Have a Life Teaching

This week on the podcast, I’m joined by journalist Dana Seith, co-creator of the bold new storytelling card game Tell Me a Story — made in collaboration with The Bitter Southerner,

We’re not just talking games — we’re talking transformation.

In this episode, we unpack:

- The five essential elements of unforgettable narrative storytelling

- How stories boost executive functioning and student focus

- Creative ways to use storytelling ca...

This week on the podcast, we are joined by chief academic officer Samuel Nix who discusses his book - 6 Stepa to a Strong School Culture: A Leadership Cycle for Educational Success. Nix should know - having taken, as principal, his school to the top 30 in the nation.

Too often, says Nix, school leaders go from crisis to crisis rather than developing a systemic approach to school improvement which lies at the heart of sustainable an...

Brak Rosenshine first published his Principles of Instruction in 2010 through the International Academy of Education (IAE) as part of their Educational Practices Series (booklet No. 21).

Taking his years of research, Rosenshine paired down what good teachers do to obtain good academic outcomes: review, chunk information, question, model, guide practice, check for understanding, allow student time for independent practice, and scaff...

Per our next guest on the podcast, MLL/STEM specialist Darlyne de Haan, there are over 900K high school MLL students in the USA - a large number of these students living in poverty (2014).

While Algebra and other STEM classes can catapult students into lucrative STEM careers, still, only a very small percentage of MLL students take these courses.

I hope you will listen in to my conversation with de Haan, author of the book STEM For...

Do You Know What the Superpower Understandings in Math Are?

Recently, I wrote an article for ASCD about modeling Math through a gradual release framework. A common way through which to do this is to teach Math conceptually, representationally, and then abstractly (CRA Framework).

However, there are other frameworks that help students understand Math as well. This week on the podcast, I speak with Patrick Sullivan about additional w...

In this episode, we speak with Niles North High School Summer Reading Program leads ELA teacher Katie Gillies and librarian Beverly Zbinden.

While summer reading may help reduce the potential student summer learning slide, Gillies and Zbinden discuss their true purpose in creating this ambitious project at North Niles High School - a large and diverse high school outside of Chicago:

- help students see themselves reflected in the lit...

Earlier in the second season of this podcast, we had as a guest Bo Stjerne Thomsen of LEGO Education discussing the importance of play in creative learning.

In this episode, we continue our look at creativity in learning by discussing how to infuse art in the four core -content areas.

In this discussion, we are joined by Cheri Sterman, Director of Education, for Crayola as well as science teacher Elle LeBlanc who discusses ...

When students ask where are they EVER going to use the Math they are learning in middle and high school, there is usually something deeper going on; And that is a disconnect in, disinterest, and lack of curiosity in learning Math which manifests itself in misbehaving students. So says, Jenn Lenhardt - author of the book Common Denominators: Cultivating Engagement and Belonging in Secondary Mathematics 7-12 and former 7-12th grade M...

The other day, I was speaking with a colleague with whom I co-moderated a LinkedIn Live event, a year or two ago, on supporting multilingual students.

She told me that, recently, someone reached out to her from across the country for support. I was so excited by this. I also get excited when people reach out to discuss my occasional online posts pro or con.

My next guest on the podcast and I - Douglas Fisher, Chair of Educational L...

As one of our next guest on the podcast, Daniel Argentar says, students need to know something to learn something. Students need to be able to read and write to be able to internalize scientific information.

In this episode, we are joined by the authors of the book Reading and Writing Strategies for the Secondary Science Classroom to discuss the most important literacy skills in science classrooms and how to help our students devel...

AI can really help teachers plan more engaging lessons in a time conscious manner.

In this episode, we speak about how AI can help teachers to plan engaging lessons with North Carolina based science teacher Paul Cancellieri. Cancellieri is the author of the new book - 50 AI Prompts for Teachers.

We discuss in particular:

- Why it is important for teachers to use AI

- Various AI platforms that teachers may want to explo...

How to Teach Using Play Based Learning

In this episode, we chat with Bo Stjerne Thomsen - Director of Education for LEGO Education and former VP with the LEGO Foundation - about how teachers can integrate physical objects (manipulatives) and play-based learning across all content areas.

We also discuss:

What Play Based Learning Is

How it Helps Students Make Meaning and Retain Information

The "Happy Medium" Between Unbounded and Script...

Parents should always have the right to decide what books their student can read. But school system wide book bans are bad for children. So says our next guest on the Have a Life Teaching Podcast, former ALA librarian of the year Amanda Jones.

In this episode, Jones - author of the book "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in the United States" - discusses how she became an activist, why book bans hurt chil...

While oral language development is a process that occurs naturally, over time, the written word is a complex human produced system that, therefore, requires a systematic approach to decipher - or read. So says this week's guest on the podcast, Steve Underwood.

In this episode, Underwood, former senior director of professional development with NWEA and founder/CEO of Veritas Educational Consulting, chats with us about how to teach re...

Effective coteaching has so many benefits for students, particularly in terms of inclusion for students with special needs and for bilingual learners. So say today's guests on the podcast - Belinda Karge and Matt Rhoads - who are the authors of the book "Co-Teaching Evolved".

Listen here to our conversation with Karge and Rhoads as we discuss several strategies for effective co-teaching, actions that might help co-teaching pairs eff...

Too often, at best, students are compliant with school directives and, at worst, actively defiant much like inmates in a minimum security prison. So says, today's guest, Aaron Hansen - author of the book "Heroes Within" - on this episode of the Have a Life Teaching Podcast.

In this episode, we speak with Hansen about ways through which teachers can better engage students to take ownership of their own learning journeys such as by po...

In some schools, curriculum is prescribed. In other places, teachers put together their own learning materials.

In either case, how do we know that what we are providing students, in terms of materials and content, will promote learning acquisition, extend thinking, and foster creativity? How do we know that it aligns with the science of learning?

In this episode, my guest Nathanial Swain, professor of teaching at La Trobe Univers...

Too often, we think of early primary learners as empty recepticles to be filled. However, this is when creativity and ingenuity is most unfettered and/or non self-conscious.

How then can we draw out what early primary students already know and think about Math? How might we get students to make conjectures and extend their thinking?

I hope you will listen in to our recent conversation with Chepina Rumsey, professor at the Universi...

How and Why Still Teach the Holocaust? After all, it has been 80 years since the liberation of the concentration camps and end of WWII. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is very simple. Look at the world around us where hate and prejudice continue to thrive.

As such, I hope you will listen in to this special episode where we ask several people making a difference in Holocaust education about how they would answer this que...