Professional Development

Going deep: Student-directed learning in Performance Standards Consortium schools

We speak with Adam Grumbach, social studies program coordinator of the New York Performance Standards Consortium, and Naseem Haamid, a law student who attended Fannie Lou Hamer High School. We discuss inquiry based learning, Performance Based Assessment Tests, Habits of Mind, and self-directed, interdisciplinary portfolios, as alternatives to standardized-test driven curricula.

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Rebuilding the Black teacher pipeline: Advancing justice and academic outcomes

Ansharaye Hines and Mimi McKee of the Center for Black Educator Development discuss how the presence of highly qualified Black teachers supports students’ educational success. The Center advocates for educational equity and provides multiple teaching pathways to encourage and support Black high school and university students to become teachers.

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Elevating undervalued professionals: Support for substitute teachers

We speak with Megan M. Conklin, who designs and implements professional development for substitutes in Washington state. Substitutes often don’t receive the support and compensation they deserve. Ms. Conklin’s union-backed program teaches subs classroom survival skills and advocates for equity among school staff members.

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Climate change education: Meeting NJ’s mandate hands-on

We speak with the New Jersey School of Conservation’s Kerry Kirk Pflugh and Tanya Sulikowski, and Garwood, NJ middle school teacher, K.C. Bree about the SOC and about New Jersey’s first-in-the-nation mandate for climate change education in every grade. The SOC, a newly-reopened 75-year-old center for experiential learning and fieldwork, provides professional development as well as interdisciplinary programming for students including applied science, math, humanities, and arts in an idyllic outdoor setting. Students learn about humans’ responsibility toward other animals and the planet, and are empowered to take action.Working cooperatively, they often develop new respect for their classmates.

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Inquiry and interpretation: Learning US history from primary sources (Encore)

We speak with Lee Schere, Director of Teaching and Learning at the Office of K-16 Initiatives of CUNY about the Debating U.S. History Program, an inquiry-based curriculum and teacher learning program. Students learn that history is not one set of agreed-upon events and interpretations. Though designed for NYC schools, the curriculum is available free to teachers everywhere.

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Experiential learning: Where human history and nature connect

We speak with Jackie Broder, director of the Mamakating Environmental Education Center in New York’s Catskill Mountains. The Center abuts the Basha Kill wetland, a vital self-contained ecosystem. It helps students, families, and community members to connect with the area’s distinct biodiversity and rich history and to develop an emotional connection with nature.

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Opening up: Recreating schools as a community

Drs. Landon Mascareñaz and Doannie Tran, co-authors of “The Open System: Redesigning Education and Reigniting Democracy,” talk about co-creating and co-producing school initiatives with parents and community members. “Openness” is a radical departure from legacy closed systems, and begins with “openers,” those committed to ensuring that all stakeholders, especially those traditionally far from power, are full participants. The opening process can start in one classroom, one school, or one district, and can be adapted in other settings.

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Norman Fruchter on the pioneering alternative high school he and colleagues built in Newark in the 1970s (Encore)

We speak with Norm Fruchter, long-time educational activist and thought leader, about Independence School, an experimental high school where the ideal was that someone walking into a classroom couldn’t tell the teacher from the students. We discuss lessons learned – and perhaps forgotten – about supporting students whose original schools failed them. Among the school’s strengths were authentic, enduring relationships among teachers and students, teaching strategies that enabled illiterate students to learn to read without embarrassment, month-long internship breaks, and curriculum that referenced students’ life experiences.

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The purpose of education: Educating for a solutionary future?

We welcome back Zoe Weil, president and co-founder of the Institute for Humane Education, to speak about her recent Psychology Today column on the purpose of education. Although the official goal of many school systems is to prepare students for global competition, compassion, cooperation, and creativity are the qualities we should be emphasizing. A generation of solutionaries has a much better chance of creating a sustainable planet where humans and animals other than humans can thrive.

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Reimagining the school system: Centering children, families, and teachers

Guest interviewer Lev Moscow joins Jon in conversation with Santiago Taveras, principal of Charter High School for Computer Engineering and Innovation and former deputy chancellor of the NYC Department of Education. Santi talks about false assumptions that school systems make about teachers, students, and parents. He discusses why so much professional development wastes teachers’ time, why college for all is a misguided target, and why so much DOE money gets misspent.

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Technology: What’s hype and what helps 

We speak with Dr. Justin Reich, director of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, and host of the TeachLab podcast, about education technology. Hailed by some as the great equalizer, the beneficiaries of ed tech tend to be white and affluent. Focused on equity by design, Dr. Reich observes that when teachers learn, they have insufficient opportunities to practice. So he and his colleagues are creating digital clinical simulations, practice spaces for teachers. They’re also helping educators to figure out what they can stop doing, to allow more time for what’s useful.

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Descriptive inquiry: Teachers talking about hard subjects

We speak with Dr. Cecelia Traugh and Dr. Cara Furman, co-authors of “Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools.” Descriptive inquiry is a structured, collaborative process in which teachers share and get practical feedback on classroom challenges. Breaking down teachers’ isolation, descriptive inquiry encourages non-confrontational conversations about racial and other biases. Teachers benefit not only from the wisdom of their colleagues but also from the safe space and supportive community.

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Gender and sexually diverse students: Creating comfortable schools

We speak with Dr. Elizabeth J. Meyer of the University of Colorado about ensuring that K-12 schools are welcoming and safe for students with non-normative gender identities and expressions. Dr. Meyer found that these students thrive in schools that center student-directed learning and interdisciplinary exploration as opposed to schools that replicate society’s toxic hierarchies. Generally, students are much more comfortable talking about issues related to gender diversity than their teachers or parents.

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National Sex Ed Standards: Equity and expanded comfort zones

We speak with Brittany McBride, Associate Director, Sexuality Education at Advocates for Youth, who partners with schools to provide the complete sex education that all students deserve. Though parents, students, and teachers largely agree on sex ed’s importance, few teachers (other than health teachers and PE coaches) have any formal training, and many parents haven’t had sex ed themselves.

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Radical care: Leading with love

We speak with Dr. Rosa Rivera-McCutchen, associate professor of leadership studies at Lehman College, CUNY, about the importance of school leaders and teachers practicing radical care, including listening with intent and addressing skill gaps with honesty. Dr. Rivera-McCutchen talks about the importance of teachers getting to know the life of the neighborhoods around their schools.

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