Two Teachers Talking™

Game Over: Tony has retired.

I made it. My last class was February 10, my contracts expire 3/31/21. I'm retired. 🍾 🥂

Charles and I talk about what this means.

I used to teach: http://tonysensei.net

Personal: http://tony-silva.com

Also, for the record, after some of those last classes, I cried like a baby. I will miss teaching way more than it sounds on the podcast. When it's your time, don't be too proud or think you're too tough to seek out some counseling to ease the transition. Just sayin'. It's as big a step as it looks.

The self-sabotaging student. There's nothing so creative, resourceful, and frustrating as a student set on his or her own failure. You can't win them all.

Charles talks with a first-year education major at a university. They discuss her educational journey, transition from international school student to an observer at an international school, online learning, and face-to-face classroom observation.

It's been such a rough year, we didn't have the energy to select a topic. Still, we manage to marshal some lessons learned and even find some not-so-obvious highlights of the past year.

Many articles have been published in the past few decades “debunking” the notion of learning styles. Yet, despite that, many teachers are reluctant to let go of the idea. Then what about differentiated learning? Well…"they" say that doesn’t work either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Tony sits down with Prof. Alison Kitzman to try to sort this out.

After a semester on the front lines of remote learning/teaching using Zoom, we share what we’ve learned. Some basics, some stuff we’re pretty sure will be new to you. PLUS, a special giveaway of a great application/tool. Good luck with the new semester!

A look back at what was necessary to survive the first semester of remote teaching and what might be necessary in the semesters to come, for both teachers and students. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Everyone’s feeling the strain at the end of along, even crazier than usual spring semester. A mind mapping tool might be what you need to ease the load a bit. What’s a mind map and where can it take me? Find out. Uses, tips, essential features.

How much is too much, how much is too little? Conscience, responsibilities, ethics, cultural imperialism…we struggle with how to begin to figure out what the right thing to do is on rapidly shifting social terrain.

It’s been a few weeks. We’re still standing (well, sitting, mostly), zero student casualties, at least as far as we can tell. So, what’s it been like? Taking a break in the trenches, we try to assess what's been happening, what’s been working, what hasn’t, and what we–and our students–have learned so far in this very unusual academic year.