[00:00:00] And today's episode. I had the pleasure of speaking with Rachel ger. And educational consultant and coach. Who is passionate about crafting experiences, where students can develop a greater sense of agency and creatively overcome challenges. As Rachel puts it, student centered learning is my jam, and I want to spread it on a toasted bagel every morning. Rachel believes that growth. Agility and curiosity are the three core elements that are essential in today's classrooms. And she brings a wealth of knowledge, creativity, and humor to her work. Throughout our conversation.

We talk all about the world of student-centered learning, breaking down, what it really means to put the students in the driver's seat and how teachers can make the shift without losing their sanity. So whether you're looking to implement small changes or take big bold steps toward a more autonomous [00:01:00] classroom, Rachel's practical advice and insights will give you plenty to think about.

So welcome, Rachel. I'm so happy to have you. So why don't you start by telling the listeners a little bit about yourself. Okay. Thanks, Cassie, for having me on. I am. I am Rachel and I have been in education for a long time on and off.

And currently I work for a consulting company, so I get to go into different schools every month and support teachers with job embedded coaching and some professional development. I'm also the mom of two grown kids and I've been married for 25 years. My husband and I have a couple of small businesses and living in Colorado and loving all of it.

Love it. I know. I know what that's like for a family to have a couple of small businesses keep you really busy. So I was excited to talk to you in the first place because you are so passionate about student centered classrooms and student owned learning. And I feel like that's something that I've spent a [00:02:00] whole lot of my.

Career focused on in my own classroom, so I'm excited to talk to you about that, but I thought it would be fun if we just started from your experience, like how was it when you first made the shift in your classroom to releasing the traditional roles of a teacher and taking on a different format?

So maybe you could share a little bit about that with us, and then we'll talk about maybe the specifics of what is student centered learning and some ideas that a teacher could put into practice right away. Yes, I would love to. So, I had been in the classroom just a couple of years and there's this new directive that we're going to start to be more student centered.

So we got a lot of professional development from our district about how we can do that. And so it sounded really great, right? With this student centered The student at the center of the instruction, meaning that students are going to be in charge of their own learning and it's competency based.

And here's how we can design a [00:03:00] unit. And I was ready to take that on. So I, I decided to start with one content area. And so I decided to start with math and I had a lot of great ideas about how this was going to roll out. And so I, Okay. I spent a lot of time designing a math unit, and anyone who has tried to do anything that is student paced, meaning that the student goes at their own pace, you need to have a lot of things ready for them, because some students are going to move through that very quickly.

So I spent a lot of time planning that. The kids would come into the classroom after recess, and we would be getting started on math, and all of the students had a goal setting sheet. And so they would write their goal for the day for math. And then after they set their goal. They would most likely be getting on their computers so that they could watch a video usually from our curriculum that was going to teach them, was going to give them that direct instruction that I would normally do as a [00:04:00] whole group.

And then once they received that instruction, they would have some way that they were going to practice that skill for the day. And then after they would practice that skill, there would be some kind of an exit ticket. And then that would give me the information as a teacher as to where they needed to go next.

Or if they were ready to just keep going in that unit plan at their own pace. I had some structures set up so that I knew that some kids were going to get stuck. So they would sign up for a mini lesson with me. Their name on the whiteboard. And then I would just confer with those kids that were stuck and everything was going to run smoothly.

And. That first week I knew was going to probably be a challenge, right? But I was ready to stick it out. Anyway, long story short, it just turned into chaos in the classroom there. The structures were getting completely destroyed. My mini lesson signups [00:05:00] were 100 miles long because I couldn't get to everybody in a class period.

And there was, these are new skills that, and new information that they're learning. And so there was a lot of missing pieces. I'm not saying that can't work in a classroom. I'm saying what, for whatever reason, when I tried to think about this, Being student centered. That was a disaster. What I thought was a real lack of control.

And that the students were not progressing at all. So I, we decided actually as a class that we hated math as a result. And that was really sad for me. Cause I was like, no, wait, math can be really fun. And so we ended up scrapping that system actually had other teachers. In my cohort that we're trying the same thing and some of them were having success.

So I was like, why is this not working for me, but it just didn't. And so we ended up saying, Nope, we can't do that. So I guess I'll have to go back to the old way of teaching math, which was whole group [00:06:00] instruction at the time for me. And, but I didn't feel good about that either. So I was kind of stuck.

I can totally laugh and relate with you because I have been there done that too. I, everything you said sparked a memory of me doing the same things and having the same experiences. Some of the same failures. So it's funny to hear that from a completely different classroom, completely across the country from where I was trying that.

So that seems like it didn't go very well and you no longer wanted to teach math. So I'm sure. I'm sure something changed. So, yeah. What, what happened after that? Well, I was trying to think. I'm not sure. I don't probably think very linearly, but at some point in my teaching career I got some really good professional development about thinking strategies.

And I, I will pretty sure I was using those strategies in my ELA lessons. And so with that, you really focus [00:07:00] on. What is the strategy? The student is using to understand the content. And so, I think I, I got to witness another teacher, which is really the best PD when you get to see another teacher in action.

And so I think I got to see another teacher in another school that was doing something different. And so what I witnessed was that the students would come into the classroom. just after recess or whatever. And the very first task that they had to do was they would grab a little strip of paper that had a complex math problem on it.

And then they would glue it into their math notebook for the day. And then they would have about five minutes of think time. And the classroom was silent. The teacher would walk around the class and would confer with students who were stuck. And just kind of comment on what some students were doing.

And I noticed in the classroom she also had a lot of structures set up. So, tools for students to use [00:08:00] whenever they're stuck. So she would refer to an anchor chart and say, I noticed that you don't have anything on your paper. Maybe you could draw a picture. Maybe create a graph or a chart. Basically saying you're not allowed to not do anything for this five minutes.

But. If obviously a student is thinking that's. That's, that's valuable. So, at the end of the five minutes or so, she would call on a couple of students after she had quietly already asked them, would it be okay if we share your work? And so the students who agreed to share their work would bring their student, their work, their math notebook, whatever they had done, probably not solving a problem in five minutes, but at least there's something on their paper.

And then they would share them on the dot cam or whatever with the whole class. And then the student would talk about what their strategies were. And sometimes it's like, you would see them say, using the strategies we all, we all use. We're, we're circling those keywords or finding the numbers in the problem.

[00:09:00] What is the problem asking? So you could see there had been some instruction and setting those students up for success. What I noticed was that, All every student was engaged. And so the students were learning from the other student. And in my mind at that moment, I thought, Oh, my gosh, this is this is student centered when we have a teacher standing at the front of the classroom teaching.

We that's a little more teachers centered, but when we have students teaching, I was I just something clicked. And so I came back to my classroom and tried the very same thing. And it was wonderful. My students were doing exactly what our students were doing, and we just spent a few minutes, and what ended up happening was we didn't actually solve the problem, and that's okay.

What the value was in the strategies that the students were sharing with one another during that time of processing problem, and what ended up happening was we had [00:10:00] one problem that we worked on for the whole week, and I only spent a few minutes. 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning of our math class on that.

And then we would move into the lesson for the day. But by the end of the week, we, we had a solution and it didn't come from me. It came from some kids that maybe don't normally have really strong math skills. So it was really powerful shift in my thinking as far as like, how can I create a students in our classroom, but maybe not so much in the structure that I thought it was before.

Yeah, that is a very big contrast of your initial thoughts of what it must be to be student centered with having students learning by themselves at their own pace, doing as much or as little as they can with as much or as little help as they need versus. Giving them a complex problem and the time to really dive into that problem and turn on the creativity that it takes in order to learn.

So [00:11:00] that is very different. And one seems very hard to do and one seems very easy to do. So it just makes me feel good to know that to have a student centered classroom doesn't have to be that hard. It doesn't have to be making, I mean, I have done what you're saying before for several years. And I do know that in order to have self paced learning, you have to have completely different learning units that the students can work on.

And then when they get done with that, they have to have something extension wise. It's a lot. It's a lot. Because we all know what happens when kids aren't busy, right? Yes. And we haven't even mentioned behaviors and the students who don't want to work through the unit and they don't want to learn and they're not motivated.

So that's a whole different story, but you did say with this new strategy, all the students were engaged, they were working and learning. And so I think we can just [00:12:00] take a breath and know that a student centered classroom does not have to be complicated. I think it starts with really understanding what it means to be student centered and to really understand the difference between teaching and learning.

So I think we can move into kind of defining what do you think, what does it mean if you were just going to define student centered learning? What would that simple definition be? Yeah. So, It's complicated, but doesn't have to be. But so I think one of the ways to define sometimes something is to say kind of what it.

It is not. Whenever we're focusing so much on the teacher that's not student centered. I do think that we have to acknowledge that the teacher obviously is very important for a classroom. I know in John Hattie's work, the number one indicator of a [00:13:00] great learning environment as a teacher, all that research.

I'm not trying to say that research is not valid, but the reason that is, I think, is because it has to be in the teacher's mindset about what her kids can do. And so, In a student centered classroom. It's really everything that we do this. This classroom is focused on all of our students. So if you think about some of the common practices that come along with student centered learning right now, it has a lot to do with data.

Right. So I think when I work with teachers and we start to think, okay, how are we going to be more student centered? The very first thing that we're going to do is look at data, right? And that can be test results. That can be progress monitoring. That can be just student work, right? So they've produced something in the classroom.

And now we're going to look at all of that. And we're going to Okay. decide what instructional strategies can we use to [00:14:00] improve whatever this data is that we're looking at. But again, that's where the problem lies, right? Because now we've only talked about what are the instructional strategies that we're going to use to improve student learning.

But then we just assume that because we use an instructional strategy, the learning is going to happen. And that's not really the case always. I think if we asked Anyone we know in education, give me 10 instructional strategies that you love. They will be able to name those out 10, at least I could do it for you right now.

But if you were to ask the same people, give me 10 really powerful learning strategies that you, that you know. That would probably be harder for a teacher to name. And that is because as a culture of education, we are heavily focused on instruction. And so as a teacher, I need to know some powerful instructional strategies to use in my classroom.

But what I'm not thinking about is what are my students doing? What strategies or skills do they have? [00:15:00] Or do they need in order to be able to learn? Yes. We're going to have to have you back on again to talk about some of those learning strategies. When I first heard you mention that I was just, I, I really haven't spent a lot of time thinking about learner strategies.

I have so much time working on my own teaching and. I have thought a lot about the importance of students being learners, but I took for granted that there are strategies that are required for them to learn as well. Yeah. Well, and I do think that a little bit of that is because we need more information about that, but also we need to be naming those things.

We, we have names for all of our instructional strategies, but it's harder to name the, The learning strategies because we just haven't talked about him enough. So what do you think are some of the common misconceptions that teachers have about a student centered classroom? [00:16:00] That's a, that's a good question. I think one of the misconceptions obviously is time, right? Every, every teacher doesn't never have enough time. The end. Right. And so we. We often get overwhelmed with all of the content that we need to teach in a year, right? And so when we start to think about being student centered, As teachers, I think we go to that mindset where I had at the beginning where I was like, okay, I have 25 kids in my classroom.

If I'm lucky anymore, maybe 30, right? And these are all 30 little individuals that I'm going to have to tailor their learning experience. That sounds like a lot. Ton of work and a lot of time and energy that I just don't have because I need to cover these standards. So I think that's a misconception because I think what we don't realize is [00:17:00] that teachers are already doing a lot of things that are student centered.

We just had to pay attention to what those things are and why they work. So. For example, I always say classroom jobs because I, I just believe in them so much. I think that when you give a student a small task that they are responsible for every day in the classroom that's student centered. You're sharing the learning environment with them, right?

And so I think we talked about this before, but One of the jobs I had that was very important for a student in my classroom was the attendance keeper because I can't, I couldn't do it. I couldn't, I could not remember ever. I mean, I don't know why it must not have been important to me who was there or wasn't, which is really crazy, but yeah, it's not important to, it's not important to us.

We just know, but it is important to the Yeah. And every day I would hear that buzz and I would be like, Oh no, she's calling again. I'm in trouble. [00:18:00] I know.

And so every. Every time I would look at my attendance keeper and I'd be like, Oh, this is your job. You were supposed to take today, and that's just sharing that responsibility. And then they would be, if they forgot, then , we had a common little moment where we were like, okay, tomorrow we're going to do better, but just that little share. And so I think that that's a great place to target that misconception that teachers might have is that you do have the time you just have to notice. So you have to name and notice the places where things are student centered. And then think about like, yeah, this, this probably works.

And how can I make that little thing work more often in my day? So let's talk about some ways that teachers can overcome their hesitations. So I, I've thought about a few situations of teachers specifically that might say, well, I can't do this. What about the teacher that has a very [00:19:00] scripted curriculum?

I know a lot of districts especially here in Texas are moving towards very scripted curriculum, and there's not a lot of room for anything else. How could they fit it in? Yeah, so I will say that the schools that I work in are heavily, heavily reliant on curriculum maybe not so much scripted, but curriculum and that I'm not going to say that curriculum is a bad thing but , what I try to encourage teachers to remember is that you are the creative professional in your classroom.

Now, I haven't worked in an, with an administration that has been really. Tough on me about that. So, I can't speak from that perspective, but what I can say is that. Right now in education. We are the professionals. So we are the ones who get to share the message of education with not only the people in our classroom, but like the people in our buildings, the people in our [00:20:00] communities.

And so it's Falls on our shoulders to teach others how to treat us as professionals. So I'm saying that in a way that you may have to push back a bit, right? And I understand that that's uncomfortable. I do totally get it. And it may be coming from me. It doesn't sound as powerful, but I do think that one of our jobs as educators right now is to.

shape education the way that it needs to go. And so when we have a scripted curriculum or some way that we are being told that we have to move through every single day, take some of that, just some of that and figure out how can I be a creative professional here? How can I take this piece of the curriculum and give it to the students?

What part of the curriculum can the students do without me? Because we have to remember that our number one job is to Release them.

As a [00:21:00] creative professional, which I, I have to be very intentional every time I talk to a teacher that you are the creative professional in this classroom. And so you have to look at that curriculum and decide what can the students do without me and how can they do it?

Because they can. I don't know if this makes any sense, but if you're a parent, you think about someday my kids are not going to live with me anymore, right? That's a goal. They have to be out in the world, make decisions on their own. Yes. Same thing with your students in your classroom. You have to think about they have to be able to do all of this without you at some point.

And that is a wonderful thing. So let's think about gradually releasing them to do the work from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, they should be doing all of the work by the end of the school year. 21st century skill is something that is so important to me that I know has become a buzzword, [00:22:00] but that's exactly why we're putting our AI.

It was so shocking to me of what AI could do now in two years, how much more it can do already. We have no idea what our students are going to be facing, and we need to prepare them. And that's why I just love so much how you talk about learning strategies because students are going to have the capability to learn everything.

But they're also going to have to find ways to put themselves into the learning process. I don't know if that quite makes sense, but what I'm trying to say is in order to bring value to the world. They're going to have to do something outside of what AI can do and without learning to think creatively and critically without learning all those things that have become [00:23:00] buzzwords because of the 21st century umbrella, they're not going to be able to exist.

Yeah. And just like what you said, they need to understand themselves as learners, and they also need to have discernment. So one of the biggest things that we're facing in our world right now is the unlimited choices that we have. Oh, my goodness. What a blessing, right? We have so many choices we can make, but we can't make a good choice if we don't know ourselves very well.

And I think I see a lot of adults struggling with that right now. I struggle with it. But I think that that is the thing that we have to teach kids is that we, they have to be able to make, know themselves and what works for them and then make choices that are aligned with that. Yes, that is so important.

Okay. Another barrier that teachers might face is just behavior. So what [00:24:00] kind of tips might you have for behaviors? That impact the learning. Yeah. So, behavior is a huge thing, right? And I think in my mind, behavior that happens in the classroom that is outside of behavior that you're hoping for Is there's always some reason that that's happening, and so obviously it would be really great right if we always had time to pull the student over and be like, let's talk, why, why is this behavior happening, and but in reality we all know that we don't have time to pull the student aside every day, and so I think

I'm going to try to answer this question in a systems and structures a way, right? So I'm a systems person. Gotta have systems in the classroom for everything. And your students absolutely have to know what those are. They, they have to be a part of that creation process. So here are our rights and responsibilities as learners.[00:25:00]

They are clear. They're simple. And here's what happens when we walk outside of those lines. And it has to be consistent. So every teacher knows that, right? Sometimes it's not always working that way, but We all know that systems and structures and routines are super important. Now, in a student centered classroom, you bet you still have all of those systems and routines in place.

What happens is when you have behavior, it's generally, well, I can't say that I can explain all behavior, but I can say that it's generally something where the student is trying to push the boundary, right? They're trying to figure out how far can I go, who's in charge here, Where can I take control? And so I think that whenever we share control and trust with our students as much as possible, generally you're going to see a little less of that behavior because they understand that they have some control.

And usually that's what that seems like it's about [00:26:00] is that a lot of times behavior comes when kids don't feel like they have any control in the classroom. So remember as a student centered teacher, you have to give control to the students. I don't know if that really answers your question about behavior.

No, that's so good, because another question I wanted to ask you was, what about teachers who are hesitant to give up control? Right, and so, I totally understand that, because you're being held responsible for safety, right? So the number one thing in your classroom is safety. Everyone needs to be safe.

And in the world that we live in right now, schools can be very scary places. Like, I remember whenever it was a community center and parents were walking in and out of the school all day. Now the doors are locked. People are being taken back. And there's a whole other conversation we can have about that.

But safety is your number one concern. So whenever you start to give up control, it could start to feel a little less safe in your classroom. And so I totally want to acknowledge [00:27:00] that. But we also have to remember that comfort is something we can grow. So right now, our comfort zone might be about this big, tiny, not very big, small.

But when we practice things that are outside of our comfort level, that comfort zone grows. And so if you can just have some compassion for yourself and say, I'm going to give up some control in this small place, practice that with your students, see how it feels. And I bet you your comfort zone will probably get to grow a little bit.

Because kids are trustworthy, they, they can be trusted to take some control. And kids, I think, do want to learn and they do want, they do want to do well in school and use their time wisely. They really do. Yeah. And, and also, the whole failing forward thing I did have a classroom that was very student owned and self paced, but it wasn't like that from the [00:28:00] first year.

It took me years of trying little things of implementing centers and, and, and implementing small groups. And every year I was like, well, maybe I can push it a little bit further. So I do think I had a, a specific comfort zone right at the beginning, but as years went on, that comfort zone just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

And it, it made me ready to be successful in certain practices. Okay. And also it made me excited to try and continue just increasing the amount of teacher facilitated I did instead of teacher driven. Right. Yes, I love what you said about that facilitation piece because the more that I Spend time in classrooms.

The more I see teachers really trying to move into that role of facilitating. And I think when you think about being a facilitator, that's where that systems, things come back into place, because we still [00:29:00] do have to have some kind of a plan. We can't just be like, There you go, kids, learn away.

Yes, and when you're getting started, you don't even really know what to expect could go wrong. So, so you shouldn't be surprised, if it, if it does, but I do love the way that you described your positive experience with a student centered classroom by just introducing a complex problem, giving the students time to work on that and solve that problem.

Finding voices within that work session that you can use to teach the rest of the students and everybody kind of growing together. So if nothing else, , I figured that any teacher can take that right there and do it tomorrow in their classroom, start your math block or your ELA block. With a carefully crafted, I also love how you say a creative professional.

We talk about ourselves a lot as professionals, [00:30:00] but creativity is one of the most important things. Well, if you think about a good teacher in your mind, which teacher made the biggest impact on you and all of that, if you drill down, you're probably going to see that it came down to two things, creativity and classroom management.

The teachers who are able to, to, to keep the behaviors under control and in check and also infuse that creativity. Those are the teachers that are making the greatest impact. So let's say that a teacher, let's say a math teacher tomorrow is going to be teaching, um, let's say comparing fractions. What kind of problem could they craft to show to the students and, and kind of start this whole session?

Okay, so, thinking about this, the structure, right? So, what I've noticed, it boils down to about three things. You're going to start with some kind of a prompt, so that can just be a [00:31:00] question like you just, like you just posed a question about comparing fractions. So, that has to do with some standard, right?

So, When we're teachers, we always think, what is the standard? I'm a very standards based instructional coach, right? So, I'm going to find out what is the standard and what are the skills that the kids need, what's the outcome going to be, right? So that's part of my prompt. Once I have the prompt in place, now I'm going to be thinking about the process.

So what are the kids going to be doing? Not, not what am I doing? I have my prompt. What now what are the kids going to be doing to process through that? And then once they have I had that process kind of intentionally thought out. The very last most important piece is the debrief. So we now we have to name the learning that took place during that process.

And how does that learning that took place during the process? Meet the prompt. So for having outlined that structure in your specific example hopefully I have [00:32:00] a challenge for the students to, or a problem to solve. So it could be just a written problem, where we're comparing this many slices of pizza to this many slices of pie, whatever.

And, in math, we're lucky because we actually have a lot of options as far as like tools that we can use. So going from the concrete to the abstract so kids could have manipulatives. So once you have that problem up there, say it's even written on the board or maybe it's that little problem they post they, they tape into their math journal.

Now they need to use some tools. So are they going to use manipulatives and start to figure out how they're going to compare those two? What's, what do they need to do here? Are they going to work by themselves for a few minutes and then with a partner? Or are they going to work in a small group trying to solve this problem together?

Whatever it [00:33:00] is, It needs to be on them to start, so give them some time. Now, a lot of times I'll use cooperative learning as my structure, so that there are so many wonderful cooperative learning options out there that you can find. But make sure that whatever the cooperative learning is that they're doing, it's focused on what you want the outcome to be.

Do you want them to have a discussion? Because there are a lot of ways to structure a really powerful academic discussion. Do you want them to just practice a skill? Because that can also be structured. Or do you want them to ask more questions or make real world connections, right? So you have to still be really intentional.

You're doing a lot of great teaching. Although you're not standing in front of the room, Giving direct instruction. You're doing a lot of great teaching and the intentional strategies. So once the kids have processed for a few minutes, however long you think they can handle, [00:34:00] right, while you're walking around meeting their needs you're noticing the learning that's taking place, whether it's misconceptions, mistakes, or they're on the right track, right?

And that way you can either catch them And move them forward a little bit, or you can just name and notice what one student or one group is doing that is really powerful, right? And so, I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I think having an intentional structure of giving them a prompt, a challenge, a problem.

some intentional way that they are going to process it, not you, and then a debrief, because in the debrief, that's where you get to name the actual learning that took place. And not only are you naming it, but you're naming it with them. How long do you think needs to be dedicated to this process? Could you use it as like [00:35:00] a warm up?

Is it the meat of the lesson? Yeah, so I think you can do it. whatever you want. So, in my first experience, it took us a week, Cassie, like, A week of math. And it was because I was doing like to be more specific. Like we were doing the same problem for a week. But I mean, I probably only dedicated 10 to 15 minutes of my math block to that process.

But, but the cool thing was, is that that structure was still in place every day for 10 to 15 minutes with the prompt, the process and the debrief. So today we learn this part and tomorrow we'll pick it back up again. But, I think you can do a regular, say you have a 60 minute ELA block, you can structure this for 60 minutes, as long as you have the prompt, which seems to be a complex prompt but you're still naming just a couple of skills.

Right. So we don't ever want to overwhelm kids [00:36:00] with these big complex standards. They're going to try and learn in one day, right? When we're going to compare fractions with unlike denominators and they're going to understand that in one day. But we can pull a couple of skills out of that big complex standard that we're going to name.

By the end of that 60 minutes that we have published, or we're going to focus hopefully on the learning that took place and how we became better mathematicians today, because it's not about being our very best every day. It's about getting better every day. And so can we name how we got better in math today is really what you're doing.

So however long you want that to take. I think it can be in your morning meeting in five minutes. With like your prompt of how was your weekend. The kids are processing that together. And now we debrief, Oh, sounds like our weekend was this, this, and this. Well, I definitely think anybody can take that into their classroom and tomorrow, tomorrow and, and [00:37:00] do it.

And just see, just see how you feel about it. See if you recognize. That students are learning the cool thing about students being given the time to dive into a problem and have those aha moments where they actually figure out themselves how to solve it is that produces a mindset in themselves that that will transfer to any other problem so that they become problem solvers.

That's exactly right. We need them to retain the skills and apply them across content and in their lives everywhere. And when you, the most powerful thing too is when you do get to name something the students are doing, write it down so they can see it. Because that. That to them is saying, Oh, this is important.

Yeah. We just named something that I can do. And I'm writing this down. So I've been talking about, student owned learning, student centered learning, student paced learning for years now. Do you think that [00:38:00] this has become a buzzword? I think, I think in some ways it has. Yes. And when things become buzzwords, it's, it can be because teachers, I don't want to blame just teachers, but we we hear them so much.

And then we, we try them and then they don't work the way that everyone says they're going to work. And so then we kind of say, Oh, here we go. Here we go with that. Idea again. Well, I'd love to see you try it right. Like with this group of kids, I mean, and so I think that's what happens. For example I know voice and choice, right?

That was like a big one for a long time. Kids need to have voice and choice. Well, yeah, those are great things. But what happens is we create like a menu. Right. And we're like, here's the voice and choice in my classroom. But guess what? It didn't work. So. I'm not doing that again, or I tried that is what is what we hear a lot, right?

I tried that, [00:39:00] I tried that, I tried that and so I do think student centered learning can, can be, become that and that's okay if that happens because what, then what we need to do is just redefine it for ourselves, right? Or maybe we need to rename it, like, the good thing about education is that it's constantly changing.

I know maybe that's the, Some teachers will say that's not a good thing, but it truly is because we need education to change right alongside the rest of the world, right? And so if it's, if it's changing, it's probably because research is showing something else. You know, to be honest, the solid things are not changing.

They're still around. Like the things that we know are so important have not changed. They might've been renamed. But we, those of us who have been in education a long time recognize them. Right. So maybe we will rename student centered learning. I think it, it, it [00:40:00] matters if you make it real to you, because I think with anything that becomes a buzzword, it started off as a power teacher being recognized and noticed for something that was going on and working, and then it tries to be replicated.

And then the further it gets removed from the original source. the less effective it is. So if you can take ownership of it, whether it's whatever it is, data driven, student centered, if you can discover what it means to you in your classroom and try to find that, that spark or that revelation that the originator had, I think it will not be a buzzword to you because you will see the success and the effectiveness of it just like the, original people did.

Yeah. Yeah. And stick it out, right? Like have an open mind. Like I do think student centered is, is being talked about a lot more. Thank goodness. We need it to be, but again, we can't just [00:41:00] assume that we know what it means. Yes. Yeah, , don't assume and then just don't, don't add meaning that isn't meant to be their student centered.

It doesn't necessarily mean that it's all about the kid or every kid gets to. I mean, the same thing with differentiation. People were thinking like a differentiated lesson has to be different for each student. And that's just not the case. It's not practical anyway, but assigning a false meaning to it is a straight.

No, we can't do that. Not going to do that. And truly, yeah, it truly becomes an excuse, right? Sometimes for us to be like, nope, not doing that. Okay. So speaking of buzzwords, I thought it would be fun. How long have you been in education? Gosh, it's hard to say because I have taken breaks here and there. I would say probably about 15 years.

Okay, so over time, the buzzwords come and go. So I [00:42:00] have some buzzwords from, the last few decades. And so I'm going to say it. And you're gonna give me like Let's, let's do a scale of one to ten. Ten is like, roll your eyes. I never want to hear that word again. Okay, I got it. Alright, so this one's from the 2010s.

Flipped classroom. I'm gonna say six on that one. I always loved flipped classrooms. I still do. Okay. This one's from the 80s. So you were probably in elementary school. But back to the basics. Oh, I like that one. I'm going to give it a one. The farther you removed from it the, the less like it, It has a hold on you.

So let's, let's do some. Okay. This one is, [00:43:00] let's see. Well, this one's current artificial intelligence and education. Oh, I think that one's too current. Yeah. I was going to say like, I'm on that bandwagon right now. So I'm going to go with two. Okay. This one's from the 2010s gamification.

Five. I love gamification. I used to be a big into that, and then now I'm like, well, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm big into that. So I love it. Okay. This one's from the 2000s. No child left behind. Ew. 10, 10, 11, 12, 25. All right. This one, this one's also from the 2000s. Differentiated instruction. I'm going to do a nine on that one too.

Like, like that's, I understand it's important, but look at my eyes already just rolled mine [00:44:00] too, but you know what, I'm, I'm thinking that's like the height of my, like the height of my teaching career time was when that was really getting big. Okay. Let me see. Okay, this is, this is the one that gives me the biggest eye roll of all.

Data driven instructions. Yeah, that's gonna be a 10. And I know it's important. I know, all of this is, like, that's what we, like, as teachers, that's why we roll our eyes, because we're like, yeah, I know. Because we went to so many trainings on how to do it. Instead of like developing a mindset of being data driven, we went to a workshop that told us step by step how to do it.

And that didn't work for us. So now it's the big eye roll. Okay, let me do one more. I have a long list of them. There's some of them I've never even heard of, I guess, because they're just too old, but outcome based education. [00:45:00] It's weird to think that's a buzzword because I've never heard of it. Yeah. I mean, I've heard of all of those words separately.

Oh, common core standards. Yeah. That one kind of gets, that one's kind of a, the common core. I think that's a buzzword just in general to education. Like parents just. Common Core. There's one, this one says 1980s, but it's cooperative learning. That one's my favorite. It's coming back. I wonder if it is coming back.

I don't know. I mean, cooperative learning is my jam. Like, oh, this is another one that I, I was really into from the 2010s. Blended learning. Ooh, that one's good too. Look at, I'm a nerd. Okay. I bet you were hoping I was going to roll my eyes a lot more, but like all of these things, I'm like, yeah, oh yeah, let's do it.

Yeah. There's some, there's a lot of good ones. I mean, [00:46:00] it's like you said, it's just like, it's just like, what can you get excited about? And how are you going to make it work in your classroom? Like, yes, I think I'm just an optimistic person in the first place. So I think when schools were pushing out these new initiatives or these new trainings and things, I was the one that was like, Oh yeah, yeah, let's do that.

I was never the one that was sitting at the back table, like rolling my eyes. I was excited. So maybe having a mindset where you're. open to trying new things. Maybe that safeguards you a little bit against the, the act that words can bring. Yeah. I mean, one of them, I was hoping you were going to say is rigor that one.

I'm like, really? Really? Okay. Thank you. Yes. But I still like it. And I still, I know I'm like, yeah. Okay. I know what that means to me, but moving on, but I still like deep down. I'm [00:47:00] like, yeah, that problem needs to be more rigorous. Yeah. Word speak. I know. Well, thank you so much for talking to us today. I feel like you just are just.

So smart. And you have so many good things to say. I feel like I could have a conversation with you for the rest of the week. I know I could. So if people want to find out more about you or learn about you, where can they find you? Okay. So I have a blog that I've had for a long time and I'm currently like posting once a year, but I'm working on getting faster at that.

And it's called Rachel. What if. com And you'll get, like, a good sense of who I am, probably, there, as far as, like, an education person. I will say, I've read some of your blog posts, and you are also a very good and entertaining writer. So that always helps when you're reading, blog posts.

I think a sense of humor is very important whenever you're [00:48:00] writing, so that people will understand that you're not trying to take yourself too seriously here. Ha, ha, ha. Something you need to do as teachers, just don't take yourself too seriously. Yes, exactly. And then I have, I love Instagram. I don't post very often, but you'll probably see more of my personal life on Instagram and that's the same handle, Rachel.

What if and then I also work for Empower Educational Consulting and you can find out more about that company by looking at their website, empowerec. com. But other than that, that's it right now. Well, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I'm happy. Thank you so much for asking me. I am, I, this has been a ton of fun and I love talking about education with people who are passionate as I am.

All right. Well, have a good day. Okay. Thanks Cassi.