Over the last few years, the boundaries have blurred between home and school. We no longer want to just engage with families; we want to partner with them. Our common goal is to ensure their child’s well-being and to provide a path toward lifelong success that is filled with possibilities. We welcome our special guest, Denis Parcells, principal of William C. Jack Elementary School in Glendale, Arizona, to talk with us about developing family connections and nurturing a common purpose. Denis joins the team to share his strategies for partnering with parents, building trust, and developing communication pathways to create connections that support families throughout their child's academic career. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

In preparation for Thanksgiving, we reached out on social media and asked teachers two questions:

• Why did you get into education?
• What is your current “why” that keeps you going as a teacher?

We’ll be sharing and reflecting on some of the responses we received in today's episode. As we prepare for quality time with our family and friends, we wanted to take a moment to remember what we are thankful for. To the teachers—you make such a difference in the lives of our students, families, and communities. This episode is our thank you to you. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Art isn't just about drawing. It encompasses so many media, including technology. This week we meet with Nic Hahn, a K–5 Elementary Art Specialist in Minnesota, who shares her experience engaging students in a creative process to promote student agency. The team learns from Nic easy-to-implement strategies for infusing artistic creation into the core curriculum. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

In this week's podcast episode, our team is joined once again by Theren Hayes—a National Board Certified Teacher and PK–12 Instructional Technology Specialist from the Tukwila School District in Washington—to share easy-to-implement digital teaching strategies to amplify student voice across grade levels. There are so many ways for us to help students find and share their voice—not only in the classroom but also with the world. Join us as we look at several forms of technology and teaching best practices to amplify students' ownership of their learning process. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Prior to the pandemic, more and more schools and districts across the United States were shifting to 1:1, meaning they had one device for every single student. As a result of the pandemic, an even greater number of schools and districts have gone 1:1, so we ask the question: Now what? In this week's podcast, we begin to shift the conversation from how we get technology into the classroom to how we might create an inclusive, technology-rich environment that fosters student agency and student ownership. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

As we face increasing disruption to our routines of living and learning, the conversation about access to learning has become more prominent across the US. In today’s episode, we explore how educators can provide inclusive and innovative solutions to help students navigate their personal pathways to learning. We begin by addressing the following question: How can we provide students with multiple means of engagement? We discuss a common lesson design issue where teachers are instructed to create lessons for the average student. But does the average student really exist? Join us as we answer this question and explore Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

The idea of building relationships has been a frequent topic of conversation in K–12 education over the last few years, especially when thinking about working with communities of color and other marginalized identities. Today, we reflect on the thoughts of Zaretta Hammond—educator and subject-matter expert on culturally responsive teaching—regarding the benefits of getting to know your students. She mentions the practice of using “cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to new concepts and content…” We explore what she means by that and how this might look in the classroom. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Privilege and the role that it plays in our relationships and communication styles implicitly and explicitly impacts how we manage difficult conversations. One of the things we often forget to recognize is that we all have stories—the narratives that we tell ourselves to understand our world. Instead of shying away from or ignoring conversations about challenging topics, we need to understand that how we think about race, class, and gender impact how we manage our place within the world. Today, we are going to model how to have a difficult conversation between three people from different parts of the world, with different identities, experiences, and points of view. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

In this episode, the team shares their strategies, goals, and lessons learned about prioritizing self-care as a teacher. Filled with warmth, humor, and vulnerability, the team wonders how we might learn to give ourselves the same grace we extend to others…and how to do it without feeling guilty. Easier said than done. We know. Join us as we discuss the nature of self-care and the paradox of feeling like self-care means selfish, when in fact, the opposite is true. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

In this week's episode, we meet with our special guest—a high school History teacher and History Department Chair at New Visions Advanced Math and Science II in the Bronx—Ruben Martinez. Ruben shares his focus on empathy and learning who's in his class to help engage students in learning as they build new routines in the face-to-face classroom. Together, Ruben and the team share the surprises and insights they have encountered as the new school year begins, and they remind us that we all went through it this year. We all need a hug. That hug might look different for everyone. It might be a high-five. It might be about the Knicks… But we must remember to take a moment to learn to interact again. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.