The Whole Child Podcast: Changing the Conversation About Education

Latest Episodes:

Building a Better School Community: Using PLCs to Support Student Success Oct 06, 2011

Show notes

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have emerged as perhaps the best, most agreed-on means of continual improvement in instruction and student performance. Whether it be in a single school or online, in study groups, action research teams, communities of practice, or conversation circles, educators working together with a shared focus on learning and accountability help all students learn at high levels. In this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we take a look at collaborative and collegial learning environments where staff members feel safe to express themselves, discuss, and take an active part in the school improvement process and the student success process.

Partnerships Between Home and School: The Real Missing Link? Sep 08, 2011

Show notes

Families are a central source of children's learning and development, and their influence cannot be ignored. Engaging with families can inform, complement, reinforce, and accelerate educators' efforts to educate the whole child. Without strategic and continual connections between families and educators, we cannot ensure that students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. In this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we examine research that overwhelmingly reinforces the need for family engagement, practices that create and sustain meaningful involvement, policies that can bring about systemic change, and barriers that we must overcome to achieve this vision.

Inclusive Learning: Meeting Each Student's Special Needs Aug 03, 2011

Show notes

Creating an inclusive environment where each student feels safe and supported in an engaging and appropriately challenging environment is rarely an easy feat, yet it is essential to educating the whole child. Regardless of strengths and challenges, each student needs and is deserving of full membership within the classroom and school community. While each student benefits from this inclusive environment, it is critically important and often challenging to ensure it for students with special needs. In this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we focus on creating inclusive learning environments that develop students at all levels.

School Environments: Transforming Learning Spaces Jun 09, 2011

Show notes

Schools that take a whole child approach to education are conscious of the intersection between physical space and the academic, social, and emotional development of students. The learning environments we create -- the physical along with school climate -- can either help or hinder learning, development, teaching, and collaboration. In this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we look at what kind of school environments optimize the way students learn, teachers teach, and communities interact and hear from guests who are creating learning environments that facilitate the process of ensuring students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

Beyond Our Halls and Walls: Getting to Community Engagement May 12, 2011

Show notes

There is much talk about the need for community involvement in educating the whole child. But, who is the community and what does sustainable community involvment look like? In this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, learn what it means for communities to be involved in schools and how everyone has a role to play in ensuring that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

The Middle Grades: Zits, Braces, and Hormones Apr 14, 2011

Show notes

The middle grades are a complex, challenging, and confusing time for adolescents and for adults to support and develop! Even so, more and more research points to the importance of this stage of childhood, when young people are grappling to figure out who they are. In this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we examine how to foster middle grades students' healthy development; create environments that facilitate learning throughout this transitional time; and support those who are working with these students in schools, in the community, and at home.

Ready and Able: An Interivew with Jay Mathews Mar 29, 2011

Show notes

In this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, host Molly McCloskey, managing director of Whole Child Programs at ASCD, and Jay Mathews, education columnist for The Washington Post and author, have a conversation about what it means to be college- and career-ready and the value of citizenship skills. Mathews answered questions from session attendees on a range of topics including the importance of teacher-student relationships, KIPP charter schools, and the responsibility of education journalists.

Ready and Able: College, Career, and Citizenship in the 21st Century Mar 27, 2011

Show notes

The demands of meeting all district, state, and national requirements often seem to leave no time for preparing students for anything else. Yet teaching solely to the test will leave students ill-equipped for college, careers, and citizenship. Recorded live at ASCD's Annual Conference on March 26, this episode of the Whole Child Podcast features an engaging conversation about powerfully preparing young people for the demands of the future.

Teaching in a Digital World: Connecting and Empowering the Whole Child Feb 03, 2011

Show notes

Unfortunately, unchecked and unfocused use of technology can result in students disconnecting from the "why" of learning and from the real-time relationships that are key to their development and success. Alternatively, high-quality integration of technology has the potential to not only prepare young people for their futures, but also to enhance and expand learning and connectedness. In this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, our guests discuss specific ways you can overcome barriers to connecting digital learners and lead your school community in meaningful technology integration.

PE, Recess, and Beyond: The Implications of Movement Dec 09, 2010

Show notes

This episode of the Whole Child Podcast examines the research about the need for physical education in schools; explores some of the recent criticism; examines the relationship between physical activity and academic achievement, engagement, and social and emotional health and learning; and considers how physical activity can be expanded across the day. Our guests discuss ways that schools and communities can support physical activity throughout the day.