The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

Latest Episodes:

EduTip 28: Add gestures to strengthen learning. Mar 23, 2025

Show notes

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.

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

247: Five Listening Skills That Will Improve All of Your Relationships Mar 16, 2025

Show notes

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 cultofpedagogy.com/listening-skills.

EduTip 27: Get Better Participation with Icons Mar 09, 2025

Show notes

If you're doing an activity that requires students or participants to volunteer to participate, this is a fun way to choose them.

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

246: How to Keep Teaching Well When DEI is Under Attack Mar 06, 2025

Show notes

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 I look over the years of articles and podcast episodes I have done in the service of supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, so many of the practices I've had the privilege to share would never get flagged by these directives. I thought it might be helpful for me to curate some of the most important teaching recommendations that have come through my platform for addressing inequities in schools.

Thanks to Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For links to all the resources mentioned in this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/dei-under-attack.

245: A System for Meeting Absent Students' Needs Mar 02, 2025

Show notes

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 help. Robert Barnett is co-founder of the Modern Classrooms Project and the author of a new book, Meet Every Learner's Needs: Redesigning Instruction So All Learners Can Succeed. In this episode, Rob is going to explain how his approach, which ultimately evolved into the framework Modern Classrooms uses, helped him solve the problem of student absences in his own classroom. And he'll show us how any teacher can get started with it in a very simple way.

Thanks to Boclips Classroom and Zearn for sponsoring this episode.

To read a full transcript of this episode and get links to Robert's book, visit cultofpedagogy.com/absent-students.

EduTip 26: Give lots of quizzes. Feb 23, 2025

Show notes

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.

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Thanks to Explore Learning for sponsoring this tip. You can find written and video versions of these at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

244: Three Ways You May Be Cognitively Overloading Your Students Feb 17, 2025

Show notes

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 these with Blake Harvard, who writes the Effortful Educator blog and has just published a new book, Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning.

Thanks to Boclips Classroom and Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this episode.

To read a full transcript of this episode and get links to Blake's book, visit cultofpedagogy.com/cognitive-overload.

EduTip 25: Use neutral language to keep things cool. Feb 09, 2025

Show notes

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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Thanks to Explore Learning for sponsoring this EduTip!

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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243: Small Changes to Make Your Classroom More Neurodiversity-Affirming Feb 03, 2025

Show notes

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. The book offers all kinds of specific guidance that will help teachers reshape their classrooms into places that offer flexible options for students with a wide range of "wiring." In today's episode, they'll share four actionable changes you can make right now to begin that reshaping.

Thanks to Boclips Classroom and Brisk Teaching for sponsoring this episode.

To read a full transcript of this episode and get links to all the resources we talk about, visit cultofpedagogy.com/neurodiversity-affirming/.

EduTip 24: Use "I" statements to promote your teaching ideas. Jan 26, 2025

Show notes

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 the most effective way to share a new idea is to talk about it in terms of "I."

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Thanks to Grouper for sponsoring this EduTip!

You can find full written versions of these tips at cultofpedagogy.com/edutips.

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