Episode 31 - Handiwork

Maria shared a conference she attended regarding creating with ones hands and then evaluating those creations. This led to a lively discussion about different ways to evaluate students.

Audio and chat can be found here.

Episode 30 Is Merit Pay the Way?

Today's conversation came from the recent talk of improving education by bringing merit pay into the schools. Maria asked the question, Is Merit Pay the Way? and Sheila identified an essential question, What would be a good 'no-cost' reward to push people to do better or retain the good teachers? Lisa Thumann joined us in the skype call. The chat room was hopping, so be sure to check the chat and listen to the audio.

We hope to share this podcast with both President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Listen to audio and read the chat here.

Episode 29 - How Much Time Do We Spend On Schoolwork Outside of the School Day?

This week's show focused on the amount of time educators spend on schoolwork outside of the school day. We talked about professional development time, student connection time, and planning time, as well as time spent on "assignments" given us by the district. Lisa Parisi, Maria Knee, and Sheila Adams were joined by Kathleen Casterline and Deven Black.

The audio and chat can be found here.

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Episode 28 - Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Lisa recently returned from the Celebration of Teaching and Learning Conference in NYC. She shared her impressions and was joined by Karen Janowski who also attended the conference. The conversation continued in a discussion about creativity and how it is addressed in schools. Do schools kill creativity? Listen to the show to hear the conversation. As always, the chat room was rocking! A special thanks to enigami for joining us in the chat room. Looking forward to seeing you again.

Listen to the audio and view the chat here

Episode 27

This week's show began with the question, "Why do we spend our year preparing our students for the following year?" and continued to be a discussion about how to reorganize schools to better facillitate learning for all students. Ginger Lewman joined Lisa and Maria. Sheila Adams was in her return flight from Belize.

Listen to the audio file and read the chat here.