I took a break over the summer from the podcast. The plan was to get a handful of interviews recorded over the summer and be ready to go with episodes starting in mid-August. That didn't happen. But here's what I did instead.

It's been a rough school year to say the least. In this episode, I help you think through how you will rejuvenate, recover, and recharge this summer so you can come back ready in the Fall semester.

It's the end of the year. Traditional paper/pencil tests seem to be tricky with remote learning.  Today I share 3 end-of-year STEM projects I did with my math & robotics classes.  They involved TikTok, Minecraft, and eBay.

A month ago I read an article that said schools will definitely be doing 'blended' learning permanently and that social distancing will require schools to have kids come to school on different days to lower the capacity.  I thought 'well...that MIGHT happen but we can't say with certainty.' 30 days later, these are the exact things school leaders are discussing around the world.  What will education look like in the Fall of 2020?  What will it look like in a post-COVID-19 world?

*This episode was recorded in February before many schools began remote teaching. While the context of the conversation is a normal classroom, there are applications to remote teaching if you and/or your students have a device at home* Generally when people thing of augmented reality, they think of Pokemon Go. The game tapped into the nostalgia of Pokemon fans everywhere, myself included. It created an immersive experience for users where they could actually see Pokemon in their physical...

Four educators (from elementary to high school) share their best advice for those doing distance / remote learning, including one educator in Hong Kong who has just completed his 10th week of remote teaching.

**This episode was recorded and edited before the coronavirus & distance learning was front of mind for educators. Valuable takeaways though regardless if you're virtual or in person** One of challenges of teaching math is being able to satisfying answer the question 'why'? Before we can even answer the question for students, we have to answer the question for ourselves. Why does the math work this way? It's much easier to teach a student how to do a problem. It's a bit harder to...

We had a baby amidst all this coronavirus stuff. I wanted to share an update on how things have been and my plans during my time at home on paternity leave / quarantine .

What do you do if you don't have a planning period? How do you help students master a skill after they've failed a test? How do you correct students when they're wrong? Any advice for a first time long-term sub? We explore these questions into today's Q&A show.

Sometimes we don't utilize simple tools that could have a powerful impact in our classroom. Skype has always been one of those tools for me. It has the power to bring the world into my classroom but I've rarely utilized it. I think it's not until we hear stories of how others are using it that it begins to spark ideas for what it could look like in our classroom.

My first day in the classroom was as a sub. I went in with ambitions to change young peoples lives; to see the student who isn't seen, to hear the student who isn't heard. The sub plan read as follows: "have the students work on odd problems on page 114 in the workbook." There were about 4 different workbooks amidst the pile of papers on her desk and I don't know which one she was referring to. Needless to say amidst my complete lack of classroom management skills and lack of direction,...

A multicultural classroom is a celebration of the ethnic and racial groups in your classroom, particularly those that have been historically under represented. How do you do that in a meaningful way, whether you have a variety of cultures in your classroom or you teach in a predominately white school?

Stop doing things in your classroom that your students can do. In this episode I share all of my classroom jobs and what you need to think through as you develop jobs in your own classroom.

We want to do meaningful and memorable work in our class, but a lot of times we don't have the time to plan those types of lessons. The burden of grading is often the culprit. Today, we explore 10 ways to cut your grading time in half.

How do you handle the noise level in your classroom and get your students attention without screaming? What do you do about students who just refuse to study for tests? How do you create a self-sustaining classroom? We answer these and more in this first Q&A show!

Working with students on creative projects is challenging. What exactly is creativity and how do you teach it? What role does structure and deadlines play in the creative process? How do we guide students in collaborating together on creative work? What's the importance of self-assessment and peer assessments? How subjective or objective should our assessment as teachers be?

Podcasting has served as an amazing avenue for reflection on my own educational practice, both from using classroom audio and sharing it as well as getting the opportunity to sit with master educators to talk with them about their craft. Teacher blogging started to boom about 10 years ago and it's been said that podcasting is the now the new blogging. So should you start your own teacher podcast? And if so, how do you do it?

Having undistracted conversations about important ideas is where some of the most meaningful learning happens. It was the preferred method of education, all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, most education today is focused on student acquiring knowledge rather than exploring ideas. I chat with an educator today who is taking a different approach and and utilizing socratic seminars to give each student a voice and provide opportunities for them to explore important ideas.

A common narrative around social media in classrooms is 'how can we get the kids off their phones and off social media during class?' Today, I speak with two educators that are weaving social media directly into their classroom curriculum instead.

Many educators are hesitant to use social media in their classrooms, and for good reasons; most of the stories you hear in the news show do not showcase it as something that's positive for the educator or their students. I sat with an educator who's is looking to flip the script in regards to how he is leveraging social media in his classroom for good.

Esports, or competitive video gaming, is a booming industry. It's no wonder Mark Cuban would buy esports stock and sell NFL stock if given the choice. With such a growing industry full of opportunity, what role does esports play in education?

Matthew Dicks is a champion storyteller and a classroom teacher. In today's episode, we look at how teachers can tell better stories about themselves to develop more meaningful connections with their students as well as connect the students to the content.

I started this podcast to explore areas of education I find interesting and innovative. I will continue to do that under the title 'Stories from the Classroom'

Mindfulness has started to become a bit of a buzzword in the education space. Today we talk with a district mindfulness specialist, a psychologist, and a classroom teacher to explore what mindfulness is, what it isn't, why it's worth doing, and how to get started in your own life and in your classroom.