Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

[00:00:00] Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom. This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education. Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com. I Am Jean Taver Netti, the host for this podcast. And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching. A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords. Only stuff that works

My guest today is Sarah Oberle. She's a seasoned educator, researcher, and presenter with extensive experience in primary education. Sarah earned her doctorate in educational leadership with a concentration in cognitive sciences. So she brings a [00:01:00] wealth of knowledge in both teaching and learning to her work with a particular focus on leveraging science of learning to improve educational practices and student outcomes.

Dr. Oberle serves on several educational boards and committees, where she works alongside fellow educators and policy makers to promote evidence informed decision making. In addition to her work in the classroom, she has developed and led professional learning programs for educators, empowering them to apply knowledge of how learning happens to their own practices.

Sarah lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania with her husband and two daughters.

Good morning, Sarah. So happy to have you here. We had to postpone this appearance because you were involved in the ResearchEd conference held recently in Delaware. And when I say involved, you were, did you have to organize it? Was that one of your roles there?

Yes, that was

And what is for folks that don't know, because most of my listeners are in the U.

[00:02:00] S., can you Describe what research ed is and what doing in the United States?

Yeah, it's so it's a UK based nonprofit organization that stems from a grassroots movement over there that was really centered around practitioners that wanted more access to evidence. And in a way that. Was accessible was meaningful and relevant for practice, whether your practices in the classroom or your school based.

And so it has taken off for, I want to say, a decade, probably at least in the UK. It's relatively new here in the States. But it's picking up some momentum, and so there were three this year in the U. S. There was Connecticut, Delaware, and then there was just one in Denver, which I believe you were at.

Yes.

And and so the goal, you know, for myself and for many others here in the States is to [00:03:00] continue that momentum and make it, you know, a much more a much more Frequent events that would occur here stateside.

And I think there's one scheduled for New York early next year as well.

Yeah, late March. I believe March 29th in Yeah, I can't wait for that.

Yeah. Was that a side because you don't have to work or because you will be involved in that one organizing?

I am not involved and I think that my husband might file for divorce if I offered to get involved in any more projects. Just coming off of Delaware Research Ed and finishing up school. I am I'm on late duty here.

Yeah, well, and you just finished your doctorate. And as I said in the introduction, that you had an emphasis on cognitive science. How did you get interested in that, involved in science of learning?

Not in a very direct [00:04:00] way. I I'll try to give you a shorter version. I. initially thought that I wanted to study neuro education or educational neuroscience or there's several ways that it's referred to simply because I've been teaching for a long time. So, learning is my business, but I also love science and I love understanding.

How things work. So I thought that would be a great combination of interests. But what I quickly found out is the things that I was truly interested in were less neuroscience and much more things related to cognition, like attention and memory. So I sort of adjusted my studies along the way, and that's how I landed with science and learning.

How important do you think the the neuroscience is? Because we'll see many times we'll hear people talk about studies and they will Mentioned and specified that, you know, this is neuroscience and it [00:05:00] may or may not be applicable. What do you think about the intersection

I. Yeah, sure. So I, you know, I'm not going to undermine its importance and. Transparently, I'm not an expert. That's not the route that I decided to go. But what I did find initially was that there's just so many layers of extrapolation to get from neuroscience to practice that I just felt like, you know, this is not going to be, I want something that is much more directly related to practice and that can be sort of applied with much more ease.

So, you know, I think that was a nice way of saying, I don't know Gene.

well,

I don't want to devalue it because I don't think I know enough about it to have that opinion, but it just wasn't it wasn't right for me.

well, the reason that I ask is that I think it's changing in the science of learning in the sessions that I've been to and the conferences and reading that [00:06:00] I've done. But years ago, I would go to a conference and it would be so much just about, okay, here's the structure of the brain. And, you know, do the MRI, we can see these firings and I don't care.

Like, I'm with you. I mean, how does this apply to helping teachers be more effective? And I don't know if learning that. You know, if it's, you know, Oh, point to your brain, point to your, that's where this, I don't think that makes any difference where it's actually occurring. So, so I'm with you.

I'm more interested in how it's going to, how it's going to change in the classroom. So let me ask you that. So you were interested in science of learning. Did you become interested in science of learning? After you start applying it in the classroom, or did you start applying it in the classroom after you started studying the science of learning?

So that's, that is an interesting question. I think there were several things that I had found over time in the classroom that seemed to be effective [00:07:00] and I didn't, I had. Inklings of why they might be effective. But I didn't really understand why and not until I started formally studying cognitive science that I say, okay, that's, that makes sense that, you know, that is why I'm seeing the results that I am, however, wish that someone would have just told me these things early on in my teaching career versus it, you know, taking eight years to a decade plus to start implementing.

My practice a little bit more efficiently and effectively.

This can you talk about, you know, one, two, or as many things as you want to talk about that, that changed, altered tweet, whatever in your classroom practices after learning about the science of learning.

Sure. I mean, so I teach 6 and 7 year olds. I teach 1st grade. And so, you know, for years and years, it was the Pinterest classroom. It was making your [00:08:00] classroom as pretty and happy and colorful as possible. And, you know, I took such pride in my classroom decor and parents were always happy when they came in.

Oh, your room looks so nice, but there was nothing about it necessarily. That was, done with any purpose, you know, there were anchor charts here and there, of course, had an alphabet. But you know, once I started, I would have kids, for example, come in my room from other classrooms for intervention time, and they would spend the first few days just staring around my room.

Just their eyes were all over. And I was like. Wow, I really need to, like, give you a tour, like, an official tour before you are ready to come in and focus on me. Now, my my, my regular students eventually habituated, but there were still things that were just kind of superfluous that I felt like this is really unnecessary and this is for me, it's not for them.

So understanding things about visual fields and attention dispersion, [00:09:00] learning about things like that helped me kind of Understand things that I was probably doing that were putting my students at a bit of a disadvantage instead of helping them orient their attention in places where I wanted them to and, you know, the example of the student coming into my room was just.

It was just one example, but you know, to have kids that are something that's, you know, lighting up or something that seems cute, but they continuously look at it or just, I mean, it really is like dangling a toy in front of someone that you want to be, and then you expect them to turn and pay attention to you.

And obviously I'm being so broad and generalizing here, and there's a lot more that goes into it, but. Just simplifying clean being purposeful with my classroom design. The other thing related to attention was materials. So I used to have community supplies out at my [00:10:00] students had tables. I like it or not. That's what we have. And I used to have community supplies and just the fact that there was something there to look at to touch to play with. I was like, I need my surfaces to be clear, unless you are. Use something at that time. So even if we are going to be using manipulatives, they do not come out or they do not placed in front of a student until the moment we are using them because it's just too tempting.

It's too distracting. And so, you know, I think. We can inadvertently set our students up for failure or to be distracted with the best of intentions. But I certainly have really fine tune that in the past couple of years of finding ways to keep them. not only for me to keep them from getting distracted, but to help them recognize I need to put this away because now I'm looking at this instead of looking at you or just building in that metacognitive piece.

So. [00:11:00] That has worked out really well for me and even you know, some of my team has adopted some of these approaches, but, you know, it would have been nice 20 years ago to learn about either the practices or even to be equipped with the knowledge that I have now to be making those decisions from the get go.

So, initially, when you made those changes what was the reaction from parents and or administrators and colleagues when they came in and saw a classroom that looked different?

And my classroom is still quite inviting and lovely. It's just it's more minimal. I will say it's more just calming. And I don't have decor galore for the sake of it. Right? So it's interesting. I haven't had pushback from parents at all regarding this. If we end up talking about like spelling instruction or spelling homework, I can tell you all about parent pushback there.

Well, that's,[00:12:00]

but I will say so my students use whiteboards all the time. They each have their own little tiny whiteboard in a bag with a piece of felt for an eraser and a dry erase marker. That's their board bag and they know they keep it in their little seat sack and they know when I say. Bring your board bags.

When they come and I typically do whole group instruction on the carpet, they sit on their board bag because this way they're not drawing on it. They can't see it. They're not playing with it. I don't want to hear the plastic and I don't want them to be distracted. And I've had administrators say, well, Maybe you should have them come and have them already responding to some kind of prompts like as soon as they come to the carpet.

They have a problem to be like a do now sort of thing. But when I asked them to come to the carpet, I want them to be ready to hit the ground running. And I don't want to waste that instructional time, having them have their materials out working on something. Okay, now where do you have to [00:13:00] snap your cats now bag up your stuff now hide your bag.

I want them ready to go. And I've just found that setting the tone for your attention is ready has been useful for me. And so having the materials out of sight, out of hands. And so I think that the way we've been able to make this have been much more efficient, but it's different.

It's different. We typically, you know, think we want kids to be playing with things all the time. We want them to be working with their hands. And so I've definitely had administrators say, well, Why can't they just draw on their boards for a few seconds? But like I said, The instructional time that it takes to then have them clean that back up, put it away.

How many kids are going to be hiding it and still scribbling on something. So that's just the small, but very specific example of students. Things that I've had very respectfully explain and clarify when someone asked me to do something that's contrary to what so what I think is, essential for attention

you know, it's interesting, the, One of the things pieces of advice [00:14:00] that just doesn't go away is one of the things you mentioned, oh, their whiteboards are out, let them play with it for a little bit, you know, let know, you know, how many times. Does that need to happen maybe one time when you give them a whiteboard to teach them how to use the marker and erase, but otherwise it's not a toy and the kids adapt very quickly to the idea of how to do it, especially if you have routines procedures but you met, you mentioned about parents pushback on spelling and you mentioned something else, spelling and,

and homework. And I would say that's probably yeah, I would say, you know, this is for your science of reading podcast. But the biggest pushback that I had in regards to change, and I am not a science of reading guru. I teach reading instruction. I teach decoding. And so I think. People assume that I am, you know, a science of reading expert, but I am more drawn to content agnostic science, [00:15:00] but I will say the one since we're talking about pushback parents that want a spelling list to be memorized and then tested the following week.

And we. We, my colleagues and I would say many others now, don't do that anymore because we know that memorizing a finite list of words is not the goal. The goal is to generalize the skill. So if I'm teaching you digraphs, I want you to be able to hear a digraph in any word and then be able to represent that sound with the correct letters, not just be able to spell 10 words that have a digraph.

And that has been uncomfortable because that's how we were raised on You know, you memorize your 10 words and then you get 100 on the test and then you move on. And so. That's been a challenge to navigate and we just try to explain that we are updating our practices as the evidence is has presented itself and but, you know, for some, it is, it's hard to accept. I'll say,

so when you're working with [00:16:00] parents do you talk about some of this proactively or do you wait until there's some sort of pushback or how do you explain you? You just got a doctorate in this stuff. And now we need to explain to parents. How does that happen for you?

I usually mentioned that at curriculum night open house or back to school night which is the first couple of weeks during the year. I'll say, you know, our reading instruction is aligned to what we've learned about science of reading. This is what it will look like. Your child will not be receiving a spelling list to memorize.

So I try to head it off, but, you know, even as a parent sitting there. In my own children's open houses and I absorbing every single thing. No. So I think as they come questions pop up and I understand and I, you know, very respectfully say, you know, I understand that's how it was for a long time and we are adapting as we get more evidence.

I[00:17:00]

You know, the I talk to a lot of teachers like you who are, you know, accomplished teachers. And they are also, well-known outside of their buildings, and sometimes they're much more well-known outside of their buildings than they are in their school site or in the district. I mean, I talked to.

You know, teachers who are, you know, traveling the country on weekends because they've been invited to talk and they're in. They're just anonymous in their schools. Where are you in that? Are you one of the anonymous ones? Do people come to you and ask you to present within the district to do trainings?

How's that? How's that working for you?

think I know some of those people that you're referencing gene. I have tried to keep my studies and my sort of. Adjacent work separate from my life [00:18:00] at my school in my district, and I did that for a long time. Um, I never wanted to offend any of my colleagues or, you know, make them feel a certain way because I was studying. In fact, I didn't even like to talk about the fact that I was going to school very much very cognizant of being respectful of, you know, opinions and feelings and I knew that. Some people, and not that they don't have a reason to be, but feel a certain way about someone who is more aligned with academics and research, and I always try to toe that line equally and carefully but I kept my studies and my, you know, attendance and conferences or involvement in other projects.

I kept that all pretty quiet. Now, once. Research ed was happening and gearing up that became, you know, pretty impossible [00:19:00] because my own school district very graciously hosted research ed. So they knew a bit about what I was skepticism from the start. What is our first grade teacher? What is she doing?

And even then I didn't talk about any of the other projects I was doing. But, yeah, that my colleagues did eventually find out that I had my hands in some other things, but I. I just worry about muddying the waters between, you know, these relationships that I had with my colleagues. I don't want to seem, I don't want to be a superior or I don't want to change their perspective.

And I would be happy to share some of my work with them, but I've tried to keep that distinction pretty clear.

Your story is common and it is, unfortunately, it's too common and the reason that I think it's a shame is that there is so much talent in our schools, and we always have to go to the outside, you know, the outside experts and it's there's not supposed to be any cliches [00:20:00] on this on this podcast, but yeah, the expert is the one that's, you know, more than 50 miles away and we don't look.

Okay. Into the talent we have and the teachers who I've talked to they want to help. I mean, you know they want to support what's going on in the schools. It's their schools they have a lot of pride and They think they have a lot to give so I bring it up every time Because I'm hoping that there are administrators out there who are listening, who will go into into their staffs and find out exactly what's going on and trying to utilize who they have.

First of all, I have something important to ask you, but before I do this decor, decor galore. That, did you come up with that? Is that a trademark thing?

No, that's not a trademark. Feel free to steal that. I'm sure if I had more time I could come up with something a little less tacky.

No decor galore.

Like a superstore for tacky furniture or something.

it is. It is. [00:21:00] Well, but it was perfect. So, one of the things that is you know, very much in the news nowadays, the use of technology, these of technology in schools, and this is a question that I just thought about right now. When you were. Doing your research. Was there much mention about the use of technology in the classroom?

Not my own research because I was Really fortunate to be able to even in the class on policy or a class on even a class on technology. I was able to center my work around my own problem of practice, which was the lack of awareness and dissemination of science of learning. So I that probably would be more relevant for like a master's student or a bachelor's student.

You know what? I can say about my experience in the classroom is it's I mean, Cove. It was a mess because they just threw [00:22:00] everything and anything and I can't blame anyone for that because no one was prepared for that. And I don't know that, you know, in the moment, any anybody could have or would have responded differently.

But there is such a culture of quantity versus quality versus vetting versus what is useful instead of just You know, give it to them and have them use it just because like, is it any better than what we're already doing? So to answer your original question, I did not not encounter it much on a different note towards the very end of my doctorate.

There's in some of my classes, there's sort of being discussion about how us, as the students might be using StatGPT, for example and I could kick myself for not having a lot of those technologies available, even just to keep your sources organized or to summarize, you know, a bunch of articles because that didn't become a thing until [00:23:00] I was just about finished.

But, my studies really didn't lend themselves.

Do you or the kids on individual screens much?

I don't really want them on any screens because I am quite sure they're using plenty of screens at home. We had starting COVID. We had one to one Chromebooks, which, you know, made sense because everybody had to be learning at home from a device. And when we came back from COVID and again, my students are six and seven.

We now have one to two. So I have, you know, 20 some students. I have half, half the amount of Chromebooks. I haven't opened them at all this year because logistically that's challenging. I haven't wanted to spend the time, frankly, setting up the routines for how we're going to share. And I just, there's nothing that we've done on the Chromebooks, barring, you know, Social distancing, which we don't have to do anymore.

There's nothing that I feel like, [00:24:00] oh, that was so much better if they did it on the Chromebook. In fact, the opposite, they need to be writing on pencil paper. They need to be reading actual books. So, for me, what appeals to me is things that will offload. Administrative tasks of mine. But I don't want anything that's going to read for my students unless they need some sort of assistive technology.

Like I want them to be decoding and reading the things that I give them now. I'm not an upper grade teacher, so I don't know what the how the response would be different in that case, but

Well,

little ones.

and now that you're it's 2 to 1, you know, 2 kids to 1 Chromebook. If they brought him to the carpet, it'd be hard to sit on. You know, with 2 kids on sitting on 1 chromebook.

the technology office might have something to say

Yeah. The so let's talk about what your research was about. And that is how to disseminate this information because that's really what.

The [00:25:00] goal for me for the rest of my, for the rest of my career is what I want to, is what I want to do is disseminate this information and get it into classrooms, not just disseminate it, but get it into classrooms. So what did you find out about what'd you find out in your research?

So yeah, so initially I was really I wanted to just study science of learning and my doctorate was in ed leadership, but I supplemented that by getting a certificate in cognitive science, which was so interesting because Being sitting in a doctoral level cognitive science class, no one could understand why an educator would be taking that class or would take those classes and then sitting in my ed classes, nobody could understand what I was doing with cognitive science.

It was like, no one could see how either would benefit. Like, what's the connection? And I'm just thinking. You know, we're studying memory. We're setting attention to motivation. This has everything to do with [00:26:00] what we do in the classroom. Which just, you know, showed me even more how much this is needed because it shouldn't be such a novel.

obscure combination of you know, studies, I don't think. So, so, you know, it was a little bit hard. I had to be really creative in my program because again, it was ed leadership. So I'm working on this cognitive science certificate as well. And my advisor and the professors in the education department really helped me with the meat of my study, because it was about. It was about cognition. And on the flip side, my advisor in cognitive science, you know, education was just so foreign. So I spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, because your problem with practice when you're getting a doctorate has to be so Honed in, like the whole experience. They're like you, they want you to go from this to this, like [00:27:00] a broad topic to a really narrow topic.

And that was hard for me. And it just fit that not only do I really want to understand the science of learning topics, I understand how to get it into the hands and the minds of educators. So that knowledge mobilization, as they refer to it and science of learning just came together in that way, because, A lot of the projects I was doing were really I was acting as a knowledge broker.

And so it just kind of came together nicely for me. But one of the biggest, you know, there's several obstacles here on the research and the practice side. One of the main ones surprisingly has been the name science of learning. I find so many people who resist the ideas because they have an issue with what.

This body of knowledge is called and I have reached out to several people who have expressed these opinions and said, help me understand, you know, [00:28:00] why this is such a problem. And most of them are not negating the evidence itself. They just think that calling it science of learning is unacceptable because it, you know, the exclusionary criteria is problematic and did not be called science of learning.

And for me, I'm like, that's not the hill that I'm willing to die on. I don't really care what it's called. So my goal is to have this information be shared with pre and in service teachers. Time and time again, I see that, you know, that people. It's a brand or it should be all lowercase. It should be uppercase.

And I just, it blows my mind that we're really getting caught in the weeds over these. These types of issues. It's a non issue. And so, but, you know, people get offended that their specific subset of education research isn't included in science of learning. And so how can it be? So they deny it [00:29:00] altogether, right?

They deny the whole body of evidence because They don't feel like it includes everything that it should. So that's one thing that, that just seems like, gosh, we should be able to come up with something like it really shouldn't matter. The other thing along those lines is if you ask 10 people what is science of learning, you're going to get 10 different definitions.

And. You know, people conflate learning sciences, science of learning and development, mind brain education. So there's a lot of different terms. Sometimes people are talking about the same thing, but sometimes we're conflating two different bodies of evidence. So we have an identity crisis with science of learning too. Science of reading. We're still heavy in the midst of science of reading. And if I dare say science of, to one of my colleagues. I mean, the initiative fatigue is like, please don't, like, don't, you know, and I [00:30:00] understand it like we just went through this. We cannot like just the mental exhaustion of here's another movement.

Here's another change in my practice, which we know this is not a program. We're not going to turn the way you've been teaching on its head. But teachers are burned out from being told one thing and then being told another thing. And then, oh, that actually doesn't work. So scratch that. We're going to do something else.

And, you know, professional development overall, that's not been. Not resulted in an actionable step or that's going to improve. Your practice or improve your student success. So I think. Those are things that we've done within education to create problems for ourselves. And, you know, there's.

Mistrust about academia. They've done it or they don't understand it. So there's a lot of relational issues. I tend to just try to lean on the evidence. [00:31:00] But my research was really how do we acknowledge some of these problems that are preventing people from being open to learning this or understanding why they should how it can be useful.

And then how do we share it? Like, what is the best way to share this? How do we get LEAs to prioritize this? You know, right now we're still very focused on social emotional learning, on diversity, equity, inclusion, for sure, science of reading. So how do we make it a priority? How do we create a sense of urgency?

And you know, I think there's a lot to be sorted out within the field itself before, before we are, Too far reaching because we're not gonna be marketing ourselves in a consistent way. Um, I love when I see teachers or former teachers who are sharing this because I think it brings a role of I've been where you are. I understand your challenges. And I [00:32:00] do think the messenger really matters. So if you are coming to me as a teacher sitting in a staff meeting or a PD and telling me what I should or shouldn't be doing, and you've never experienced that yourself, it's going to be a lot harder for me to trust what you're saying versus someone who really understands the nuances and the dynamics of teaching.

So they should get somebody in the building. Oh, wait, that doesn't work either. Nevermind.

You know, then you disturb the hierarchy and another conversation too.

There's a lot, there's a lot going on beyond just the content that, that you want to share. And I know for, I'm going to say forever. It seems like forever, you know, as long as I've been involved in education, whatever came in, that was new.

Whatever initiative was brought in. Oh, it's research based. It's research based. This is research. So it's like the boy who cried wolf, you know that now you're coming in and [00:33:00] you've got the new one. And why? Why this one? So it's a it's a tough one. It's a tough one. Well, let me I'm going to ask you this.

I'm going to ask you the same point. I asked Patrice Spain this the other day. And I'm going to see what you have to say about it because we talk about the science of learning and like you gave a couple examples of things that you have done. One is that you have the decor galore has been minimized.

You have you know, you have the kids sit on their. Their whiteboards until it's time to use. They have all their materials in one place. So if somebody, and you did this and you made those decisions consciously based on some of the things that you learned about attention and cognitive load and all of that, but if somebody just came in to watch you teach, would they.

Oh, wow, that is so different. What Sarah does is so different, but she knows her science of learning stuff, or would they say she's a good [00:34:00] teacher because

think any, I don't think any of it is blatant. And it's funny because I just had, you know, part of the being a public school teacher and having the state evaluation process. I just had my one of my formal observations and we have a new principal who's lovely, but, you know, he comes in to interview me after he's like, I noticed this.

I noticed they do this. And he just almost noticed the results of the things that I had put in place. It wasn't I think it just becomes more seamless with building automaticity, not just with content, but with routines, so that kids know exactly what to do, they know where things go, they know where to look giving directions that are super succinct, so they're just not processing words and words and having to filter out, okay, what out of all that she just said is important, what do I have to remember?

So he never said like, I noticed that you consistently had like catchwords for them to orient their [00:35:00] attention. Like you would say screen, or you would say eyes if they were going to look at you. He never said anything like that, but he would say like, They knew exactly where to look or you know, they were all on task.

They were really engaged. And that's what I would expect. And, you know, that's my goal. Not that I care if anybody comes in and says, Oh, I noticed that you're really trying to offload their working memory. Like, great. But But I think my students they're automaticity with content, but with routines and with materials and the fact that they know what to do when to do it.

That was what really is what he walked away with from and the ability to maximize instructional time because of those things that are put in place.

The reason for my question is as we're trying to help teachers, more teachers adopt many of these practices. I wonder how important their knowledge of the research is, because if they came in and watched Dr. Oberle, wait, they wouldn't [00:36:00] call you Dr. Oberle, if they came in to watch their colleague teach, they would see these things that she has in place and go, oh those work.

How important is them knowing the research behind it that got you to make some of these changes?

I think if you're observing someone having almost like subtitles that do you see how this is happening? That's because, you know, we were purposeful about, you know, X, Y, or Z, where I think the research becomes important or the knowledge is. When you want teachers to apply it in their own context, because I cannot give you a list of procedures that's for you and your students in your context every time.

But what I can do is say, here's what you should know now through those lenses that you now have, take that to your classroom or your building and let it inform the decisions that you're making on a day to day, moment to [00:37:00] moment basis. So, which is what I appreciate so much about. This information is that it's not meant to tell you what to do.

It's meant to professionalize your decision making processes. So I do think that understanding the why you are observing someone else would be very important and because otherwise you would walk away and not really almost like not be able to materialize what was purposeful what was being done.

You know, do you have instructional coaches at your

No, because I think that's one of the things that I talk about when I work with instructional coaches and you have teachers doing, observing one another, is that instructional coach mediates what's going on. Yeah, you see it. Oh, did you notice when she did this?

Did you notice when she said that? Because so many times I believe that people, if they don't know, they just think, oh, [00:38:00] she's a good teacher. And they get good response from the kids, but don't know why. And the research provides the why. But the other thing I want them to see is that it's not that different.

You know, what the teacher is doing is that much different than what somebody that's not quite as effective. Why? Because they don't have that routine or they didn't spend the time developing that routine, or they don't have those words, those focus words. So it's not. That's what I try to get teachers to understand.

It's, you know, we're not changing you. We're not, you don't have to become another person, Sarah, to do this. It's going to be, we can even do it within your personality because all teachers have different personalities as well.

right. And I think that's so important to emphasize for new teachers who might feel like I just don't have it like there's some essence they have to capture versus there are strategic. Things [00:39:00] that you are saying, doing, putting in place that are not magic and can be made, you know, visible and tangible when you talk about it if you're talking about it with someone who understands the reasons behind the choices.

Yeah,

If you had an opportunity to advise, you know, a new teacher, uh, What would you tell them? Where would you have them start with regards to science and learning?

a really hard question because there's so many good resources out there. Oh, gosh, I'm, I might be stumped on that one because I just, there's too many choices. I think. You know, I would grab learning scientists have, has some excellent resources that are. More generalized deans for impact, the things that Ben Riley developed years ago that are really nicely put together, but basically describe like this is what we know about how learning happens.

And these are the types of things that you can be [00:40:00] doing to make decisions based on that knowledge. My goal is to create some of those materials that are a nice introduction to. You know, the essentials, the 101 of science and if you will because, you know, I have a bookcase full of books and I have so many podcasts queued, but I think what we're missing is an entry point, a very simple entry point to say.

Here's what it is. Here's what it isn't. Here's why it's worth your time. And here's how it's going to help you. And these are the basic topics that we're going to discuss. I know a lot of that is in the works. I know that there are folks that are already doing it in the UK and hope that the U.

S. market will be ready soon for things like that. I think we're. We're still hung up a little bit on more fad type [00:41:00] content but for a new teacher I would want there to be something that was just a really clear, but broad overview of here's this knowledge that unfortunately you probably didn't get in your pre service teaching education, but it will, it is what I wish I knew when I started.

Okay. Okay. Is there something that you wished I would ask you about, or something else that you wanted to share with folks?

I think, you know, for me, it's just emphasizing that we know that this information exists it is incredibly useful for teachers to know about or administrators to know about, it doesn't matter what we call it, I don't think what matters is the goal is to have it included in pre and in service teacher education, because, like you said, there's so much talent in our building.

And I sit with my colleagues at, you know, PLCs or staff meetings, and I'm so in awe of them. And I just know if [00:42:00] they had this information, I can't even imagine, you know, what decisions that they would make based on not only their experience, but also being personalized with some of this learning that this knowledge about how learning happens.

So I, I. I think that the wish for the arguments or any of the contention that exists would just be set aside to say, look, it's not important if you're right if I'm right, what's important is here is this information. How do we get it. How do we get it to teachers.

Oh, great. Well, do you have a question for me, Sarah?

I have several questions for Eugene but I will pick one that's a little more apropos for our timing whether. Whether people listen to this. Shortly after Thanksgiving or closer to the winter holidays. My question is, what is your favorite holiday indulgence?[00:43:00]

My favorite holiday indulgence. You know, I learned, I can't remember where I learned it, but that all life is a paradox. And so, At one point in my life, I was much heavier. And so people think I'm nuts. And there are lots of reasons to think that, but one of them because I weigh myself every day is one of the, one of those things.

And so, my indulgence is eating and I'm on the scale the next day to figure out, you know, like, like this Thanksgiving, we're recording this the day after Thanksgiving. I was pretty proud of myself. I indulged and I only gained 1. 9 pounds, which sounds a little anal to be that granular, but my indulgence.

That's my indulgence and and the paradox is that I wish I wasn't that good at it.

So, I, and I'm sure whoever's [00:44:00] listening wants to know what you chose for your indulgence.

Whatever was there,

Ah

my, my strategy, like many people is okay. I'm not, I'm going to have a, I know that I'm going to eat it at at two o'clock. So I'm not going to eat a lot, you know, so I'll be ready. So I'll be hungry. And then of course. Two o'clock is never two o'clock. It becomes four o'clock. So the hors d'oeuvres that I was not going to eat, I ended up eating them.

And it's like going to a good restaurant, you know, by the time the entree comes you're full, but that doesn't stop you from indulging in everything else that's there. So, yeah. That's a bad one for me, that, that food.

Well, it's a holiday, so sometimes you have to treat yourself, right? And then you do the damage control after.

Yeah. I attempt to. Sarah, it has been a pleasure finally catching up to you

Yeah, likewise.

And getting to talk more about this, the science of learning. And I hope to talk to you soon. [00:45:00] Thanks again.

great, Jean. Take care. Bye bye.

If you're enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend. Also, please leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You can follow me on BlueSky at gTabernetti, on Twitter, x at gTabernetti, and you can learn more about me and the work I do at my website, BlueSky. Tesscg. com, that's T E S S C G dot com, where you will also find information about ordering my books, Teach Fast, Focus Adaptable Structure Teaching, and Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles.

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