Classroom Caffeine
Education research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn’t reach the practice of brilliant teachers. But the questions and challenges from teachers’ practice sometimes don’t become the work of education researchers. Classroom Caffeine is here to help. In each episode, listeners hear from a leading education researcher or practitioner who shares what they want others to know about their work. Each conversation offers new insights into teaching and learning.
Episodes
What happens when a teacher loses her classroom library to censorship—and her students are living through floods, hurricanes, and displacement? "Morgan" invites us into a practice built on place, care, and student stories. Instead of giving up on relevance, she transforms lived experience into the curriculum: teens write about storm damage, read FEMA applications as functional texts, and use multimodal story...
Eric Vona describes how project-based learning can guide students from broad worries to focused, researchable questions that lead to local solutions. He talks about place-based writing born during remote learning, then shows how journalism practices—finding experts, crafting professional emails, conducting interviews—help students produce credible, public-facing work.
Literature becomes a springboard for eth...
A classroom can be a launchpad for climate action when reading meets real life. We sit down with Miami-area educator Catherine Manfra to explore how English language arts becomes a powerful space for climate literacy, creative expression, and student agency—especially in a region living with hurricanes, sea-level rise, and rapid development at the edge of the Everglades.
Catherine walks us through her Earth D...
What happens when educators pursue advanced degrees? For Dr. Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, it sparked a remarkable journey from classroom teacher to interim dean of the College of Education at the University of South Florida.
"When you train your brain in research modes and analyze situations from different perspectives, it fundamentally changes how you think," Dr. Schneider explains. This cognitive s...
Bridging climate science and the classroom can start with a simple walk to a place that matters. In this episode, we talk with Kristin Valle Geren—former elementary teacher, now a doctoral candidate and research assistant with the Stories-To-Live-By collective—to explore how story and place help children make sense of climate change in their own communities.
Kristen shares how “Explorers Club” invites elementary stude...
Feeling stuck in your teaching practice? Wondering how to better support struggling students? You're not alone. Many educators reach a point where they need deeper knowledge and skills to advance their impact. Dr. Elizabeth Burke Hadley's journey from literature lover to high school English teacher to literacy researcher demonstrates how advanced study can transform both career trajectory and professional ef...
What drives successful teachers to return to graduate school after years in the classroom? For elementary teacher Christy Gupta, it was recognizing gaps in her knowledge about early literacy instruction that propelled her into USF's Master's in Reading Education program. In this candid conversation, Christy shares how graduate education has transformed both her teaching practice and her professional confiden...
Ever wondered what graduate education might do for your teaching career? Dr. Alexandra Panos never planned to become a teacher—until life's unexpected turns led her to discover a passion for education that graduate study would transform into a lifelong calling.
"Graduate school is transformation," Dr. Panos explains, detailing how advanced study changes not just what you know, but who you are. ...
What does it truly mean to invest in yourself through graduate education? Dr. Patriann Smith's remarkable journey from Caribbean teacher to academic leader offers a compelling answer to this question.
For educators contemplating graduate education, Dr. Smith offers a profound perspective shift. Rather than focusing primarily on logistical challenges like financing or scheduling, she encourages potential students t...
In this special series of Classroom Caffeine in collaboration with the Stories-To-Live-By Collective, we highlight this group of K–12 teachers from across the state of Florida and former teachers now in higher education who are working together to sensemake and take action. We talk with educators and researchers who are working together to explore how literacy teaching can respond to the climate crisis. Since 2021, th...
Host Lindsay Persohn reflects on Season 5's journey through literacy education, where conversations explored evolving reading debates, strategies for supporting diverse learners, vocabulary development, and content-specific literacies. Lindsay also shares a recap of research presentations and publications related to podcasting by the Classroom Caffeine team.
Season 6 of the show promises two compelling s...
Dr. Seth Parsons talks to us about the power of the teacher, the value of good curriculum, and motivation and engagement in learning. Seth is known for his work in the areas of elementary literacy instruction, student engagement and motivation, adaptive teaching, and metacognitive strategy development. His research has been published in many of the field’s top journals, including the Journal of Literacy Research, Revi...
In this episode, Dr. Elfrieda “Freddy” Hiebert talks to us about language, learning to read, and authentic interactions with interesting texts. Freddy is known for her work addressing how fluency, vocabulary, and knowledge can be fostered through appropriate texts. Through documents such as Becoming a Nation of Readers, published by the Center for the Study of Reading in 1985 and Every Child a Reader, published by the...
Corrine Wickens talks to us about self-efficacy and identity, teaching as coaching and a translational act, and challenging our assumptions. Corrine is known for her work in the areas of adolescent literacies, disciplinary literacies, and gender and sexuality. Her research interests examine issues of ongoing discourses around sexuality and schooling, gender and sexual characterizations in contemporary young adult lite...
In this episode, Raúl Alberto Mora talks to us about education theory as a driver for innovative teaching, mentoring and supporting one another, and the journey of a career in Education. Raúl is known worldwide for his work in the areas of alternative literacy paradigms in second language education and research, the study of second language literacies in physical and virtual spaces, and the use of sociocritical framew...
Dr. Doug Fisher is known for his prolific work in instructional design, curriculum development, and professional learning. Additionally, he is a teacher leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College, an award-winning, open-enrollment public school in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, California that he co founded in 2007. Previously, Doug was an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator...
Jennifer Serravallo specifically focuses on ideas from her latest book, Teaching Reading Across the Day. Her books utilize research-supported practices, translated for everyday classroom teaching. Jen is known for her work in the areas of reading and writing strategies, individualized literacy support for students, and teacher professional development in literacy. She is a New York Times Bestselling author of teacher ...
Dr. Donna Scanlon talks to us about considering reading skills and strategy instruction from the perspective of the learner. Donna is known for her work in support of children who experience substantial difficulty in learning to read and on how to prevent and remediate reading difficulties. In particular, she and her colleagues developed an approach to early literacy instruction and intervention known as the Interacti...
Former Classroom Caffeine guests Margaret Vaughn and Dixie Massey are back to share with us their most recent collaboration, a book entitled Overcoming Reading Challenges: Kindergarten through Middle School. In their book, they address topics like phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, as well as factors like motivation and student agency. Dr. Margaret Vaughn is known for her wor...
Dianna Townsend talks to us about providing meaningful encounters with words by focusing our instruction in language-rich classroom environments. She provides some concrete teaching strategies, backed by decades of research in vocabulary instruction and learning. Dr. Townsend is known for her work centering on the language development of adolescents, with specific attention to vocabulary. Her most recent book is Words...
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