For the past 35 years, Steve Barkley has served as an education consultant to school districts, teacher organizations, state departments of education, and colleges and universities nationally and internationally, facilitating the changes necessary for them to reach students and successfully prepare them for the 21st century. A prolific published author, his weekly blog has evolved into a go-to resource for teachers and administrators all over the world. Visit BarkleyPD.com to learn more.
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How do teachers shift the focus from passive learning to active exploration, challenging students to think critically, solve complex problems, and apply their knowledge in authentic contexts. Experienced educator and CEO of WhyMaker, Liz Gallo, explores promoting deeper understanding by immersing students in meaningful tasks that mirror the challen…
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The author of Deconstructing Depth of Knowledge: A Method and Model for Deeper Teaching and Learning, Erik Francis, joins Steve to examine what teaching and learning for depth of knowledge (DOK) looks like. Francis describes ways to support staff with ways to use DOK for differentiating based on the demands of standards and building upon the streng…
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Dr. Maggie Broderick who serves as a faculty lead for Social Emotional Learning at National University converses with Steve around the need to develop schools where staff and students build emotional well-being and develop interpersonal skills. What teacher dispositions are crucial? What roles do instructional coaches and leaders play in creating l…
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Liz Gallo, the CEO of WhyMaker, joins the podcast to explore the planning, delivery, and follow up of effective professional learning. Often, the knowing doing gap is caused by insufficient support for teachers as they experience the learning dip during the implementation of new instructional practices. Visit the WhyMaker website here. Subscribe to…
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"Phrasing and posing a good question can be just as complex and difficult as the process of answering. It involves critical, creative, and reflective thinking from both students and educators."(Erik Francis) As the author of Inquiring Minds Want to Learn: Posing GoodQuestions to Promote StudentInquiry, Francis explores strategies for how questions …
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Whether you are exploring the value (return on investment) of instructional coaching from the school board, central office, school principal or teacher perspective, an increase in student success must be central . Steve shares insights from his experiences with each of these perspectives with Kim Coffino on the @coachbetter podcast. Listen to the e…
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While teaching in a team has always had benefits, today it is a requirement. The complexity of desired outcomes we are looking to produce can no longer be accomplished with the skills and resources of an individual. Almost all other industries and professions have recognized how employees and customers are best served by teams while schools have co…
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What do students need their teacher to know and be able to do to address social and emotional learning? Dr. Maggie Broderick, the faculty lead for Social Emotional Learning at National University explores this question and others with Steve. She explores the issue that “where a teacher lives and works”, impacts the approach to social emotional teac…
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Two authors of Learning by Doing (Fourth Edition), Mike Mattos and Anthony Muhammad, discuss the powerful impact of PLCs. They define a PLC as an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. The discussion explores shifts …
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While teams naturally build cohesion and effectiveness over time, it is possible to accelerate the team-building process. Research suggests that deliberate interventions, such as setting clear goals, establishing trust, and providing structured opportunities for collaboration, can help teams move through the stages of team process faster and reach …
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Listen in on a conversation as a school leader shares his experiences working with colleagues to continually increase teacher learning for student learning though professional growth plans. The process continually developed from year to year as insights were gained, and hypotheses were formed and implemented. Follow up with James Penstone on Linked…
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Understanding the desired outcome of a meeting is key to teachers knowing the participatory behaviors that are most productive. Everything being called a PLC interferes with participants being able to focus on the educator learning in true PLCs that leads to increased student success. In professional learning communities, purposeful teacher learnin…
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Classrooms with less monologue and more dialogue are key to increasing student thinking and student learning. Peter Liljedahl recommends teachers using a strategy that publicly, randomly groups students. The students visually seeing the groups form is an important element. When having these random groups work at easy erase vertical boards, engageme…
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Steve Ventura, co-author of "Achievement Teams: How a Better Approach to PLCs Can Improve Student Outcomes and Teacher Efficacy," identifies Achievement Teams as a structured, collaborative model that helps educators improve teaching practices and student outcomes through data-driven decision-making. Collective Teacher Efficacy supports that workin…
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If teachers in PLCs are to function as teams, taking shared responsibility for student success, vulnerability is critical. A teacher needs to place his students’ work and his instructional practices on display for colleagues to share in structuring a plan to increase student success. Teaching needs to be a public act for the trust of teams to be de…
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Teaming and sharing workflow allow teachers to leverage each other's strengths, reduce redundancy, and build a supportive community, all of which contribute to lower stress levels. Teaming can increase a sense autonomy by providing teachers with a collaborative environment that supports shared decision-making, allows for flexibility in implementati…
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Whether you are an instructional coach, administrator, or teacher leader planning and supporting the growth of colleagues or designing your own personal improvement plan consider how to maintain momentum and push through the learning dips with implementation intentions, connections to beliefs and values, and a network of colleagues who provide remi…
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How do instructional coaches address the mentoring concerns and needs of new teachers? Joellen Killion, senior advisor to LearningForward and international consultant to educational leaders addressing professional learning for student success, joins Steve to explore the mentoring elements of instructional coaching. They examine how instructional co…
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Teacher messages are foundational to building strong, positive relationships with students. These relationships are critical for creating an environment where students feel supported, motivated, and capable of achieving success. When students trust and feel connected to their teachers, they are more likely to engage deeply in their learning, take a…
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Dr. Kim Richardson describes that change is inevitable and manageable. As coaches and school leaders we need to be competent in guiding ourselves and others during change. Kim describes the need for emotional intelligence and resilient leadership. Knowing people are unpredictable requires coaches to observe and communicate. Change is a process not …
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The term "web of causality" refers to a conceptual framework used to understand the interconnected and complex relationships among various factors that contribute to a particular outcome. The term "web" emphasizes that causes tend not to be linear or singular but are instead interwoven. How do coaches encourage multi-valent thinking that acknowledg…
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"While teachers use interventions to allow students to catch up with their learning results and use differentiation to make sure that learning tasks are appropriate, when it comes to behavior we often default to consistency as a panacea." -(Dave Whitaker) Consistency is built when students sense the teacher’s usual, expected teacher behavior. Flexi…
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St. Cloud School Superintendent, Laurie Putnam and director of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment, Donna Roper, share their experience hosting an AI Summit that included about 200 local and national educators, business leaders, community partners and state legislators. They considered how we should respond to make our education systems relevant t…
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Former classroom teacher, school administrator, and district-level leader, Angie Freese, works with educators as a facilitator, coach, practitioner, and mentor. She empowers educators’ efforts to interrupt antiquated and ineffective practices that only work for some to generate sustainable growth and performance for all. Angie is the founder of the…
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As the start of a new school year approaches, it’s a great time for teachers to consider how their approach to classroom management not only impacts their classroom environment for content learning but also what students learn from being part of that classroom management plan. Questions to consider as you reflect on your classroom plan are included…
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Zak Cohen, a highly experienced school leader with a strong belief in "leading by example," shares his process for collecting feedback from teachers regarding his leadership competency and supportiveness. He turns that feedback into a hypothesis for improvement and requests feedback on his hypothesis. In this process Zak models the curiosity and vu…
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Robert Landau, education futurist and strategist, discusses establishing a hippocratic oath for the educators. Such a pledge would bind us to ethical, equitable, and progressive educational practices that place students' growth and welfare at the core of everything we do. "The traditional Hippocratic Oath is a pledge taken by physicians to uphold s…
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Angie Freese, author of Meant for More: Real Talk About Classrooms Built on Dignity, Authenticity, and Connection, explores her belief in educators’ potential. She supports educators to create classrooms where students can be brave, assured, and confident in their learning pathway. In this podcast she highlights authenticity, connection, curiosity,…
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Tammy Jochinke, The Director of Teaching, Learning and Innovation, at the Dubai American Academy, created a process for 240 teachers to design professional growth plans based on a hypothesis from asking the question, "What do my students need me to learn?” Tammy shares the importance of focusing on student success with teacher autonomy and curiosit…
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Students’ abilities to set goals, plan for success, and systematically collect feedback are critical to school and life success. Starting the school year teaching these processes (at all grade levels) can set the stage for increased student success throughout the year and beyond. This podcast shares important elements to build into your plans for e…
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Dr. Karen Johannesen, a highly experienced school leader, writer, and organizational change consultant explores the role of professional development and coaching in school improvement plans that positively impact student success. She believes that when schools support teachers with well-designed and rich professional learning, those teachers create…
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To what extent should building coaching into the culture of the school be a desired outcome of instructional coaches’ and administrators’ responsibilities? How can an instructional coach plan for and assess progress even when administrator support or system expectations are not present? Many schools experience ongoing changes in staff and teams, wh…
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Explore how teachers working in PLCs can use a verb approach to assessment and error analysis to collaboratively focus on shared accountability for ALL students’ success. This process of assessment as a verb, combined with collegial exploration of the information the assessing produced, aligns with my favorite PLC question: "What do the students ne…
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Experienced teacher, head of school and the author of "The Landscape Model of Learning," Jennifer D. Klein, describes how schools build learning communities where students belong and thrive because they are supported for their experiences, gifts, and challenges. How do coaches with school leaders guide teachers to explore understanding learners as …
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Confidentiality in a coaching program can be complicated. For many teachers, knowing that coaching conversations are confidential makes it easier for them to explore what really matters. At the same time, school leaders want to build an environment of trust where the issue of confidentiality becomes increasingly less important. Teachers and leaders…
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Explore how teachers and students can be empowered with the implementation of student documented learning. Jennifer D. Klein, teacher, administrator, and author of "The Landscape Model of Learning: Designing Student-Centered Experiences for Cognitive and Cultural Inclusion," provides examples across grade levels. Her concrete examples illustrate th…
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As teachers’ relationships with those providing coaching grow from a foundation of trust, teacher vulnerability and risk-taking increase which positively impacts teacher growth. I had an earlier opportunity to explore earning trust and building trust with Jonathan Mueller, an experienced international school leader. He shares that when you can buil…
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In his book, "Triage Your School: A Physician’s Guide to Preventing Burnout," Dr. Chris Jenson provides specific actions school leaders and coaches can take to address the elements of chronic stress for teachers and themselves. Combining his years as a doctor in an emergency room with his years teaching high school science, Dr. Jenson has a unique …
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The author of "Teaching With The Heart in Mind," Dr. Lorea Martínez, who was a special education teacher and school administrator and worked with children and adults internationally, provides reinforcement for the value of purposefully planning for embedding SEL skills in the classroom, beyond teaching the SEL curriculum. She guides educators to pr…
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Accountability is a broader concept than responsibility - it’s something you do to yourself, not something that someone does to you. A focus on responsibility can create attitudes where people justify the ways they think and act to "cover their tails" which pulls in the opposite direction of achieving organizational or team results. With accountabi…
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Agile education coach and the founder of The Agile Mind, Jessica Cavallaro, describes why students and teachers benefit from working with Agile teaching and learning processes. Jessica shares how she works with teachers and administrators to integrate agile principles and the rewards that everyone can experience. E-mail Jessica: jessica@the-agile-m…
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Dr. Chris Jenson combines his experiences as an ER physician followed by ten years as a high school science teacher to provide a unique look at work-related stress and burnout. He identifies that while self-care is good, it is insufficient. In his book, "Triage Your School," Chris states that educators gave health providers the problem-solving skil…
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Listen as Dr. Lorea Martinez, Columbia University Teachers College faculty member, founder of HEART in Mind, and author of "Teaching With the Heart in Mind," provides guidelines for supporting teachers in building students’ social emotional learning skills. Identify how developing your own SEL skills supports your leadership and instructional coach…
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Simon Senik’s advice to focus communicating the WHY of your organization before the how and what has a direct application to a staff’s understanding of “why” an investment in instructional coaching would be made. Decisions about a coaching model, the selection of coaches, the training provided to coaches, as well as the expectations for administrat…
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Agile Classrooms provide for student-centered learning, collaboration, iteration, continuous feedback, and adaptability. Experienced teacher and Agile coach, Jessica Cavallaro, describes how Agile revolutionized her teaching practice and shares how teachers can create classrooms where students are active participants, planning alongside teachers, m…
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"Stop Saying These Kids Don’t Care About School." That’s the title of an op-ed piece written by podcast guest Laurie Putnam, superintendent in St Cloud, MN. Laurie identifies how this sentence buries the real challenges and daily struggles that many of her students’ face. That belief undermines our collective responsibilities to nurture future gene…
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Thanks to staff at PLS3rdLearning and scores of educators and authors, we are celebrating our 500th podcast! We took a few minutes to share our experiences with you. It has been exciting to have my learning extended as we created an opportunity to ponder about teaching and learning with guests and listeners. Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders O…
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Liz Keable, a specialist in guiding increased student leaning through metacognition practices, provides insights and suggestions for supporting and coaching teachers. "If we want to have a real impact on the next generation, there is one thing vastly more important than our teaching, and that is their learning.” You’ll find “look fors” and question…
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Kyle Coppes, a secondary principal, shares the thinking behind an opinion piece he wrote titled, "Student Laziness Is a Myth. Here’s Why" - "The belief that laziness exists will limit the behavior of any teacher who encounters it, and that is harmful. Essentially, it is a teacher’s get-out-of-jail-free card: If a student does not complete a task on…
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Heather Lyon, the author of, "Engagement is Not a Unicorn, It’s a Narwahl" and "The Big Book of Engagement Strategies," shares her insights on student engagement and teacher strategies from her new book, "50 Ways to Engage Students with Google Apps." Teachers' knowledge and understanding of pedagogical choices is key to tech tools tapping student e…
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