Listen to the interview with Karina Quilantan-Garza, Lauren Mobley, K.C. Boyd, and Barbara Paciotti (transcript): Sponsored by WeVideo and The Modern Classrooms Project I used to think librarians did three things: (1) organize and fiercely protect large collections of books, (2) check those books out to visitors, and (3) shush people. As libraries started to house more technology, I added a fourth role: manage and protect the tech. That was about it. But over the last ten years, whenever I set out to find information about teaching strategies, educational resources, technology for schools ..read more

Listen to the interview with Kimberly Eckert (transcript): Sponsored by Edge•U Badges and EVERFI We’ve been hearing about a teacher shortage for a while now, certainly since the pandemic, and multiple studies show that many states are seeing record high numbers of teacher turnovers and vacancies. In 2022, we explored some of the reasons teachers are leaving the classroom, so we won’t go into them here. Suffice it to say there are big problems, especially in some states, and those problems have not gone away. However, there are groups of smart, highly motivated people who are coming up with ..read more

Listen to this post as a podcast: Sponsored by Edge•U Badges and EVERFI The day it happened to me was in my fourth year of teaching. I was in a new seventh grade language arts position, one I’d started in January after a teacher retired mid-year, so I hadn’t had enough time yet to build the relationships that are the foundation of my approach to classroom management. That day, I was trying to get my second period to do an activity where small groups had to do some kind of sorting with a set of small cards — pieces of cardstock with words on them that I had spent way too long the night befor ..read more

Listen to the interview with Blake Harvard: Sponsored by Listenwise and Khan Academy Kids Please allow me to describe an all-too-common situation that has occurred in probably every teacher’s classroom: You teach your heart out. Really just knock it out of the park: explaining, describing, providing examples, modeling … you know, all the things we’re taught to do during instruction. Then you ask what you believe is a simple question all students should know the answer to … and … nothing. Absolute crickets. You sheepishly look out into the abyss that is your classroom and you see it.  T ..read more

Listen to my interview with Nawal Qarooni (transcript): Sponsored by Listenwise and Khan Academy Kids This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What’s the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org? When I am in spaces where people talk about solutions to some of our biggest problems — poverty, crime, addiction, environmental decline — one theme that comes up often is community. Yes, we need infrastructure, equal access to services that meet our needs ..read more

Listen to the interview with Dan Tricarico: Sponsored by WeVideo and The Modern Classrooms Project This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What’s the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org? I have always loved photography. When I was younger, however, film and developing were expensive, so my photographic experience was modest and my financial situation made creating my own darkroom impossible. So I often schlepped a roll of film to the local dr ..read more

Listen to the interview with Jenn Borgioli Binis: Sponsored by NoRedInk and Edge•U Badges This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What’s the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org? Over the last decade or so, we’ve settled into a choreographed dance around large-scale, state-mandated standardized test scores. First, an education leader stands behind a podium with charts and graphs, releases a memo, or otherwise puts the most recent scores out in ..read more

Icon from Freepik – Flaticon Listen to this post as a podcast: Sponsored by WeVideo and The Modern Classrooms Project Well, it’s January! And that means it’s the time when I put out a new edition of my Teacher’s Guide to Tech. This is now the TENTH edition of the guide, and as always, because it keeps improving, I’m gonna say this is the best edition yet. If this is the first time you’re hearing about the guide, this video will show you what it is and how it works: The word for this year’s guide is artificial intelligence. Yes, we added 85 new tools of all kinds. And we did the incredibly ..read more

Listen to my interview with Alex Shevrin Venet (transcript): Sponsored by NoRedInk and The Modern Classrooms Project This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What’s the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org? As a teacher, you probably find yourself in situations pretty often where you’re made aware of a student having needs or challenges that exceed what your school typically offers them. It might be a need for extra time or attention, a shortag ..read more

Listen to my interview with Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr (transcript): Sponsored by NoRedInk and The Modern Classrooms Project This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What’s the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org? We’re living in a time when discussing race in any classroom in America has become more of a professional risk than it ever was. When lawmakers around the country are working hard to stop teachers from having these discussions, man ..read more