Jennifer Fredricks is a Professor of Psychology at Union College and has published over 50 journal articles and book chapters on student engagement, family socialization, adolescent development, and extracurricular participation. She’s the author of Eight Myths of Student Engagement: Creating Classrooms of Deep Learning.

https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/eight-myths-of-student-disengagement/book240322

What are the principles of democratic practice in the classroom environment that lead to deeper student-centered learning? Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg (@CIRCLE_KKG), one of the United State's leading experts in civics education, helps us answer this question and others. Professor Kawashima-Ginsberg is the Director of CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, part of Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. CIRCLE is a nonpartisan research organization producing and translating knowledge about how young people acquire civic skills and identities through a variety of experiences, and what makes certain learning experiences more effective than others. Drawing on her background in positive youth development and community psychology, her core scholastic interests are in understanding how young people interact with the cultural, educational, and institutional factors and shape their civic and political developmental trajectories over time. While Kei is interested in ensuring that any educational solutions target all young people, she is especially interested in diminishing learning opportunities gaps, including civic opportunities gaps. She comes on the SCL Podcast to help us understand how teachers can cultivate the habits and mindsets our students need to be civic minded and active agents in their learning and in their communities. Also, shout out to Generation Citizen (@gencitizen https://generationcitizen.org) for their great work in this field.

Students-at-the-Center Distinguished Fellow Mary Bellavance discusses how to organize your classroom space for SCL and how to develop a culture of a SCL in your classroom.

Joy Souza is Head of School at Blackstone Valley Prep Middle School 1 and the Rhode Island Department of Ed 2017-2018 Educator Excellence Leadership Fellow. She comes on the pod to discuss how her school integrates intentionally diversity, student-owned and competency-based assessment, personalized interventions, Socio-Emotional Learning, Culturally Responsive Teaching and high academic achievement into an excelling middle school.

For more information, go to www.blackstonevalleyprep.org or email her at [email protected].

Frank LaBanca is the award-winning Founding Principal of Danbury Connecticut’s Westside Middle School Academy Magnet and Students-at-the-Center distinguished fellow. He is also a national expert on project-based learning and comes on the pod to talk to us about the open-inquiry process, and how to help students define a meaningful and well-defined problem that guides deep and rigorous personalized learning.

On this episode of the pod, Meghan Dillon, a high school Social Studies in Providence, Rhode Island, conducts a guest interview as part of her work in a graduate course I teach called Student-Centered Learning in Urban Schools at Providence College. Meghan interviews Bryan Colahan, the Director of Curriculum Development at Project Engin, an educational consulting firm dedicated to the inclusion of more Engineering in K-12 education. Mr. Colahan works with classroom teachers to create projects and curriculum that deal with global issues and challenges. He comes onto the pod to discuss best practices in project-based learning for STEM instruction.

Guest podcaster Laura Briggs interviews educator Jessica Waters and her student Rachel about how students and staff transition into Summit Personalized Learning, and they also give some other excellent tips about SCL classroom implementation.

Guest host Hailey Heater interviews educator Victor Nasir Terry about being a black teacher among mostly white, New England colleagues and administration. They also discuss Victor's culturally relevant pedagogy.

Patrick Kavanaugh, guest podcaster and teacher in Providence, interviews Met High School teacher Omar Valerio and his student Julian about how they worked together to help Julian transition from a traditional teacher-centered high school to a student-centered model.

In this episode, high school biology teacher Joe Altongy guest interviews Principal Arzinia Gil and science teacher Mrs. Maruska of Del Sesto Middle School in Providence, RI, who are piloting the Summit Learning platform to transform their struggling urban school into a competency-based, student-owned and personalized model.