Best Exemplar Effect Podcasts (2025)

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258: The Power of Centering Student Exemplars 46:58

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1d ago46:58

46:58

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, buil…

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257: Bringing Joy into Our Schools: A Conversation with Gholdy Muhammad 1:00:55

15d ago1:00:55

1:00:55

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…

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256: Community Supplies in the Classroom: Clearing Up the Confusion 58:33

29d ago58:33

58:33

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, my guest Julie Lause explains why schools use these systems and how they…

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255: Before You Decorate Your Classroom, Here's a Better Idea 49:02

1M ago49:02

49:02

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 get to know his students AND fill the walls of his classroom with beautifu…

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254: Dusting Off an Old Practice to Make Reading Fun Again 32:46

2M ago32:46

32:46

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 stud…

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EduTip 32: Don't put kids in Charlie Bucket situations. 5:54

3M ago5:54

5:54

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 …

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253: Fully Seen and Fully Known: Teaching that Affirms Disability 1:01:53

3M ago1:01:53

1:01:53

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 framew…

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EduTip 31: Be the first dork. 5:28

3M ago5:28

5:28

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 t…

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252: Where Discipline Reform Has Gone Wrong (in Some Schools) 1:27:59

3M ago1:27:59

1:27:59

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…

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EduTip 30: Do something after formative assessments. 3:53

4M ago3:53

3:53

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. ------------------- Thanks to Studyo for sponsoring…

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251: Holding Students Accountable in the Age of AI 1:09:48

4M ago1:09:48

1:09:48

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 m…

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EduTip 29: Build relationships with a spreadsheet. 4:50

4M ago4:50

4:50

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. ------------------- Thanks to Studyo for sponsoring this tip. You can find…

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250: Nine Easy Ways to Add Retrieval to Your Lessons 1:02:59

4M ago1:02:59

1:02:59

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 classr…

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249: A Close Look at Competency-Based Learning 1:19:15

5M ago1:19:15

1:19:15

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, …

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248: Why grammar instruction stinks, and how we can change that 54:32

5M ago54:32

54:32

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 Les…

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EduTip 28: Add gestures to strengthen learning. 4:30

5M ago4:30

4:30

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

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247: Five Listening Skills That Will Improve All of Your Relationships 27:08

6M ago27:08

27:08

This episode is for everyone and anyone. In it, I'll share five techniques that will encourage any person you’re talking to to go a little more in-depth, share a little bit more, and most importantly, feel seen, heard, and understood. Thanks to Boclips Classroom and EVERFI for sponsoring this episode. For a written version of this episode, visit cu…

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EduTip 27: Get Better Participation with Icons 3:36

6M ago3:36

3:36

If you're doing an activity that requires students or participants to volunteer to participate, this is a fun way to choose them. ------------------- Thanks to Class Composer for sponsoring this tip. You can find written and video versions of these at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.By Jennifer Gonzalez

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246: How to Keep Teaching Well When DEI is Under Attack 27:31

6M ago27:31

27:31

Recent executive orders have launched an attack on teaching for diversity, equity, and inclusion. How do you teach at this precarious time in history when so much work has been done to weave these values into so many of our materials and practices? The more I think about it, the more I think you may not have to change as much as it might seem. When…

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245: A System for Meeting Absent Students' Needs 35:04

6M ago35:04

35:04

You can create the most spectacular lesson plans, but if all of your students aren't in the room when those plans are executed, catching them up can be kind of a nightmare. And despite the fact that this has been a problem for generations, few teachers have ever figured out a foolproof plan for solving it. My guest today has an approach that can he…

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EduTip 26: Give lots of quizzes. 5:06

6M ago5:06

5:06

One of the best-kept secrets in teaching is that frequent quizzing leads to better learning. If you can incorporate more ungraded or low-stakes quizzes into your instruction, there's a good chance your students will start remembering more of what they're learning. Learn about the research behind this phenomenon in this EduTip. ------------------- T…

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244: Three Ways You May Be Cognitively Overloading Your Students 40:18

7M ago40:18

40:18

When we make certain choices, often without even realizing it, we can turn a teaching moment from one that should be clear into one that's confusing. Luckily, these choices are pretty easy to spot and fix once we know what to look for, and cognitive science can help us understand what's going on. In this episode I'm going to talk about three of the…

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EduTip 25: Use neutral language to keep things cool. 4:28

7M ago4:28

4:28

In a classroom that is emotionally "cool," no one is preoccupied with any kind of anger, hurt feelings, anxiety, or fear, and this frees them up to concentrate on academics. One way to make that happen is by using neutral language: By choosing words that are less judgy and more neutral, we keep things professional, calm, and cool. -----------------…

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243: Small Changes to Make Your Classroom More Neurodiversity-Affirming 1:09:56

7M ago1:09:56

1:09:56

As our understanding of the human mind gets more sophisticated and nuanced, we're learning how to identify neurodivergence, how to appreciate it, and how to help those who fit under that umbrella navigate the world better. In this episode I'm joined by Emily Kircher-Morris and Amanda Morin, authors of the new book Neurodiversity-Affirming Schools. …

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EduTip 24: Use "I" statements to promote your teaching ideas. 3:26

7M ago3:26

3:26

As you move through your career, you'll discover new ways of doing things that you're excited about — so excited that you want to share them with colleagues and convince them to try them, too. But trained professionals aren't always open to changing the way they work, and we don't want to come off as the know-it-all telling everyone what to do. So …

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242: How to Do a Close Reading Lesson in Any Subject Area 50:11

7M ago50:11

50:11

To become skilled readers, our students need reading instruction in all of their classes, not just English language arts. But if other subject-area teachers don't know how to support readers, how can they do this? In this episode, literacy expert Jen Serravallo walks us through the steps of a close reading lesson, one of nine re-usable lesson struc…

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EduTip 23: Calm an out-of-control class with a notebook. 3:57

8M ago3:57

3:57

When student behavior starts driving you bananas, and you feel like you're going to yell, this simple notebook technique can regulate your nervous system and calm your class down fast. ------------------- Thanks to Grouper for sponsoring this EduTip! You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips. -------------------…

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241: Six Tech Tools to Try in 2025 56:04

8M ago56:04

56:04

It's our annual round-up of tools for educators, and this time along with it, we're announcing the launch of the online version of our Teacher's Guide to Tech! This year we're talking about three new AI tools, a platform for creating interactive lessons, a video editor, and a tool that makes text more accessible to everyone, plus a replacement for …

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240: When Your Classroom Management Goes Off the Rails 32:26

9M ago32:26

32:26

It can happen to the best of us — classroom management deteriorating over time. Don't despair! By figuring out where the problems are, you can turn things back around. My guest is Claire English, who runs an incredible platform called The Unteachables, where she shows teachers how to manage their classrooms with confidence and calm. We talk about t…

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239: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Multitasking in School 29:19

9M ago29:19

29:19

Multitasking isn't great for our brains, it compromises our mental health, and ultimately it doesn't even work, but that doesn't stop many of us from trying to do it all the time. What we may not realize is that it also sneaks into our classrooms and interferes with learning, and it's happening in ways you may not even notice. In today's episode, I…

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238: How Teacher Language Can Build a More Democratic Classroom 50:00

10M ago50:00

50:00

For many this week, the discomfort and pain of living side by side with people who see the world so differently from us has hit hard. But this is where we are right now, and we can either succumb to our current divide and let it get bigger, or keep trying to figure out how to close it. Though I didn't plan it this way, this week's podcast just happ…

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237: Curating a More Inclusive Library 59:50

10M ago59:50

59:50

Books are one of the most powerful ways to learn about others and about ourselves. But for that learning to happen, we need a wide range of stories that represent a whole spectrum of people and lives. In many schools and classrooms, however, the offerings are far too narrow. Curating the kind of library that truly reflects the diversity of human ex…

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236: Five Conditions for Getting Formative Assessment Right 47:18

11M ago47:18

47:18

Any time we teach our students something, we need to check to see how well they learned it. If we only do this check at the very end, after all the teaching is done, and we find that our students haven't learned the material, it's too late to do anything about it. That's why we really need to do formative assessment — checking along the way — so if…

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235: Making School Better for Gender-Expansive Kids 56:23

11M ago56:23

56:23

If our students are going to thrive, they all need to feel safe, accepted, and loved while under our care. This week, we're focusing on what that looks like when it comes to gender-expansive students — kids whose gender expression or identity is different from what they were assigned at birth. For these students, creating a school that feels safe a…

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234: Four Fun Classroom Games to Add to Your Toolbox 53:03

12M ago53:03

53:03

Students learn better when movement is included in a lesson. In this episode, theater educator Jocelyn Greene teaches us four fun improv games that can work in most classrooms to get students actively engaged and make the learning really stick. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Thanks to EVERFI and …

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233: Meeting the Core Human Needs of a Teacher 1:01:00

12M ago1:01:00

1:01:00

Teaching is intense, vulnerable work that brings up a range of emotions all day, every day. If we really want to help teachers thrive, we need to go beyond the technical parts of the job and look at how our core human needs show up in this work. In this episode, author and instructional coach Elena Aguilar joins me to explore what it looks like whe…

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232: How Metacognition Can Optimize Learning 40:05

1y ago40:05

40:05

The act of thinking about our own thinking, or metacognition, plays a huge role in how well our brain holds on to information. If we can get a better understanding of how metacognition works, we can tap into it to improve our learning and teach our students to do the same. In this episode, cognitive scientist Megan Sumeracki explains how we can mak…

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231: Teaching Executive Functions to All Students 1:07:09

1y ago1:07:09

1:07:09

All students can benefit from learning and practicing executive functions, the skills we use to control our attention, keep ourselves organized, initiate tasks, and manage time. But where do we find the time to teach them? In this episode, educator and author Mitch Weathers shares his proven 5-step system for integrating executive functions into re…

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Mo Turkmani: The Power of a Father's Dream 1:13:56

1y ago1:13:56

1:13:56

Send us a text Join us on The Exemplar Effect as we delve into the influential stories of Mo Turkmani, the host of 'Chai and Chit Chat' podcast. Mo recounts the remarkable journey of his father who fled war-torn Afghanistan to build a successful life in America. He also shares the impactful guidance of his high school wrestling coach, Jim Castle, a…

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Summer 2024 Update: What I'm Working On Over the Break 11:47

1y ago11:47

11:47

The podcast is on a break this summer because I'm working on a big project. I thought I'd take a few minutes and tell you a little bit about it. More on the project here. Be back soon!!By Jennifer Gonzalez

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Faustine McDonald: A Survivor's Journey of Resilience and Advocacy 1:27:25

1y ago1:27:25

1:27:25

Send us a text Join us for an inspiring episode of the Exemplar Effect Podcast featuring Faustine McDonald. Faustine shares her powerful transformation from a shy athlete with sickle cell anemia into an entrepreneur and motivational speaker. She reflects on the influential legacies of her late brother Creighton Casey and her mother, Victoria Casey …

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230: What is a Semantic Pulse Survey, and Why Should You Try it? 49:05

1y ago49:05

49:05

When teachers and students feel heard, the climate of a school just gets better, and semantic pulse surveys can make that happen. In this episode, we'll learn what about this fresh approach to surveying and how teachers and administrators can create their own to gain better insights about the students and teachers they serve. This episode is sponso…

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229: Not Just for Math: A Tiered System of Learning Supports for Any Subject 1:21:20

1+ y ago1:21:20

1:21:20

You can never have too many ideas for helping struggling students, right? In this episode, you'll get a few more that you may not have tried. My guests are two teachers — learning specialist Sarah Riggs Johnson and math teacher Nate Wolkenhauer — who share their system of strategies that help all students learn better, a kind of pyramid where the o…

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228: A Conversation About School Choice 50:36

1+ y ago50:36

50:36

The rights of parents to choose the best school for their children — also known as school choice — may seem simple on the surface, but it's anything but, and it has the potential to impact teachers and students all over the country. In this episode, I talk with Cara Fitzpatrick, author of The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Ov…

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Kyle Perrotti: The Impact of Exemplary Leadership 49:42

1+ y ago49:42

49:42

Send us a text In this episode, Kyle Perrotti, a journalist and editor at Smoky Mountain News discusses the profound impact of role models and mentors in his life. Kyle shares his journey from a directionless youth in Washington state, through his time in the Navy as a nuclear operator, to studying at Columbia University and finally pursuing journa…

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227: Two Effective Ways to Teach Annotation 1:05:50

1+ y ago1:05:50

1:05:50

Annotation can be a powerful way to improve comprehension and increase engagement, but its effectiveness can vary depending on how it's taught. In this episode, two teachers share their classroom-tested approaches to teaching students how to effectively annotate texts: 3rd grade teacher Andrea Castellano and high school English teacher Irene Yannas…

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226: Yes, Your School Librarian Can Do That (and More) 1:07:45

1+ y ago1:07:45

1:07:45

If your school is lucky enough to have a full-time certified librarian, it's likely they are not being utilized to their full capacity. In fact, yours may be one of a growing number of schools that are eliminating librarians altogether, and that is a terrible idea. In this episode, I sit down with four accomplished librarians — K.C. Boyd, Barbara P…

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225: Two Programs with Fresh Solutions to the Teacher Shortage 58:28

1+ y ago58:28

58:28

Many states are seeing record high numbers of teacher turnovers and vacancies. While the problems that caused this shortage have not gone away, there are groups of people who are coming up with some creative ways to address this situation, new and surprisingly affordable pathways for training good, enthusiastic teachers. Two of these programs are O…

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Roots and Reminiscences: A Journey Through Cassie Clark's Family Stories 46:05

1+ y ago46:05

46:05

Send us a text Cassie Clark's journey through life was profoundly influenced by the greatest man she ever knew—her Papaw. Raised by her grandparents during her formative years, Cassie's narrative is filled with heartfelt anecdotes that illustrate her unbreakable bond with her Papaw. He was the archetype of resilience and heart, whose life riddled w…

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Adam Tebrugge: A Journey From Public Defender to North Carolina Senate Hopeful 55:39

1+ y ago55:39

55:39

Send us a text In this episode of The Exemplar Effect Podcast, we chat with Adam Tebrugge, a North Carolina Senate candidate with a rich background as a public defender and law professor. Adam shares transformative experiences from his educational journey at New College and his pivotal internships, including one with Florida Governor Bob Graham tha…