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It's summer! The kids are on holidays, and teachers are living their best life!

But imagine if your kids did not go back to school....they were home schooled. What would that look like? How would that work?! Would it be pandemic learning all over again?

If you're a parent or teacher and interested in home schooling, you might want to check out this episode. Today I chat with Chauncy Childs,  co- founders of OWL Home Education Network. Chanucy has been a home educator for 25 years and home educated six of her oldest children.  Chanucy and her business partner  created OWL Home Education network because they believe that the public education system does not fit the needs of all students and families, and wanted to provide an alternative solutions to families.

In this episode, we talk about:
📚 Will students get the proper socialization they need to develop?
📚 What qualifications do you need to become a home school teacher?
📚 What does a typical day look like for students and teachers?
📚 How does grading work for home schooled students?
📚 Is home schooling for everyone?

Come check it out! Leave us a review on Apple Podcast!

Website: Owl Home Education Network

SPONSOR: SPACES
Spaces is a new platform backed by 15+ years of educator feedback, designed to document the process and progress behind Student learning in your classroom. Join the Spaces community to connect with educators across North America, gain access to free teacher-created resources, help educators who are just starting out in their journey and learn new things from teachers who have been there before. Visit community.spacesedu.com today to join."

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Teachers, are you excited for retirement?! 

After the last two years, I think some of us are considering it a lot sooner than we initially planned! I'm only 10 years into the job, so I'm still a young buck! But it's never too soon to start thinking about retirement.

Today I bring in Jim Connolly, a retired elementary school teacher from the Simcoe County District School Board. Jim was a teacher for 28 years before he hung up the cleats. Jim has now been retired for 9 years now! In retirement, he spends majority of his time as a professional wrestling referee for organizations such as 365 Pro Wrestling and No Ring North. Jim received his bachelors of education from the OISE at the University of Toronto.

On this episode, I ask Jim about:

1. When did he start thinking about retirement?
2. Was it a challenge to transition into retirement life?
3. How did retirement impact his marriage with his wife?
4. Is the Ontario Teacher Pension Plan enough to live  a comfortable lifestyle?
5. What's one thing he wish he knew about retirement before entering this stage of his life?

Check out this episode! Tell a friend. Hit subscribe. Thanks for supporting the podcast folks!

Instagram - @eddyoldschool
TikTok - @eddyoldschool123

SPONSOR: SPACES
Spaces is a new platform backed by 15+ years of educator feedback, designed to document the process and progress behind Student learning in your classroom. Join the Spaces community to connect with educators across North America, gain access to free teacher-created resources, help educators who are just starting out in their journey and learn new things from teachers who have been there before. Visit community.spacesedu.com today to join."

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Unions. Unions. Unions. You love them or you hate them! Teacher's unions have been front and centre in the news over the last few years. Even if you aren't a teacher, you know at the very least they exists. But other than sitting at the bargaining table, what other value does the Ontario Teacher's Federation provide teachers? 

So today, I bring in Chris Cowley, the 78th President of the Ontario's Teachers Federation. In his role as President, him and his organization is responsible for advocating for all 160,000 Ontario teachers at publicly funded schools. Previous to this role, Chris was a teacher at St. Johns College in Brantford teaching Canadian and World Studies and Religious Studies. He was also involved with his schools in athletics, coaching the schools baseball,  and involved with student council. Chris received his Bachelors, B.Ed, and M.Ed all from Western University.

On this episode we talk about:

1. What is the Ontario Teacher's Federation (OTF)? What do they do?
2. Whats the difference between all the different affiliated teachers union (ie.AEFO, ETFO, OECTA,  OSSTF)  and OTF?
3. Teacher shortage - is there anything being done to rectify this?
4. Are unions necessary in this day and age?
5. Do teachers union protect bad teachers?
6. What are the recent OCT governance changes? Good or bad?
7. What is OTF's relationship with the Ontario Teachers Pension plan?
8. What can be done to improve Teacher Education Programs?

You won't want to miss this episode with Chris! Check it out!

Website: https://www.otffeo.on.ca/en/
Twitter: Chris Cowley

SPONSOR: SPACES
Spaces is a new platform backed by 15+ years of educator feedback, designed to document the process and progress behind Student learning in your classroom. Join the Spaces community to connect with educators across North America, gain access to free teacher-created resources, help educators who are just starting out in their journey and learn new things from teachers who have been there before. Visit community.spacesedu.com today to join."

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It's exam season everyone! During the pandemic, schools and teachers had to rethink and reimagine how to assess students. Traditional tests and exams were difficult to do online. Now we are out of the assessments, a lot of teachers (including myself) are reverting back to old ways.

In this episode, I wanted to explore what are the best way to assess students learning. Today I bring in assessment expert, Damian Cooper. Previous to this career, Damian was a High School teacher teaching English, Spec. Ed, and Drama. He has specialized in student assessment since 1986 and has consulted for school boards, the ministry of education and other various academic institutions across Canada, the U.S and international countries. Damian is the author of four books, which all focus on assessment. His most recent publication is titled 'Rebooting Assessment', which you can find online.

 In this episode, we talk about:

1. What are different ways to assess students?
2. What does Damian mean by having a 'balanced approach" in assessment?
3. Is their danger in having too many rich assessments?
4. What are his thoughts on standardized testing?
5. How can teachers in math (and accounting) assess students differently other than your traditional tests?

Check it out! We are almost at the end of the finish line. Crawling to the finish line...

Website: http://www.planteachassess.com/damian-cooper

Newest Publication: Rebooting Assessment

Twitter: @Cooperd1954

SPONSOR: SPACES
Spaces is a new platform backed by 15+ years of educator feedback, designed to document the process and progress behind Student learning in your classroom. Join the Spaces community to connect with educators across North America, gain access to free teacher-created resources, help educators who are just starting out in their journey and learn new things from teachers who have been there before. Visit community.spacesedu.com today to join."

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Last season I did an episode interviewing my Associate Teacher, Paul Kralik. I asked him questions about how to give feedback, managing a student teacher, and his overall approach.

This term, I am managing my first teacher! I thought the best way to learn is to ask him what he's looking for! We decided to make it into a podcast episode to figure out what he's looking for in his practice experience and how I can facilitate that. On this episode I have Matthew Colalillo, or as the kids in my classroom know him as Mr. C. Matt is a student at Niagara University in Buffalo. He has teachable in Business and Math. Before starting his journey to becoming an educator, Matt spent 2.5 years at CIBC working as a Financial Advisor and 3 years at TD in the same role. He graduated from Guelph University with a degree in Business, and is now looking to share his knowledge of the business world in my Grade 11/12 accounting classroom! 

On this episode, we talk about:

1. Why did he decide to go to Niagara University in Buffalo for his education?
2. How should I approach him when giving feedback? (ie. blunt, positive-negative-positive?)
3. How involved does he want me to be with classroom management issues?
4. What does he want out of this expierence?
5. What does the perfect Associate Teacher look, and sound like?

...and course much more! Check out this episode! Hit the subscribe button. You'll love it!

SPONSOR: SPACES
Spaces is a new platform backed by 15+ years of educator feedback, designed to document the process and progress behind Student learning in your classroom. Join the Spaces community to connect with educators across North America, gain access to free teacher-created resources, help educators who are just starting out in their journey and learn new things from teachers who have been there before. Visit community.spacesedu.com today to join."

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Do any teachers listening teach Advance Placement courses? Has anyone ever taken these courses? I've seen these courses being offered when I was a student at my high school. The school I currently work at also offers these courses...not going to lie...I have no idea what value these courses provide! All I know is they are harder and they are supposed to offer you university credits...I think...

So I want to get to the bottom of this. So today, I bring in someone who has a deep understanding of AP courses. Today I have Carlos Heleno, a colleague of mine at Appleby College. Carlos is the schools Coordinator of External Academic Programs and in this role includes the planning and organization that goes behind the Advance Placement Program. Carlos has been at Appleby for 14 years and is also an English teacher at our school, teaching grade 9 and 10 this year. Previous to Appleby, Carlos spent 12 years at Bayview Glen, in various positions including the Assistant Head of School. Carlos, is also currently completing his Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Western University.

In this episode, we talk about:

1. What are Advance Placement Courses?
2. How does the grading system work in these courses?
3. Do you need to take AP courses to get into U.S Schools?
4. Whats the difference between Advance Placement and International Baccalaureate 
5. Do teachers/schools need to be certified to teach these courses?

...and so much more!

Check it out! I learned a lot from this conversation, and so will you!

LinkedIn: Carlos Heleno
Website: AP College Board

SPONSOR: SPACES
Spaces is a new platform backed by 15+ years of educator feedback, designed to document the process and progress behind Student learning in your classroom. Join the Spaces community to connect with educators across North America, gain access to free teacher-created resources, help educators who are just starting out in their journey and learn new things from teachers who have been there before. Visit community.spacesedu.com today to join."

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Hello! Welcome back to Season 2 of The Teacher Hotline! 🙌

We are back! I can't believe we are doing this again. But believe it baby!

On our first episode back, we're coming at ya hot with an awesome episode with Tim Cavey, a Middle School VP at Vancouver Christian School. He is also the host of the #1 EduPodcast in Canada, called Teachers on Fire!

On this episode, we talk about what are some of his responsibilities as a Vice Principal at a middle school. We try to take a peek behind the curtain and see what do administrators actually do.

If you're interested in climbing the education ladder and want to be in administration one day, check it out!

SPONSOR: SPACES
Spaces is a new platform backed by 15+ years of educator feedback, designed to document the process and progress behind Student learning in your classroom. Join the Spaces community to connect with educators across North America, gain access to free teacher-created resources, help educators who are just starting out in their journey and learn new things from teachers who have been there before. Visit community.spacesedu.com today to join."

Twitter: @teachersonfire
TikTok: @teachersonfire
Instagram: @teachersonfire
Facebook: @teachersonfire
Youtube: Teachers on Fire
LinkedIn: Tim Cavey
Website: https://teachersonfire.net/

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Thank you to everyone who has been supporting the Teacher Hotline podcast! It has been an incredible ride over the last several months!

This podcast was built out of boredom during the lockdown, and has now turned into something much bigger. The podcast was recently listed as the #6 Teacher Education Podcast in Canada. Thats all because of you! 

Thank you too...

1. Colleagues/Teachers/Parents/Students - Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for following. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for supporting. the whole community has been so supportive and helped me grow this podcast. I appreciate it all! 🙏
2. Guests - I have 35 episodes, so impossible to thank everyone! But thank you to all my guests. There would be no show without you. It was your expertise, personality and willingness to do the show is the main reason why there is a podcast. So thank you for coming on!
3. Sponsor: SpacesEdu - Thank you to Spaces for sponsoring the podcast! I appreciate everyone in the organization for believing in the podcast to begin with. Everyone go check them out! Click on the link!

Thanks again everyone for listening. We'll be back in the New Year. We might go to a bi-weekly format...but we'll see. Click subscribe, follow me on Instagram! Tell your friends!

Happy Holidays!!

Stand Up Tickets:

• Saturday December 18th @ 10:30pm - ShowTime Comedy - St. Catherines - NEW SHOW ADDED
• Thursday December 23rd @7:30pm - Old Flame Brewery - New Market
• Tuesday January 4th @9pm - Yuk Yuk Toronto 

Sponsor:

• SpacesEdu

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• Instagram - @theteacherhotline
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A few weeks ago I asked my guest Alan Chan, what is it like to work at an all boys school? Naturally, that lead me to ask, what is it like to work at an all girls school?

So today I got to speak to Sarah Leaper, a middle school teacher at St. Mildred's-Lightbourn School! I wanted to know:

👧 What are the different all girls school out there in Ontario?

👧 What kind of girls would benefit from learning in an all girls environment? 

👧Whats the big difference between teaching at an all girls vs co-ed school?

and much more!

Folks, this is the final episode before we end our first season! Going to take a little bit of a break for December before we come back for Season 2 in the New Year. 

Thank you everyone for supporting the podcast up to this point. Next week, we will do a quick wrap up episode to put a nice little bow on the first season. But thank you everyone for supporting The Teacher Hotline! Happy Holidays! 🎄

Twitter - @leaperrr
LinkedIn - Sarah Leaper

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This year I was lucky enough to train a student teacher and have my first experience in being an Associate Teacher. Teaching a student teacher is definitely a lot different than teaching your students! So it made me think, what makes a great Associate Teacher?

This week, I brought in my Associate Teacher, Mr. Paul Kralik. Paul trained me back in March of 2012 at Northern Secondary. Paul has been a teacher for 15 years, and in the span has trained 20 student teachers! He currently works at Northern Secondary, teaching grade 9 Business, Accounting, and Financial Securities. Paul received his B.Ed of OISE and his MBA from the Schulich Business School at York University. 

Paul was an incredible Associate Teacher, and I had to pick his brain about:

1. His approach to training student teachers
2. His philosophy around giving feedback:
   • How often? Daily? Weekly? After every lesson?
   • How to give difficult or constructive feedback?
3. How to manage difficult student teachers?
4. How to ensure your students receive quality education while training your student teacher? 
5. How to be an effective Associate Teacher?

and much more!

If you have the opportunity to become an Associate Teacher, I would highly recommend! Check out what Paul has to say first!

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