Vrain Waves: Teaching Conversations with Minds Shaping Education

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**Vrain Waves: Teaching Conversations with Minds Shaping Education**

Vrain Waves seeks to provide teachers powerful professional learning anywhere, and anytime. We feature interviews with educational giants, successful professionals, and sought-after consultants to help teachers feel more informed, inspired, and connected. Join us each week as we highlight educational theory, strategies, and tools that all teachers can put to use in the classroom.

Latest Episodes:

The Reshaping of the World with Thomas Friedman Jan 27, 2020

Show notes

Connect with Thomas Friedman

Website: www.thomaslfriedman.com | Twitter: @tomfriedman | Most Recent Book: Thank you for Being Late

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Importance of Public Education (05:20)
Thomas Friedman’s Educational Experiences (06:09)
- Mr. Friedman’s articles on New York Times
- A beautiful tribute to Hattie Steinberg by Friedman
Reshaping of our World (08:45)
- “Now is the time to understand more so that we can fear less.” - Marie Curie
- 3 Climate Changes at once: Mother Nature, Market, Moore’s Law
- Exponential growth
Moore’s Law - Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel (09:42)
Technology accelerating at a pace that humans can’t adapt (13:40)
- Graph that Astro Teller, Google X, drew on Friedman’s wall
Mother Nature - Resilience & Propulsion (14:21)
- An Interview with Mother Nature
- Questions for us to apply to education within these characteristics (17:32)
- #ClearTheAir on Twitter - from the amazing @ValeriaBrownEDU and team
- Teaching Tolerance
- Episodes with Manoush Zomorodi / Cal Newport / Natalie Wexler
- Friedman’s CV
Lifelong Learning (21:45)
- Self-motivation divide: Owning Your Own Future - single most important competitive advantage
Advice to his daughters (23:12)
- Think like an immigrant - Paranoid Optimism
- Think like an artisan - from The Goldens @ Harvard
- Think like a starter-upper in Silicon Valley - Reid Hoffman - Always be in Beta (Skyline High School STEM Academy)
- CQ + PQ > IQ
- Think like a waitress at Perkins Pancake House in Minneapolis - be relentlessly entrepreneurial
Identity in the reshaped world (30:25)
- Friedman on the new grid
- Binary bias
- Myth of hemispheric dominance in the brain
- Personality Tests (Myers-Briggs: Vox, Adam Grant)
The Golden Rule (33:16)
- Friedman on the golden rule
- Marigolds, Jennifer Gonzalez
The Eye People (34:13)
- Brandi Carlisle - The Eye
  - Refrain: “I wrapped your love around me like a chain, but I never was afraid that it would die. You can dance in a hurricane, but only if you’re standing in the eye.”
- Dynamic stability - Astro Teller on dynamic stability

Bored and Brilliant with Manoush Zomorodi Jan 13, 2020

Show notes

Connect with Manoush Zomorodi

Website: www.manoushz.com | Twitter: @manoushz | Book: Bored and Brilliant

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Manoush’s work (01:08)
- Note to Self podcast
- Zig Zag podcast
- Ted Radio Hour podcast
- Stable Genius Productions
- Bored and Brilliant Book
- Manoush’s TED Talk
Technology and our Brain, background of the book (02:07)
- Bored and Brilliant challenges, 2015
- Ways we ‘pay’ for ‘free’ apps
Taking pictures and our memory (06:04)
Self-regulation with technology (08:52)
Stories from Bored and Brilliant challenges in the classroom (10:10)
- Skim reading v. long form reading
- Maryanne Wolf - researcher, language processing on screens vs in books
- Sherry Turkle's - Reclaiming Conversation
Boredom in the classroom (14:15)
- Default Mode
- Autobiographical Planning
- Embracing boredom - positive constructive mind wandering
- Memory for future imagining
- Digital Minimalism Vrain Waves Episode with Cal Newport
Knowing-Doing Gap for tech use (18:14)
What Manoush is reading: Super Thinking (22:22)
Who are you online? (24:19)
- Manoush’s No Filter Project
Takeaways (25:42)
- Bored and Brilliant challenges
- Add a new behavior instead of taking away behavior
- Seinfeld jokes calendar
- Streaks app
- Brainscape app
- Brainscape article on diffuse and focused modes of thinking
  - Farnam Street blog on diffuse and focused mode
- Subreddit: Shower Thoughts - Best of Shower Thoughts

Knowledge Party with Natalie Wexler Dec 09, 2019

Show notes

Episode 048: Knowledge Party with Natalie Wexler

Today on Vrain Waves we have an exciting and somewhat earth shaking interview from Natalie Wexler, education journalist and author of The Knowledge Gap. She walks us through the contributing research and education history that led her to write the book, and some strategies for schools to set the foundation for student success. From her website: “Education journalist Natalie Wexler focuses on two ideas that have solid evidence behind them but have been mostly overlooked by schools and reformers: immersing children from less-educated families in knowledge about the world, and linking that knowledge to writing instruction.”

Connect with Natalie Wexler

Website: nataliewexler.com | Twitter: @natwexler | Books: The Knowledge Gap, The Writing Revolution

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Intro (00:58)
- 4 times less likely to graduate if not reading on grade level by 3rd grade
- NYT Article: Reading Scores on National Exam Decline in Half the States
- Typical time spent in 3rd grade on reading: 2 hours; 16 min on social studies, 19 min on science (2012)
- Reading comprehension cannot be broken down into discrete skills
- Daisy Christodoulou - Books; (bonus: Check out her stuff on Comparative Judgment for assessment!)
Natalie Wexler’s view on the Promise of Public Education (5:25)
- Functioning democracy needs a citizenry that can understand events and how to edit and fact check the information that they’re exposed to
What is The Knowledge Gap (06:55)
- We’ve treated reading like it’s a set of discrete skills while letting content knowledge take a back seat
- Most important factor for successful reading comprehension: how much background knowledge and vocabulary you already have
The Baseball Study and reading comprehension (09:42)
2 Parts of Reading: Decoding and Comprehension (11:27)
- Cognitive Scientists and Teachers have come to opposite conclusions - decoding needs direct and explicit instruction and comprehension will come along with more exposure to content
- Language at the Speed of Sight, 271–274
- Dan Willingham (Vrain Waves Episode with Dr. Willingham)
Whose knowledge? (16:13)
- Common core history and content knowledge (18:32)
- Supplemental materials language on content in common core
Underestimating student ability and having high expectations (22:10)
Student choice (24:13)
- Behavior and content knowledge (26:01)
- The Matthew Effect in Reading
- Cognitive Load theory - novices and experts - Slides from Daniel Braithwaite
- “Leveled texts lead to leveled lives.” - Alfred Tatum
History of the role of content in reading instruction (28:35)
Alternatives to leveled groupings (31:08)
- Listening comprehension exceeds reading comprehension
- Written language is more complex than spoken language
The importance of exposing struggling readers to grade level texts (34:07)
The importance of facts and knowledge in the age of Google (36:42)
- Burden on working memory (see cognitive load theory)
The Curse of Knowledge (38:19)
- Doug Lemov: “Those of us on the privileged side of the knowledge gap have no idea how we got here.”
- Importance of pre-assessment
Misinterpretation of Bloom’s Taxonomy (40:35)
- Taxonomy, not a hierarchy
- Skipping lower levels is not appropriate
- Quote from the book: “That graphic has led many educators to conclude that the ‘lower-order’ tasks should be passed over as quickly as possible, or even eliminated, because they’re inferior to those at the top. In fact, Bloom meant that knowledge and comprehension are prerequisites for higher-order thinking, and that teachers should never ask students to start analyzing or evaluating a topic until first ensuring they have a solid understanding of it.”
The Writing Revolution (42:33)
- Writing builds and solidifies knowledge as well as demonstrating knowledge
- Retrieval Practice / The Testing Effect
- The Protege Effect
- Knowledge is like velcro
- Sentence frames with ending conjunctions for prompts
Balance between free writing & content-based writing (47:40)
- Judith Hochman - The Hochman Method
Role of the teacher in the modern classroom, PD (48:54)
- Delivering curriculum instead of creating curriculum
- Ongoing PD around content delivery, not skills in isolation
- Provide information and then guide them through thinking about that information with opportunities for desirable difficulty
Closing & Take Aways (53:00)
- NatalieWexler.com / Forbes.com contributor
- Quote: “It’s not so much that particular bits of information are vital in and of themselves—although some certainly are. It’s more that people need to have enough facts in their heads to have what one commentator has called ‘a knowledge party’—a bunch of accumulated associations that will enable them to absorb, retain, and analyze new information. Education certainly shouldn’t end with facts. But if it doesn’t begin there, many students will never acquire the knowledge and analytical abilities they need to thrive both in school and in life.”

Other Resources as well as some relevant citations from The Knowledge Gap:

Amplify Science of Reading Podcast
Shanahan: Should We Teach Students at their Reading Level
Why Minimally Guided Techniques Do Not Work, Kirschner et al
Teaching Content is Teaching Reading - YouTube Video, Dan Willingham

Teach Like an Advertiser with Dr. Lindsay Portnoy Nov 18, 2019

Show notes

Teaching & Advertising (01:30)
- Episode 5 w/ Pirate Dave
- Rosie the Riveter / Uncle Sam
- This Girl Can (02:28)
- Sport England
- Missy Elliot, Get Ur Freak On
Authenticity over perfection (05:05)
- Dove Real Beauty campaign
- Commercial with sketch artist
Zaretta Hammond's book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain (07:26)
- Selective Vulnerability as a trust-maker
Growing a Fan Base (08:28)
- Clif bars
- Google Certified Innovators
- Apple Distinguished Educators
- Dr. Chris Emdin (09:53)
- TED talk
- Cogens
- For White Folks Who Teach in the 'Hood (and for the rest of y'all too)
Dr. Lindsay Portnoy - start of interview (14:24)
- Psychographics (15:00)
- "Will your spreadsheets remember you in ten years?"
- New York City Teaching Fellows
What educators can learn from marketing and psychographics (16:34)
Dr. Portnoy's dissertation (17:29)
- Piaget (18:04)
- Types of questions that kids were asking were largely dependent on the content itself
- Slow trajectory of growth disproves ages & stages
Interdisciplinary nature of design (20:20)
Define learning (21:28)
Symptoms v. Root Cause (23:24)
Formative assessment (24:45)
Empathy = taking perspective (25:42)
Epistemology (26:57)
Andrea Henkel, Quest to Learn
AI & the future of learning (30:06)
Research is formalized curiosity (32:09)
- Zora Neale Hurston
Design & formative assessment are iterative (33:20)
- Effort versus Impact matrix
HEARTS = Home, Educational Experience, Activities they engage in outside the classroom, Reasons for Learning, Transformative life experiences, Special Attributes
Killer snails, cone snails / pain management properties (39:21)
Killer snails, the edtech company (39:44)
Contact Info for Dr. Linsday Portnoy: @Lportnoy, lindsayportnoy.com, l.portnoy@northeastern.edu (43:10)
Take aways (43:38)
- John Spencer video on divergent & convergent thinking

Long May They Run

Phish podcast with Trey talking about practice

The Power of Joyful Teaching: A Compilation Nov 02, 2019

Show notes

Episode 048: The Power of Joyful Teaching

I know, I know - clips episodes seem overdone, but bear with us… in this show, we went through our interviews to this point and used Dr. Martin Seligman’s PERMA model for happiness to think through how we can be more joyful in our classrooms (and beyond). Links to all other shows can be found below!

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Links & Show Notes

CAMLE - Colorado Association of Middle Level Educators
“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.” - Haim Ginott
Brain Rules episode with Dr. John Medina
Dr. Martin Seligman
PERMA Model
P = Positive Emotion
- Teaching from a Full Tank with Chase Mielke
- Webinar with Dr. Seligman
E = Engagement
R = Relationships
- To classroom, colleagues, craft, content
- Jennie Magiera, Ed Tech Team
- We Got This with Cornelius Minor
- Dwayne Reed
- Critical Creativity with Dan Ryder
- Positive School Culture with Jenn Gonzalez
M = Meaning
- Start with Why with Steven Shedletsky
A = Accomplishments
- Know thy Impact with John Hattie
- Digital Minimalism with Cal Newport

The Champions Mind with Dr. Jim Afremow Oct 21, 2019

Show notes

Episode 047: Dr. Jim Afremow - The Champion’s Mind
Sports psychologist Dr. Jim Afremow joins Vrain Waves to share the importance of cultivating a champion’s mindset in everything you do. There are plenty of parallels between sports and teaching and learning; some of these parallels are useful for thinking about your classroom or your collegial relationships in a different frame. Download the Champion’s Mind app to hear inspirational audio clips and motivate yourself for anything you’re trying to tackle in life! Enjoy!

Connect with Dr. Jim Afremow
Website: goldmedalmind.net | Twitter: @goldmedalmind | Books: The Champion’s Mind; The Champion’s Comeback; The Young Champion’s Mind

Connect with Vrain Waves
Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Links & Show Notes

Intro links
- Space Jam the movie
- Practice until you can’t get it wrong - Peyton Manning
- Champions v. Contenders
- “Part of this process requires us to maintain our eagerness to learn and grow, and to take well-trained, disciplined action to make solid change in our lives.”
What can we learn from athletes? (06:15)
What is a champion? (07:02)
- Being vitally involved in life
Handling setbacks (07:52)
- Ugly but effective
- Serena Williams
- Relaxes when she’s down in a match
Greatest of All Time (09:54)
Arrogance v. Confidence (10:51)
- Time to be humble (preparation phase) then confident (performance phase)
- Ego edges greatness out
Self-talk (13:10)
- Anxiety management
- Butterflies - try to get them to fly in formation
Mental game / Physical game (15:15)
Visualization / Mental Imagery (16:02)
- Big days or daily routines
- Psych yourself up instead of psyching yourself out
Peak Performance Coordinator for the San Francisco Giants
Motivation (19:41)
- Get into a great mood / frame of mind
- Pick a predator to emulate
Good / Better / Best (21:50)
- Great way to debrief: What went well? What could I have done better? How will I make those changes to help myself be best tomorrow?
- Lebron & his son video
Deliberate Practice (24:23)
- Process goals & outcome goals
- Continuous improvement
- Rest / Recovery / Regeneration - Don’t be lazy with your recovery
Meditation & breathing techniques (26:47)
Champions & their contract (27:33)
- Dr. Afremow article about JJ Watt: "I think no matter what job you do, I don’t care what job it is, you want to outperform your contract. I feel like that’s how everybody should attack their job, at least. You should want people to think you’re underpaid because of how hard you work, because of how well you do your job, because of how you go about your business."
- Importance of Gratitude
- Sometimes we have to go against socialization to be our best selves
Team Sports & Teaching (29:44)
- When we give ourselves to others, we get more in return.
- A rising tide lifts all boats
On Twitter: @GoldMedalMind
Relationships (31:40)
- Learn the learner; study the student - be vulnerable with students
Coach-Athlete Relationship (33:10)
- Balance between challenge & support
Optimism (34:49)
- Baseball card research study (article)
- When it’s time to perform, be psychotically optimistic.
Body Language (36:46)
Confidence, Concentration, Commitment, Composure (38:24)
- “That’s like me” or “That’s not like me”
- Negativity bias for survival
What are we doing that gets in our own way? (40:07)
- “I know” list
- Gift of failing & how to learn from it: I just learned something that didn’t work
3 P’s: Present, Positivity, Process (43:17)
- Let go of today & focus on the next thing
Mantras / Routines (44:44)
- Mind over matter
- Be like water
- I love hills
- Bruce Lee quote:
- “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
Commonalities among people that surround champions (46:03)
The Champions Mind App
- Use the app to build mental skills & strategies
Take Aways (48:32)
- Cornelius Minor Vrain Waves episode
- 3 questions for being a team player:
- “Think about these three self-reflection questions regarding your role as a teammate: 1. What am I doing that is hurting my team (e.g., complaining, gossiping)? 2. What am I not doing that is hurting my team (e.g., cheering for my teammates, accepting my role on the team)? 3. What are the specific action steps I will take to be a better teammate moving forward (e.g., hustling on every play, being more vocal on the field)?”
- PLC+ Vrain Waves episode

Dr. John Medina, Brain Rules Oct 07, 2019

Show notes

Episode 046: Dr. John Medina - Brain Rules
We’ve been waiting for years now for the chance to interview Dr. John Medina: Developmental Molecular Biologist, Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and author of Brain Rules, Brain Rules for Baby, Brain Rules for Aging Well, and Attack of the Teenage Brain, to name a few. Dr. Medina takes time out of his busy schedule to chat with us about Theory of Mind, stress and learning, and some history behind our fancy brains.

Connect with Dr. John Medina
Website: http://www.brainrules.net/ | Twitter: @BrainRulesBooks | Books: Brain Rules, Brain Rules for Baby, Brain Rules for Aging Well, Attack of the Teenage Brain

Connect with Vrain Waves
Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Links & Show Notes

Intro to Brain Rules Chapter Summaries (01:12)
- Rule #1: Exercise Boosts Brain Power
- Doris Kearns Goodwin episode
- Rule #3: Every Brain is Wired Differently
- Free Solo Documentary
- Daniel Kahnemann, Thinking Fast and Slow
Dr. Medina’s journey through career (05:53)
Drawing / Arts and the Brain (08:45)
- Decentering behaviors are brain vitamins - can change the aging brain
Theory of Mind & Empathy (11:01)
- Cognitive & affective empathy
- Improving Theory of Mind - Read lots of literary fiction, journal about your feelings while you read
Teachers must be able to form accurate perceptions of students’ abilities (14:45)
- When are you bewildering a student?
- Book studies with faculty
Educational Ecology (16:35)
- “Learning is primarily a relational enterprise.”
De-stressing the teacher / Theory of Mind takes an enormous amount of cognitive resource
Empathic distress (17:56)
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
- The Mindful Way Workbook
Stress Study with Dogs (20:00)
- Chapter in Brain Rules: Stressed Brains Don’t Learn the Same Way
- Martin Seligman / Stress study with dogs / Learned Helplessness
- Inability to control the aversive stimuli = stress
Depression (23:41)
- NPY Peptide - resilience to aversive stimuli
Executive Function (25:58)
- Nature v. Nurture - boat analogy
- Aerobic Exercise is a powerful way to improve executive function
- Add a cognitive component = even bigger boost
- Gym in the center of the school
- Our brains evolved while we were walking 12 hours a day
Are cell phones hurting teenage brains? (29:46)
- Longer you spend looking at screens, worse you are at interpreting social cues from other people’s faces and expressions, nonverbal skills
- Recovered after 5 days
Multitasking and erosion of the attentional spotlight (33:04)
- Inability to multitask when there are a lot of things to attend to creates stress / anxiety in the brain
One recommendation for teachers (36:48)
Take aways (38:33)
- Episode with Dr. Tony Wagner
- “Focused leaders say no.” - Dr. Jackie Kapushion
- Episode with Cal Newport
- Yuval Noah Harari & the imagined order
- Mindful Way Workbook; The Onward Workbook by Elena Aguilar
Mark Pearson, Libro.FM
- Free Audiobooks for teachers; find out more at: https://libro.fm/alc-program

Expertise in Education with Dr. Tom Nichols Sep 23, 2019

Show notes

Episode 045: Dr. Tom Nichols, Expertise in Education
Five-time Jeopardy! Champion, professor, and author Dr. Tom Nichols joins us on Vrain Waves to discuss the implications of his work on K12 education. We chat with Dr. Nichols about the importance of relying on experts, cultivating our own expertise, and the cognitive heuristics that get in our way. From his website: “Tom Nichols is a U.S. Naval War College University Professor, and an adjunct at the U.S. Air Force School of Strategic Force Studies and the Harvard Extension School. He is a specialist on Russian affairs, nuclear strategy, NATO issues, and a nationally-known commentator on U.S. politics and national security.” And he agreed to talk to us!! Ben and Becky! We are so excited to share his thoughts with you, our busy listeners - please share your thoughts on Twitter with the #MakeSomeVrainWaves or tweet us @VrainWaves with your favorite takeaways. Thanks for listening!

Connect with Dr. Tom Nichols
Website: Facebook: Death of Expertise | Twitter: @radiofreetom | Book: The Death of Expertise

Connect with Vrain Waves
Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Links & Show Notes

“Nothing builds up resistance to learning like constant praise.”
Dunning-Kreuger Effect (05:58)
Foreign Affairs Article from Dr. Nichols about his Ukraine example
Confirmation bias (08:57)
Desirability bias (09:17)
Idea of omnicompetence (from Richard Hofstadter’s book: Anti-intellectualism in American Life) (10:02)
Original blog post before the book
We are a postmodern society (13:47)
“Expertise is necessarily exclusive.” / Inequality in expertise (18:02)
Is education the solution? (23:43)
- Your degree is not a validation, it’s a license (28:08)
  Oxford University Press - 3 anonymous peer reviewers
Our responsibility to defer to expertise (30:10)
@RadioFreeTom on Twitter
- Gentle correction from colleagues
- Anecdata
We are inherently bad at statistics (36:03)
- Kahneman on Thinking Fast & Slow in Scientific American
Our interest in learning is at an all-time low (37:30)
Dr. Nichols frequently writes for: USA Today / The Washington Post / The Atlantic
Takeaways (41:01)
- Dan Willingham’s Book: When Can We Trust the Experts
- David Rock: “If you have a brain, you’re biased.”

Teaching from a Full Tank with Chase Mielke Sep 09, 2019

Show notes

Connect with Chase Mielke
Website: https://affectiveliving.com/ | Twitter: @chasemielke | Newest Book: The Burnout Cure: Learning to Love Teaching Again, ASCD

Connect with Vrain Waves
Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Links & Show Notes

Out of Our Heads and Into the Classroom (01:56)
- Tammy Trzebiatowski (@ttrzebiatowski)- Exercise & alone time
- Andy Leiser, Hastings MN - EL Tech Integration (@AndyLeiser): from Amy Fast, EdD (@FastCrayon) - cards written to future self
- Tyler Tarver, Dean of NLC College (@TylerTarver) - Set 3 goals each week
- Temple Hayles, Instructional Technology Coach (@haylessvvsd) - Hold Fast, Stay True
- Ben: Exercise gratitude
- Becky: Practice mindfulness; Getting Mindful about Race in Schools, Elena Aguilar (@brightmorningtm); EFGHI (Empathy, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Humility, Intentionality)
Chase Mielke Intro (10:56)
- Chase’s story & origin of the book (11:17)
Subjective Well-Being, Circumstances v. Action (12:57)
- Sustainable Happiness Model Meta-Analysis, Sheldon & Lyubomirksy
- Circumstances = 10%; Intentional Actions = 40%; Genetics = 50%
- “Circumstances matter but my actions matter more.”
What can we do? Internal locus of control (15:06)
- Empowered Thriving Model: Awareness → Attitude → Actions
Awareness (16:27)
- Matthew Killingsworth & Daniel Gilbert, Harvard University Research - 47% of our time spent thinking about something other than the present moment
- App = Track Your Happiness
Twin challenges of focus (17:57) - Rambling & Rumination
- “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” - William James
Rumination & Rambling (19:03)
- Rambling - can’t always control; Rumination we can start to improve with practice
Tangible tips for being in the present (20:55)
- Thich Nhat Hanh: Piece Is Every Step
- Mindfulschools.org
- Calm app has free accounts for teachers!! (https://www.calm.com/schools)
- Atomic Habits: habit stacking
Societal acceptance of mindfulness & meditation (24:15)
- Excitement from students
Staff mindfulness (27:01)
2 components of happiness: Hedonia v. Eudamonia (27:58)
- Living purposefully - live our best so we can give our best
Recognizing your own triggers (29:49)
- Check in with your body
Techniques for re-energizing (32:39)
- Better sleep habits; hobbies
- Gratitude practices, altruistic practices
Gratitude (35:20)
- Upward vs. downward comparisons
- Practicing with students / children
- “What made your heart happy today?”
Frequency & Recency of Positive Emotions (39:02)
- Wired to be more alert to threats than rewards
- Hebb’s postulate: Neurons that fire together wire together
Inattentional Blindness (41:16)
- Invisible Gorilla
- “When I look for X, I notice less Y.”
- Celebrating the good
Finite Framing (47:35)
- Moments are unique, this one will end, cherish each one
Practical Optimism (51:16)
- Habits of thinking: Permanence (this will always be as it is) & Universality (everything - a whole child, a whole school, education as a system, etc - is affected by this)
Wrap Up & Take aways (54:49)
- ‘Gratituesday’ newsletter at affectiveliving.com
- ASCD one hour webinar from Mr. Mielke

Fisher & Frey PLC+ Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Episode 041: PLC Plus with Nancy Frey & Doug Fisher
Join us for this discussion with the potent pair Doug Fisher & Nancy Frey! We learn about their new book, PLC+ and the five questions that get to the heart of what collaboration time should look like in schools. Stay tuned until the end for a special promo code for our listeners for the PLC+ Institutes the authors will be hosting in Colorado in October!

Connect with Fisher & Frey
Website: www.fisherandfrey.com/ | Twitter: @DFisherSDSU; @NancyFrey | Newest Book: PLC Plus, Corwin Press

Connect with Vrain Waves
Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Links & Show Notes

Out of Our Heads & Into the Classroom: (01:30)
- American Express: Simple Guide to Lean Meetings
- Robyn Jackson on weekly team meetings
- Have an agenda / protocol
- Techless meetings
- Pre-mortem from Daniel Pink
- Collaborative notes & DRIs
- Toby - Chrome Extension
Introduction to Fisher & Frey & PLC Plus (08:12)
- Their School: Health Sciences High & Middle College in San Diego
- Questions: Where are we now? & the importance of pre-assessments
  - Side note: common questions for PLC work come from DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010 as a PLC foundation: Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work; we acknowledge this foundational work when discussing PLCs :
    - ```
     What do we want students to learn? (essential standards)  
```
- ```
 How will we know if they have learned? (team-developed common assessments)  
```
    - ```
     What will we do if they don’t learn? (systematic interventions)  
```
- ```
 What will we do if they already know it? (extended learning)  
```
- Collective Efficacy
- Graham Nuthall, Hidden Lives of Learners
  - Students already know between 40-50 percent of what the teacher is teaching (Nuthall, 2007)
- Equity: Removal of Barriers vs. intervention as responses to student data
- Activator: Someone to guide the group
What are PLCs getting wrong? (13:21)
- Emphasis on the structural conditions can overwhelm the focus and mission of the group
- PLC must continually reinvest in itself
- Lack of attention to instruction - “How do we move learning forward?”
  - Literacy example (16:49)
- Curriculum / Instruction / Assessment
- Recent research that ~20% of in-class tasks are on grade level TNTP’s The Opportunity Myth - and an article from EdWeek
- PLC+ Protocol - Assignment analysis (from The Education Trust) (19:34)
  - Equity in Motion work from The Education Trust
Trust and the importance of Relational Conditions (21:18)
- Activator helps keep the conversation moving
- Protocols provide consistency
PLC+ / PD (22:57)
- Roughly a 1 to 3 ratio - Full staff Professional learning to PLC+ Time
Credibility & Efficacy (24:33)
- Teacher Credibility: Trust, Competence, Dynamism, Immediacy
Self-Efficacy and Collective Efficacy (27:17)
- Albert Bandura’s research on self-efficacy -
  - From Leading Impact Teams, by Bloomberg & Pitchford (& based on Bandura’s research, as well as Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy): Efficacy = Mastery Moments, Vicarious Experience, Feedback, and Trust
“Where are we going?” and “Where are we now?” (31:08)
- 5 Questions in PLC+: Where are we going? Where are we now? How do we move learning forward? What did we learn today? Who benefited and who did not benefit?
Bringing data to the PLC+ (33:22)
- Student feedback
Equity / Cognitive Bias / The Decisions we choose to make: (35:52)
- Quote from PLC+: “Underlying every decision about what we choose to gather data on is an unspoken decision about what we won’t look at.”
- Data should be aligned to team’s common challenge; then did we impact learning or not?
  - Invite students to PLC+ times for feedback
Protocols for learning walks
- Microteaching protocols
What did we learn today? Every single day we should be formatively assessing
Scheduling logistics (44:56)
- Two PLC+s - Grade level & Content level
- Vertical & Horizontal conversations are necessary
Grading at their school (48:19)
- Competency-Based / Mastery of Standards
- Formative homework & classwork
All Learning is Social Emotional (50:41)
- Social Emotional Academic Learning
Removing institutional barriers vs. Intervention (54:27)
- Support each learner individually - help them find a way to mastery
Special offer for Vrain Waves Listeners!! (58:50)
- Promo Code: VRAINWAVES
- Go to corwin.com/PLCColorado to register; Oct 3 & 4 in Denver at the Curtis Hotel

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Vrain Waves: Teaching Conversations with Minds Shaping Education

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