The mic has officially been passed to us from Ben Kalb! With the re-launch of the podcast, we are celebrating all things NEW; new year, new students, and new teachers! Our goal is to create inspiration and empowerment for educators, so alongside the giants of education, new hosts Suzy Evans and Shane Saeed will also be talking with classroom educators and how they use these theories in their practice on a daily basis. Join us for our first episode of 2023 as we talk about the power of networking, creating your teaching village, and how connecting with other educators is the key to our collective success!

We reconnect with Ben Kalb, super-podcaster and the creator of Vrain Waves to ground us all in the original mission of the podcast. We also talk about how we plan to carry on with interviewing educational movers and shakers, but then add contributions from classroom educators as well. 

Our first classroom guest is one of our own, St. Vrain Valley Schools 5th-grade teacher, Farah Holburn, who talks about how she connects with other teachers, creates a positive atmosphere in her building, and continues to be a lifelong learner. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vrain-waves-teaching-conversations-with-minds-shaping/id1365316994

@SuzannahEvans2

@saeed_shane

Episode 060: Grading for Equity with Joe Feldman

Connect with Joe Feldman 

Website: https://crescendoedgroup.org/ | Twitter: @JoeCFeldman 

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Lindsay Laporte Twitter: @LaPorteLindsay |Oakley Schilling Twitter: @OakleySchilling| Ben KalbTwitter: @mrkalb 

 

Episode 059: Principal Kafele on Transformative Change

Connect with Principal Kafele

Website: https://principalkafele.com/| Twitter: @principalkafele| YouTube: School Leadership Thoughts

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | 
Shane Saeed| Instagram: @fantasticallyfourth Twitter: @saeed_shane
Ben Kalb| Twitter: @mrkalb 

 

Episode 058: John Spencer and the Sporky Food Truck

Connect with John Spencer 

Website: http://www.spencerauthor.com | Twitter: @spencerideas| YouTube: Spencer Videos

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Violet  Twitter: @vhchristensen | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb 

Violet hosts a podcast for instructional coaches called C3 (Connecting Coaches Cognition) and it can be found wherever you get your podcasts or here. 

Katie Martin is a best selling author, an acclaimed keynote speaker, and a highly sought after educational consultant! Whether you are teaching completely in person, totally virtually, or in a hybrid environment, in this episode we discuss how you can thrive!

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Temple Hayles Guest Co-Host:  @haylessvvsd| Ben Kalb: @mrkalb

Connect with Katie Martin

Twitter: @katiemartinedu | Website: katielmartin.com | Book: Learner-Centered Innovation

Connect with Zaretta Hammond

Twitter: @Ready4Rigor | Website: crtandthebrain.com | Book: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

• Intro
  • Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key, Stoicism, Blog post about habits
• Zaretta’s Current Conversations (05:05) 
  • Covid webinars
  • Apollo 13 (09:47) 
• Family / Parent Relationships (11:13) 
  • Trust Generators (other resources from the book here!)  
• Only learners learn (19:42) 
  • Ron Ritchhart, Project Zero, Making Thinking Visible
  • Ready for Rigor Framework
  • School of Rock movie
• The achievement gap (28:11) 
• Minimize threat, maximize connection (32:57) 
  • Standing, Certainty, Control, Connection, Equity
  • Collectivist culture / Individualistic culture
• Relationship-building (39:02)
• Jim Knight - Zaretta Hammond webinar on Facebook

Connect with Kate Murphy

Website: https://www.nytimes.com/by/kate-murphy | Book: You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

• Intro to Kate Murphy, her book (01:24) 
  • Best Nonfiction book of 2020
• Listening for a living (03:35)
• We all have megaphones in our pockets (05:34)
• The coronavirus pandemic is really showing us how we are not in control (07:15) 
• Listening is a grand adventure (07:40)
• Courage & Curiosity (07:59)
• No one is boring (09:12)
• Nothing is black and white (10:45)
• How to listen to people you disagree with (12:08) 
  • Clinton impeachment
  • Ginsburg and Scalia
• fMRI patterns during listening (17:46) 
• Loneliness (19:15) 
• Virtual Conferencing (21:00) 
• Growing Better Listeners through education (23:49) 
• How to listen well depends on the context (27:03)
• What if people aren't listening to you? (30:46)
• Takeaways (33:32) 
  • Libro.FM -- Educator downloads
  • Betty Crocker cake mixes focus group 
  • Give us feedback
  • vrainwaves.com

Episode 054: Coping with Covid, with Catlin Tucker

As we all try to wrap our heads around the implications the pandemic will have on our students, our communities, our families, and ourselves, we hope to provide some comforting guidance from an expert in remote learning. Catlin Tucker, whose original Vrain Waves interview aired back in Season 2 about her book Power Up Blended Learning, joins us again for a Sunday discussion about how we can approach these changes to our instruction. 

Connect with Catlin Tucker

Website: https://catlintucker.com | Twitter: @catlin_tucker | Most Recent Book: Balance with Blended Learning

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

• Intro 
  • Episode 053 with Dr. Todd Rose
  • Poem: Pandemic, by Lynn Ungar
  • https://www.createtocope.com/: “Creativity is the pathway towards healing.”
  • Washington Post Simulation article
  • Lenin quote: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” 
  • Episode 045 with Dr. Jim Afremow
  • Episode 020 with Catlin Tucker
• Start of Interview (10:07) 
• Setting schedules at home (12:00)
  • Catlin’s blog with family schedule
  • Security and routine at home 
• Fitting into family schedules (14:52) 
  • Schoology, Canvas, Google Classroom
  • Virtual Office Hours
  • Remind
• Timing & Moving classes online (17:46) 
  • Retrieval
  • Pieces of our lessons can live online -- decide which ones work for you 
  • Work backwards from your objectives
  • Add collaborative opportunities for students to engage with each other 
• Combating Social Isolation (20:27) 
  • Catlin’s Blog Post
  • Community of Inquiry Framework -- Teaching Presence, Cognitive Presence, Social Presence 
  • Informal conversations for development 
  • Stronger sense of social presence = better outcomes for online learning
  • Google Slides Discussions 
  • Less is more, take new learning slow
• Tenets of Online Learning (24:48)
  • Backwards design stands true
  • What artifacts do I need for assessment? 
  • Which instructional strategies will work for this outcome? 
  • Many tools have more capacity than we even know about -- dig into the tools you already know 
  • Screencastify
• Where should we be spending our energy? (27:15) 
  • Video instruction on concepts & new information, model processes, and move students forward
  • Online discussions are a must 
  • Catlin’s Doctoral Work
  • Power Up Blended Learning
  • Vocabulary.com; NoRedInk
• Online discussions (32:34) 
  • Catchy title as a hook 
  • Layer your questions
  • Media is a must
  • Give students ideas for discussion responses (give a compliment, a recommendation, etc)
  • Ladder of Feedback (Clarity, Value, Concerns, Suggestions) 
  • Online discussion tags on Catlin’s blog; [EduCause tips for online discussions]
• Empowering students to help us redesign the remainder of the school year (35:41) 
  • Ask for student feedback
• Filtering through all of these ed tech resources (38:17) 
  • Think big but start small
  • Find your pedagogical challenge and then find the tool to address that challenge
  • Kami for annotation
  • Don’t overestimate your students’ readiness to access tools for learning online
  • Codex.svvsd.org
  • The Balance, episode with Jason Green
• Balance with Blended Learning
• Ben & Becky’s Takeaways (47:12) 
  • Catlin’s home schedule for her kids during isolation
  • Jennifer Gonzalez’s Wakelet for isolation | Get on her mailing list
  • Dr. Bruce Perry

Episode 053: Ending Average with Todd Rose

Connect with Todd Rose 

Website: https://toddrose.com | Twitter: @ltoddrose | Most Recent Book: Dark Horse

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

• Intro to Todd Rose (00:22) 
  • Episode with John Couch
  • WWII cockpit story
  • Episode with Natalie Wexler
  • Jagged profiles; Todd Rose’s TED Talk, The Myth of Average
  • Episode with Cornelius Minor
  • Dark Horse Characteristics
• When are averages useful, when are they harmful? (10:16) 
• Staying away from snowflake mentality (13:01) 
• Jagged Profiles (14:16) 
• What strategies work for you? (19:17) 
  • All performance is a combination of aptitude and strategy. 
• Personality Tests (26:58)
• If-Then Signatures, Everything in Context (30:34) 
  • Dr. Yuichi Shoda, University of Washington
  • The game of judgment
• Choice is the lifeblood of fulfillment (36:36) 
• Ideal Classroom (39:45)
• Big data in Education (44:56) 
• Takeaways (51:21) 
  • Dan Willingham Tweet
  • Last episode about language with Mike Anderson
  • @VrainWaves on Twitter
  • [email protected] / [email protected]

Aligning Words and Intentions with Mike Anderson

Connect with Mike Anderson

Website: https://www.leadinggreatlearning.com/| Twitter: @balancedteacher | Most Recent Book: What We Say and How We Say it Matter

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

What We Say and How We Say It Matter

• Two Year Podiversary (1:00)
• Presume Positive Intent (4:40) 
• Aligning word choice and intentions (05:45) 
• “Feedback is a gift” Kim Scott (6:00)
• What we Say and How We Say it Matter (6:45)
• Language has a huge impact on learning (7:30)
• Sometimes our habits don’t align with our intent (8:00)
• Our language impacts behavior (10:30)
• Mash and Cheers (11:45)
• Don’t be Sarcastic (12:45)
• What is the goal of our language: (13:20)
• Prove it! (15:40)
• Teacher Clarity (16:30)
• Relationship Building (16:52)
• Practical Tips (18:00)
• Single Task (19:00)
• Habits are how you embody your identity (21:20)
• Manipulative Praise (23:20)
• What Good Readers Do (26:20)
• Some day…(30:29)
• Motivation is not enough (34:20)
• Mike fixes our problems! (35:00)
• Guest Teacher (36:30)
• Directive Language (38:00)
• Intrinsic motivation (38:30)
• Engagement in school (41:00)
• Pet Peeves (45:40)
• Great Job (48:00)
• Instead of talking about how we feel talk about what we are doing (52:20)
• Website 55:00
• What we learned! (55:10)
• Do work with care (57:30) 
• Follow us