Schoolutions: Curious Educators. Evidence-Based Strategies. Classrooms Where Every Child Thrives.
Do you need innovative strategies to strengthen your school culture and spark student growth? This podcast is your go-to resource for coaches, teachers, administrators, and families seeking to create dynamic and engaging learning environments. In each episode, you'll discover how to unite educators and caregivers to support students, tackle common classroom challenges, and cultivate an atmosphere where every learner can thrive. With over 25 years of experience as a teacher and coach, host Olivia Wahl curates episodes with insights from more than 150 expert interviews, offering practical tips that bridge the gap between school and home. Tune in every Monday and Friday for actionable strategies and inspirational stories that can transform your approach and make a real impact on learning. Start with a fan-favorite episode today (S5E1: Inside the Secret Moves of Expert Teachers with John Hattie) and take the first step towards transforming your educational environment!
Episodes
In this clip from my conversation with Jenn David-Lang of @themainideaeducation , she breaks down a shift that changes how new leaders solve problems. In her mastermind groups for aspiring leaders, someone always brings the same complaint early in the year: a teacher won't do what's being asked, and the instinct is to have the principal force it.
Jenn pushes back on that instinct. Real influence starts long before the i...
It's Tuesday, and I'm starting a new weekly series called Try It Tuesday. Each week, I'll give you one teacher move that has a real, measurable impact on student success and student engagement.
This week's tip comes from a moment with Cris Tovani, and it's about relevance. We were standing in a high school classroom together, and the teacher couldn't quite explain why the content mattered to her students. Cris said one thin...
Jenn David-Lang has spent over 20 years supporting school leaders, first through @themainideaeducation, her monthly education and leadership book summary service, and now through the peer-led Mastermind groups she facilitates for principals and aspiring leaders.
In part one of this S6E1 Schoolutions conversation, Jenn and I break down what school leadership actually looks like when instructional leadership comes from the pe...
This September on Schoolutions, I'm bringing you three conversations that will change how you see leadership inside school buildings.
💫You'll hear from Jenn David-Lang of The Main Idea about a peer-led leadership model where instructional leaders troubleshoot problems together and partner with each other from all over the world. It's a model built on instructional coaching, coaching strategies, and professional learning in...
Season 6 of the Schoolutions Podcast is here. This season leads up to the release of my book with Stenhouse Publishers, Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, which I hope will be in your hands by June of 2027.
This season follows teachers, coaches, and school leaders as they use the five essential practices from my book in real classrooms. Guests discuss learning in action, share way...
This is my last Writing Wednesday post for a while. Season six of Schoolutions starts next week, and Wednesdays are switching over to expert tips from that week's guest.
Right now I'm in the final stretch of revising and editing my book, Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise. Going slow here is what lets me move fast later. I'm going chapter by chapter, checking that the language hold...
Are reading wars destroying our children's education? In this eye-opening conversation, Dr. P.L. Thomas, a former high school English teacher with 18 years of classroom experience, exposes how education strategies, effective teaching, and instructional strategies are being replaced by one-size-fits-all programs that ignore what we know about student engagement, student motivation, and inclusive teaching.
What You'll Le...
S5E1 of Schoolutions begins with Professor John Hattie, renowned for his groundbreaking Visible Learning work. After analyzing 2,500+ studies with 200 million students, Professor John Hattie discovered something shocking: there's virtually no correlation between teaching experience and effectiveness after 5 years. So what separates expert teachers from the rest?
In this eye-opening conversation, Hattie reveals that expert te...
Five words/phrases are quietly cluttering your writing: our, your, that, I think, I believe. This Writing Wednesday breaks down why these words sneak into student writing and adult writing, and what happens when you cut them.
The tip comes from a real classroom. A teacher noticed her student kept writing "I think" and "I believe" before every idea. Her response: you're the one writing it. We already know it's your thinking. ...
In this powerful conversation with former Colorado Commissioner of Education Dr. Katy Anthes, we explore her groundbreaking "Forward Framework" for navigating polarization and finding productive middle ground in education and beyond.
Dr. Anthes shares research-backed strategies to move from destructive conflict to productive disagreement, explaining why curiosity and humanity are essential for progress. Learn practical skills ...
This S1E1 Schoolutions conversation with Cris Tovani and Sam Bennett covers the importance of student engagement, building relationships, time management, and planning for disengaged students.
Cris shares ideas for identifying and supporting disengaged students through long-term planning and building relationships.
Sam paints a picture of the circles of engagement (emotional, behavioral, and cognitive) and expla...
I've been writing and getting close to turning in my book manuscript. My editor Kassia let me know it's time to reach out to people for endorsements. I'd had a list in my head for months. Sending it terrified me.
I asked anyway. The response floored me. People I admire said yes, fast and warm, with no hesitation. One person said no. That's fine. Everyone's stretched thin right now.
If you're building something, a book...
In this S2E1 Schoolutions Teaching Strategies interview, join education expert Cornelius Minor for this powerful conversation about revolutionizing classroom management, student engagement, and inclusive teaching. Discover why traditional behavior strategies fail and learn the "radical listening" approach that transforms disruptive students into engaged learners.
What You'll Learn:
✅ Why student behavior is communication,...
In this S3E29 Schoolutionsconversation, Emily (Em) Hammond shares why she built NeuroWild after her own late autism and ADHD diagnosis, and after years of translating abstract concepts into illustrations for the neurodivergent kids and families she works with as a speech pathologist. She walks through The NeuroWild Shift, her three-stage framework for classroom belonging and student engagement: I See You, I Hear You, I've Got You.<...
Happy Writing Wednesday. This week's tip is about a decision writers make constantly: quote it directly, paraphrase it, or summarize it.
I pulled an old favorite off my shelf, Emily Kissner's Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Retelling. I've had this book since 2006 and it still holds up. Some quotes need to stay word for word. Others work better paraphrased. The book helps me sort out which is which before I hand my writing of...
In this S2E31 Schoolutions conversation, Penny Kittle lives by her words, "When you stand next to beautiful writing, your writing is just kind of set free." Penny shares how her latest book, Micro Mentor Texts: Using Short Passages From Great Books to Teach Writer's Craftoffersa process for studying and teaching on the shoulders of incredible authors as mentors to transform student writing.
Ep. Mentions:
Dr. Peter Liljedahl breaks down why 80% of students sit through a math lesson without ever thinking, and what actually fixes it. This episode covers the research behind Building Thinking Classrooms: random groups, vertical whiteboards, and the difference between a thinking task and a mimicking task. Peter and host Olivia Wahl talk through classroom behavior, student engagement, and why low engagement often starts with how a room is...
Reading your own writing out loud catches a lot of errors. But, reading it out loud yourself is not the same as hearing someone else read it back to you.
In this Writing Wednesday, I talk about what happened when my friend Katie Kelly read the opening of a chapter I wrote. Hearing her voice on my own words showed me exactly where the writing dragged, where it confused her, and where I could cut without losing anything. I wa...
Kindergarten teacher extraordinaire "Mr. Greg" of The Kindergarten Smorgasboard and ELEVATE Conference shares why being a teacher matters most. Listeners will leave inspired by Greg's hilarious tales from the classroom and practical tips to try right away with their students!
Episode Mentions:
Discover why true educational transformation happens when we shift from content-centered to student-centered learning! In this insightful conversation, educators Julie Wright and James Goldberg share wisdom from their book The Limitless Classroom: Mantras to Deepen Learning. Learn how giving students time, purpose, and ownership develops genuine curiosity and transferable skills.
Julie and James explain their three powerful mantras:
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