The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

Teaching strategies, classroom management, education reform, educational technology -- if it has something to do with teaching, we're talking about it. Jennifer Gonzalez interviews educators, students, administrators and parents about the psychological and social dynamics of school, trade secrets, and other juicy things you'll never learn in a textbook. For more fantastic resources for teachers, visit http://www.cultofpedagogy.com.

Episodes

October 12, 2025 51 mins

Concept maps are graphic organizers or visual representations of knowledge. They're simple, they're low-tech, and they're incredibly powerful tools for learning. In this episode, cognitive scientist Dr. Kripa Sundar explains why concept maps are so impactful, then shares a handful of specific practices that will help you make the best use of them. Also joining us is Dr. Pooja Agarwal, editor of the book Smart Teaching Stronger Lear...

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At a time when test-driven reform has quieted student voices and marginalized perspectives are being pushed aside, we need student voice and agency more than ever. In this episode, I'm joined by Shane Safir, Marlo Bagsik, Sawsan Jaber, and Crystal Watson, authors of the new book, Pedagogies of Voice: Street Data and the Path to Student Agency. The book offers a “seed store” of small, replicable ...

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Project-based learning can be a powerful instructional framework, but it is often structured in ways that exclude students who need a different approach. Too often, PBL becomes a space where accommodations and differentiation fall by the wayside. The good news is that we don’t have to abandon PBL or dramatically overhaul it to make it work for diverse learners. In this episode, author and educator John Spencer shares five small but...

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Answering student questions is faster in the moment, but redirecting is better in the long run. The next time a student asks you a question, pause before answering and see if you can point them toward finding the answer themselves. 

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Thanks to Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this tip. You can find written and video versions of these at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Sometimes the best instructional materials are sitting right in our classrooms. At a time when AI threatens to make human writing obsolete, using students' own work as a teaching tool offers a wonderfully authentic alternative. In this episode, educator Marcus Luther joins me to share four ways he uses student exemplars to teach craft lessons, build student confidence, practice giving feedback, and foster a much-needed sense of bel...

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We're living in troubling times. When you're surrounded by so much chaos and confusion, it can be hard to figure out where to put your focus and energy. At a time like this, it might not make sense to talk about joy, but that's what were going to do in this episode.

My guest is Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, author of the book Cultivating Genius and the 2023 follow-up, Unearthing Joy. We sat down to talk about about why joy is essential in o...

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The practice of collecting supplies and distributing them to all students over the school year has become a common practice in elementary schools. Unfortunately, not all parents are happy with it, and much of the trouble stems from a few key misunderstandings. In this episode,...

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If the thought of decorating your classroom fills you with anxiety, or if you're just ready to try something different, I have good stuff for you. In this episode, educator and author Tom Rademacher shares two simple activities he did at the beginning of every school year to g...

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As a life-long reader, English teacher Dan Tricarico wanted to bring the love of reading to his high school students, but the constant, irresistible presence of digital media made for tough competition. Rather than seeking out a high-tech solution, he brought back simplicity in the form of daily silent reading, and to his surprise, most of his students really took to it. In this episode, he shares his experience in the...

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Although most teachers understand that not all students have the same home life, sometimes we forget how big those differences can really be, and how humiliating it can be for a student to be asked to publicly share details about their lives outside of school. In this EduTip we'll talk about some situations where this comes up, and what you can do to prevent it from happening. 

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Thanks to Studyo for sponsoring th...

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Most special education efforts have focused on giving students with disabilities better access to the curriculum — but access alone isn’t enough. In this episode, I talk with Amy Tondreau and Laurie Rabinowitz, authors of the book Sustaining Cultural and Disability Identities in the Literacy Classroom, about disability-sustaining pedagogy, a framework that helps students embrace disability as a cultural identity. We ex...

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June 1, 2025 5 mins

If you want to have the kind of classroom where students do more than just sit and listen, it's likely that your plans may include activities that require some social risk-taking. One way to help your students get more comfortable taking these small social risks is for you to be the first dork, the first one to do the thing that no one else wants to do because they’re afraid of looking weird or being vulnerable. 

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While the shift to restorative practices should be improving student behavior, that's not happening in every school. Some teachers say the discipline systems at their schools have completely broken down, creating an environment where students do whatever they want with no consequences. This has made teachers feel frustrated, angry, unsupported, and in some cases, unsafe. What has gone wrong? In this episode, I have an ...

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If I give my students an exit slip to check their grasp of a particular skill, and a third of them don’t do well, just moving forward with my original teaching plan is a missed opportunity. Ideally, my next steps should involve some kind of targeted response. Let's talk about what that looks like.

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Thanks to Studyo for sponsoring this tip. You can find written and video versions of these at cultofpedagogy.com/edu...

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Since ChatGPT's arrival in late 2022, the top concern I’ve heard from teachers is that students will stop doing their own writing and rely entirely on AI. While that worry is real, more teachers are recognizing that AI is here to stay and are looking for ways to work with it rather than against it. My guest today, Tony Frontier, offers one of the most insightful takes I’ve seen on this issue. In his new book 

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Lots of teachers give students some kind of questionnaire at the beginning of a school year to get to know them, but what do you do with that information after you get it? By putting responses into a spreadsheet, you'll have a relationship-building tool you can use all year.

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Thanks to Studyo for sponsoring this tip. You can find written and video versions of these at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall something you learned from memory by doing things like taking a test or using flashcards instead of just looking at, rereading, or reviewing the information. When we study with retrieval, we learn and remember things much better than we do by other review methods. So how do we add more to our classrooms? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Pooja Agarwal, editor of the bo...

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We talk a lot about differentiating instruction, measuring growth, and preparing students for the real world, but how do you actually do that in a system still driven by grades? Maybe you need a new model altogether. In this episode, we're exploring an approach to school called competency-based learning. I’m joined by three educators — Susie Bell, Heather Messer, and Beth Blankenship — who show us what this model actua...

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Grammar has never been an especially popular area of study, and teaching it has frustrated many English teachers throughout time. It seems like no matter how hard we try, the concepts just don't stick as well as we'd like them to. In this episode, I'm talking to Matthew Johnson, author of the new book Good Grammar: Joyful and Affirming Language Lessons That Work for More Students, about some truly fresh approaches he t...

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Research shows that adding physical or hand gestures to a learning experience, especially ones that have some meaning to them, can significantly boost how well students understand and remember the content. 

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Thanks to Class Composer for sponsoring this tip. You can find written and video versions of these at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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