve ever sat through a PD session wondering, “Will this actually make a difference?”, this episode is for you.

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In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn challenges the common assumption that teacher confidence equals competence, drawing on the Dunning-Kruger effect to show how the least skilled teachers often overestimate their abilities while knowledgeable educators frequently doubt themselves. Using her Responsive Leadership Model, she demonstrates how different developmental phases create mismatches between confidence and actual capacity, advocating for educational leaders to focus on observable teaching actions, instructional decision-making quality, and student learning outcomes rather than subjective confidence measures. 

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Professional judgment grows from a foundation of deep, defensible knowledge about how learning actually works. When you understand the cognitive science behind reading development, why systematic phonics instruction matters, and how orthographic mapping occurs, you're equipped to make informed decisions rather than simply following a script. Yet the strongest professional judgment comes from those constantly willing to question their own assumptions. This balance—being confident in what you know while remaining curious about what you don't—is the hallmark of truly effective teachers. 

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In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn argues for reintroducing regular read-alouds in upper primary classrooms, which have largely disappeared amid the focus on explicit, systematic instruction. She explores how interactive read-alouds build oral language foundations that support reading fluency through developing students' "language prediction engine"—the ability to anticipate what words come next based on vocabulary and syntax knowledge. 

Drawing on research showing that interactive read-alouds with vocabulary elaboration significantly improve student vocabulary and comprehension, Jocelyn provides practical strategies for strategic text selection, meaningful interaction, and curriculum integration while maintaining the joy and engagement that fosters lifelong reading habits. 

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In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn addresses how to safeguard the progress made in evidence-based literacy instruction by making data collection an integral part of teaching rather than an administrative burden. Drawing on Teacher Voice survey data showing significant shifts away from sight word programs and predictable texts between 2021-2023, she emphasises that implementing structured literacy programs means nothing without measuring their actual impact on student outcomes. 

Jocelyn provides seven practical strategies for data-informed practice, including understanding assessment purposes, aligning phonics assessments with program sequences, filling knowledge gaps before advancing, abandoning rigid pacing guides in favour of student data, conducting frequent check-ins, using personalised practice, and monitoring daily review effectiveness. 

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In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn outlines five strategic refinements to boost teaching effectiveness once foundational structured literacy practices are established. Drawing on cognitive science research including Dehaene's four pillars of learning and Rosenshine's principles, she presents actionable strategies: increasing student responses with early engagement within 30 seconds to activate attention systems, managing response ratios strategically for different learning outcomes, transforming daily review routines to emphasise retrieval over recognition, implementing personalised practice based on real-time student data, and encouraging connection-building to activate prior knowledge and support schema development. 

Rather than requiring dramatic program overhauls, these evidence-informed levers represent intentional refinements that build on existing structured literacy foundations to create greater impact through the accumulation of small, strategic teaching decisions. 

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In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn addresses how educators can maintain momentum during challenging periods by celebrating incremental progress rather than focusing solely on major outcomes like NAPLAN results. She outlines five key milestones worth celebrating: mastering literacy block timing and routines, students developing automatic behaviours that reduce negative incidents, observing short-term data movement in phonics assessments, witnessing students make cross-curricular connections with morphemes and vocabulary, and completing initial data collection with new assessment tools. 

Emphasising that sustainable change happens gradually, Jocelyn argues that these small wins build the cognitive load management and student confidence necessary for larger success, with the ultimate milestone being genuine student engagement and their recognition of their own progress. 

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