Top Tenn Teaching

In this episode, we are talking to a Blount County Schools legend, Mrs. Jennifer Moore. Jennifer currently serves as the Secondary Supervisor for Blount County Schools but has also been a classroom level English teacher as well as a building level administrator. Jennifer shares with us her educational experience, how she was able to climb the educational career ladder, what her greatest success has been as a teacher, and we even touch on her enthusiasm for running.

Top Tenn Tips:

• Be Internet Awesome - New Family Resources
• Scholastic Book Clubs

Recommendations:

• Explore Women's History Month with Applied Digital Skills
• Orphan's Tale by Pam Jenoff

Mentioned in the Episode:

• Educated Memoir by Tara Westover
• Bullet Journal

In this episode, I will be sharing with you my top five fictional characters and lessons we can learn from them in teaching. These are not necessarily my favorite fictional characters, but characters I believe that have traits and values that we can learn from as educators. For the full show notes, go to toptennteaching.com

In this episode, we will be discussing the best advice that we have ever received. Young or old, new or experienced, we have all been on the receiving end of some advice. Some of the advice may be good, some might be less than good. But at one point or another, someone hits us with a nugget of wisdom that we just can’t shake.

We were truly blessed to get to speak with Rachel Owens and to hear her share her passion for teaching, music, and family. We sat down with Rachel to talk about her experience as a choir teacher, what it was like to come back from maternity leave, what it’s like to have her husband teaching on the same campus as her when they often combine their choirs, and what she wishes core subject area teachers knew about special or related arts teachers. Y’all are going to really enjoy hearing her story. For full show notes, go to toptennteaching.com.

In this episode, we are dishing out some love. In honor of Valentine’s Day being yesterday, we wanted to spread some love to other teachers on social media who inspire us daily. We are bringing you our top ten list of people to follow on social media.

Creating a Professional Learning Network is so important in today’s world and connecting with educators via social media can be a complete game changer in the classroom. We get inspired when we hop onto Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook and see people that we love following. We put our heads together and thought really hard about the people that we love following the most and today we are sharing that list with you.

On our list we have a variety of accounts that you should be following and we guarantee that you will walk away from this episode wanting to follow some new people. Also, if you have people to add to our list then send them our way. We are always on the hunt for new people to add to our follow list and to our PLN. Reach us at toptennteaching.com.

In this episode, we are talking to someone near and dear to both of our hearts... Mrs. Laura Maclin. Laura and Kelsey met while in graduate school and completed our Master’s Degree together while Derrick met Laura for a few courses in his own master degree program. We love Laura so much and it was a pleasure to be able to listen to her unique story of becoming a teacher and to be able to share it with you today. For our full show notes, visit toptennteaching.com. 

This is episode number 15 where we air our grievances and list our top ten teaching pet peeves. A pet peeve is something that is a frequent subject of complaint. We all have them and no matter what grade you teach or what school you’re at, you’ll be sure to find something on our list that hits home. For full show notes, visit our website... toptennteaching.com.

In this episode, we are talking with Dr. Courtney Whitehead. Courtney is the assistant principal at Carpenter’s Middle School in Blount County, Tennessee, a professor of education at a local university, and the queen of organization. We sat down in Courtney’s office for this conversation and to say that she has a captivating personality would be an understatement. She’s fun, energetic, and explains to us just what what true grit is. In our conversation today, you’ll even discover how riding a certain bus growing up shaped who she is today, how she got her gritty personality, and what she does to stay organized in her busy life.

Follow Dr. Whitehead on Twitter

Top Tenn Tips:
Derrick: Page Setup hack in any Google Doc
Kelsey: The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller

Top Tenn Recommendations:
Derrick: The Open Book Podcast
Kelsey: Colorado Teacher

In today’s episode, we are talking all about the identity of teachers. What is it that really makes someone a teacher? Is it shopping at Target for their school supplies, is it praying for snow days, is it being the first to arrive at work or the last to leave?  Today we give you our top 10 list of You might be a teacher if….

Follow:

• Derrick
• Kelsey
• Top Tenn Teaching
• Email

In today’s show, we talk to Summer Russell about how her first year as an administrator is going, what big plans she has for her school, how she worked hard to build relationships with her staff while building a strong school culture, and how she feels about having her own son at the school that she’s a principal at. We gained some very valuable insight from this conversation and we are sure that you will find it just as fun as we did.

Listener Mailbag:

• Katie Miller 
• Brian Webber
• Michelle Harris

Top Tenn Teacher Tips:

• Gimkit
• Flipgrid

Recommendations:

• 6 Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2019 by Jennifer Gonzalez at Cult of Pedagogy
• Book Tasting

Would You Rather?

• Poll - click here to simply answer the questions.
• Flipgrid - click here to pick a question and leave us some audio/video feedback