Vrain Waves: Teaching Conversations with Minds Shaping Education

Co-authors Alyssa Gallagher and Kami Thordarson stop by Vrain Waves to share the best moments from their sessions at ASCD 2019! Listen as they teach us how Design Thinking can help improve school culture.

What is an equity moonshot? What is the problem with deficit thinking? The dream team of Dr. Jackson, Dr. Kallick, and Dr. Zmuda has combined to author 27 books and were so lucky to have them swing by at ASCD to answer these questions and more.

In the first of our mini-series highlighting the conversations at the ASCD Empower 2019 Conference (#Empower19 for more on social media as well…), we sit down with inspirational teacher Mr. Dwayne Reed from Chicago Public Schools. Please enjoy this quick discussion about getting to know our classroom by starting with ‘you’, then ‘them’, then ‘we’, a quick reprise of his keynote at the General Session of the conference. (Becky’s Chicago accent comes back a little harder in this episode, too, so brace yourselves for that…)

We hope you’re sitting down. With a notebook. And that you’re ready to hit the pause button a bunch of times, because you’re going to need some reflection time for this one! This episode has so much insight we had a hard time uploading the audio. Join us for an interview with Cornelius Minor, the author of We Got This: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be (https://www.heinemann.com/products/e09814.aspx). Enjoy, and please tweet or share your takeaways so we can keep this conversation going! #makesomevrainwaves

In this episode, Girl Scout CEO Sylvia Acevedo shares so much wisdom and insight into how to reach learners at every level, especially girls. Her stories, both from her own life and from being the CEO of girl scouts and seeing the projects that students are working on, are sure to inspire! Stay tuned after the episode for more classroom tips and instructional resources.

Co-authors Alyssa Gallagher and Kami Thordarson stop by Vrain Waves to share the 5 elements of design-inspired leadership. Alyssa & Kami “believe that educators can solve the challenges that face our schools faster and more effectively than any policy, top down mandate, or expensive commercial solution.” Tune in as they explain how design, creativity, and observation can help us navigate and advocate for change.

In his new book, Educated by Design, The Tech Rabbi Michael Cohen shares his journey to education through design, while providing useful tools and resources for the reader to help expand students’ belief in their own creative ability. Today on Vrain Waves, he shares many of these insights with us!

We’ve covered what we teach, and how we teach, and why we teach… but we have never really talked about WHERE we teach. So today, enjoy the insights and inspirations of Dr. Robert Dillon. In this interview, we discuss the research behind where we learn, how we can put this research into practice by making small changes to our environment, and strategies for keeping this top of mind as we move throughout the school year.

For our first show of 2019, we decided to outsource for more tangible tips and creative ideas for your classroom to kick off second semester. We asked Vrain Waves listeners to give us a 2-3 minute voice clip of them describing something in their classroom or their practice that they wanted to share with a broader audience - an extended version of our Out of Our Heads and Into the Classroom segment. Here’s the result - we hope you enjoy, and would love it if you would contribute too! We’ll likely include more of these in different episodes, so please call us (720-900-1741) or email us with a short voice memo and we’ll share your ideas with our audience! Thank you so much, and Happy New Year!

We’ve condensed 1,273 minutes of Vrain Waves 2018 into our 5 top moments. Let's put this advice of giants into practice and make 2019 our best year ever!

Stephen Shedletsky is the Head of Brand Voice at Start with Why. Join us to hear about Simon Sinek’s Start with Why movement and how it can help you not only live a more fulfilling life but also make your work less stressful and more authentic. He mentions tools, activities, and next steps that we can all take to first find and then live true to our authentic selves.

In this episode we speak with a former executive of one of the most influential companies on the planet! In addition to being a personal friend of Steve Jobs, John Couch was the Vice President of Education at Apple Inc. for 16 years. This giant in education enthralls us with stories from his book, Rewiring Education, explains the merits of challenge-based learning, and shares why creativity is worth 100 IQ points!

The Learning Scientists are cognitive psychologists who spend their time sharing research-backed study methods via their podcast, their blog, and their new book, Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide. Today, they talk to us about their research and how it translates into the classroom. Enjoy!

How can poolside popsicles and chirping crickets help us be better teachers? Best selling author Dan Heath stops by to teach us all how to build peak moments by avoiding the soul sucking force of reasonableness!

This is your A-Z guide to student engagement with the one and only AZ (Allison Zmuda)! Allison Zmuda is going on 19 years as a full-time education consultant specializing in curriculum, assessment, and instruction. She helps educators design work that is relevant, meaningful, challenging, and appropriate. Since 2001, she has co-authored 11 books, and she shares her vast amount of expertise and unique perspectives with Vrain Waves through another engaging interview. You can learn along with Allison at learningpersonalized.com as well as at allisonzmuda.com Enjoy!!