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 happens to address one of the ways we might start to do that in our classrooms. I'm talking with Peter Johnston, author of Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning, about the prompts and phrases teachers can use to equip students not to avoid or be afraid of differences, but to approach them as opportunities to learn.

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Thanks to The Gilder Lehrman Institute and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/democratic-classroom.

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 experience takes time, intention, money, and good tools. This episode will help you make that happen. Joining me are three exceptional librarians — Cicely Lewis, Julia Torres, and Julie Stivers — who share their advice for building more inclusive collections. They also recommend a handful of outstanding titles to add to your shelves.

Thanks to Scholastic Magazines+ and Alpaca for sponsoring this episode.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 237.

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 there are problems, we can fix them. In this episode, we're talking about five important things we need to do to make sure we get formative assessment right.

Joining me are two people who really understand what works in education: The Marshall Memo's master curator Kim Marshall, and Jenn David-Lang, the mind behind The Main Idea. Together they have published the Best of the Marshall Memo website, a fantastic, free collection of the best ideas in education.

Thanks to Scholastic Magazines+ and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/effective-formative-assessment/.

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 and accepting isn't simply a matter of being nice to them; there are some specific do's and don'ts that can make a huge difference in how they experience school. My guest is Dave Edwards, an educator who teaches these principles through his website, Gender Inclusive Schools, and his brand-new book of the same name. As the parent of a transgender daughter who has experienced discrimination, Dave's mission is a personal one. In this episode, he shares specific things schools can do to proactively create safe learning environments for these students.

Thanks to The Wired Classroom and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For links to Dave's book and a full transcript of our conversation, visit cultofpedagogy.com/gender-inclusive-school.

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.

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Thanks to EVERFI and The Wired Classroom for sponsoring this episode.

To watch videos of all four games, visit cultofpedagogy.com/theater-games.

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 when a teacher's needs for belonging, autonomy, competence, self-esteem, trust, and purpose are not being met, and what can be done to address that.

Thanks to EVERFI and Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.

For links to Elena's book, Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and choose episode 233.

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 make that happen.

Thanks to EVERFI and The Wired Classroom for sponsoring this episode.

For links to Megan's book, Ace That Test, visit cultofpedagogy.com/metacognition.

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 regular class time without taking away from the regular lesson.

Thanks to EVERFI and The Wired Classroom for sponsoring this episode.

For links to Mitch's book, visit cultofpedagogy.com/executive-functions