Caldecott and Newbery Honoree Grace Lin and bestselling author Kate Messner talk about their new book “Once Upon A Book” and share advice on how to help kids cultivate a love of reading.
Chris Emdin, is the Robert A. Naslund Endowed Chair in Curriculum & Teaching and a professor of education at the University of Southern California. He tells us how we might reimagine STEM subjects to be more inclusive and how to teach in a way that creates young people with strong STEM identities.
Carla Shalaby, a former public school teacher who trains educators at the University of Michigan’s School of Education, offers new ways for teachers to think about classroom management. Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by donating! This episode was reported by Nimah Gobir. MindShift is produced by Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir and Kara Newhouse. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Additional support from Chris Hambrick, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven- Lindsey and Holly Kernan.
The pandemic has revealed that teachers have been doing more than just teaching students academics. Long before COVID-19 school closures, teachers were storing snacks in their desk drawer for the occasional hungry student or keeping their classroom open to kids during lunch. While many schools do not have systems in place to support teachers’ often invisible work, the community school model provides some strategies to lighten the load on schools and their educators. California is investing big i...
What do schools and teachers need to know when they have students whose home language is not the one spoken at school? We look at ways teachers can guard against loss of heritage languages, ways to support outside the classroom, and how to keep families involved at school. Plus, how these strategies can help English language learners thrive in the classroom. Additional Reading: Heritage Languages in U.S. Schools Sign up for the MindShift email newsletter Read the episode transcript here. Your su...
Across the country, teachers are seeing angry kids. With students returning to in-person learning, there has been an uptick in disruptive behavior, fighting and frustration. Educators are taking the brunt of it with 6 in 10 teachers reporting they've experienced physical violence or verbal aggression since the pandemic. Experts point to regression, lack of socialization, and trauma caused from navigating COVID-19 as reasons students are acting out. While there are no quick fixes, teachers and st...
A growing body of research shows when kids are between 10-12 their brains go through an explosive period of development that makes them susceptible to influence, for better or worse. Experts call it the "age of opportunity" because what happens during this time can lead a child towards greatness, but it can also introduce intractable bad habits. Parents get plenty of advice on how to deal with teens, but little when it comes to tweens. Schools also play an important role in shaping adolescent mi...
Remote learning was far from ideal, but it did open the door for schools to approach the school day day in new ways. We explore the research on teen sleep and what that means for school start times, as well as the promise and peril of the four day school week. Research shows shortening the school week doesn’t necessarily improve student outcomes, but it may alleviate teacher burnout. Finally, we look at the history of the school bell, how it shapes learning and whether it’s time for the final to...
During remote learning, students had to use virtual proctoring tools to take their tests online. These apps and software can be as extreme as using artificial intelligence to track a students eye movements and keystrokes or as simple as a lockdown browser that prevents students from accessing other pages during the test. Students and caregivers have raised concerns about school pressures, racial bias, privacy and mental health. The rise of these tools and their defects brings up some bigger ques...
What do students really need in order to learn? MindShift is where teachers, parents and caregivers can discover solutions for raising our kids in the modern era. Hear from educators and experts creating pathways for students to flourish. The first episode of an all new season drops Tuesday, July 19. Check out MindShift's back catalogue!
Today, we’re looking at a huge problem in education: teacher shortages. Across the US, schools are struggling to fill teaching roles. Large numbers of teachers are quitting after only a short time on the job, and 9 out of 10 teachers hired are replacing a teacher who has left the profession. The high turnover means more classrooms are run by beginner teachers, substitute teachers, emergency teachers and teachers from new, for-profit teacher training companies. This story is an excerpt from the f...
After reflecting in isolation, millions of adults got fed up and voluntarily quit their jobs in record numbers, and teenagers have also been ready for a change. But what does that look like? Today on MindShift, we’re talking to Caroline Smith about the great resignation and what that looks like for schools.
With social distancing, stay-at-home orders and remote learning during the pandemic, many caregivers allowed more screen time than usual. Teenagers’ screen time doubled during COVID, and now many caregivers and parents are afraid their kid’s screen time has gone overboard. Dr. Anna Lembke, author of “Dopamine Nation,” makes the case for how technology, with its promise of nonstop engagement and flashing lights, can be addictive.
MindShift partnered with KQED Education to create the "Rethink Schools" youth media challenge. Here are a few of the student proposals.
Nested within the national teacher shortage is an equally concerning Black teacher shortage. In response to push out factors that cause Black educators to leave the profession altogether, Mosley founded the Black Teacher Project, an organization that supports the shrinking population of Black teachers through leadership-focused professional development. In this minisode she shares the thinking behind their tagline “Every Student Deserves A Black Teacher” and strategies to improve Black teacher r...
We spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve our brains -- from apps to help you focus to games that purportedly keep your mind fresh. But science journalist Annie Murphy Paul says we’re not focusing enough on what’s happening outside of the brain -- with our bodies. When it comes to work that is all about thinking -- like writing, math, reading -- our society is largely designed around sitting still at a desk. Annie will share some of the latest research on embodied learning and how tea...
Most teachers feel they have to hide negative emotions from students. That puts them in a tough situation because - as we showed in our episode on toxic positivity - research shows suppressing negative emotions can make stress worse. In this minisode, we look at what happens when teachers show their real emotions in class, from the highs to the lows.
Glenn Singleton is the author of “Courageous Conversations About Race,” which gives helpful ground rules when talking about race. One Florida school district taught Singleton’s techniques to all their educators so they could develop cultural competency and address systemic inequities. What can their experience teach others?
Gholdy Muhammad, a teacher and professor at Georgia State University, spent years researching Black literary societies of the early 1800s, where people debated ideas, cultivated a deeper understanding of themselves and thought critically about change needed in the world. From this model, Muhammad developed the historically responsive literacy framework to help teachers and parents raise the geniuses of tomorrow.
For many students, their mental health took a nosedive during the pandemic. But there are bright spots. One Oakland school was able to meet most students' mental health needs – and it didn’t call for anything too drastic.
There’s a growing movement to teach data science in schools. Some experts hope it will disrupt the dropouts caused by other math classes and even lead to more diversity in STEM. In this episode, we study how educators have designed the classes to be more engaging for women and people from groups underrepresented in STEM.
The pandemic has pushed many educators to their limits. And yet, some teachers are being told a better attitude could make the job easier. Some call this toxic positivity, which is when you focus on the positive and ignore the negative. In this episode, we look at how teachers can combat toxic positivity and help their classrooms avoid a culture of it.
By fall 2020, in districts around the country, high school students were failing classes at greater rates than before the pandemic, dragging down GPAs. Teachers are asking: is it time to reevaluate how we grade? Learn common misconceptions about grades in this episode and possible new directions.
As we begin a third school year in the coronavirus pandemic, the MindShift team examines sustaining teaching practices that can help educators and their students. This season, we’ll bring you stories and strategies that helped school communities prioritize what’s important in a child’s education. We also welcome Nimah Gobir as co-host! The crises of 2020 created opportunities for change in how teachers grade and how school leaders treat their staff. But not everyone made adjustments, and that le...
For parents and teachers looking for a resource on how to talk about race with kids, there's a new book called "Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You." It's written by educator Dr. Sonja Cherry Paul and is for 7 to 12 year old children. This book is an adaptation of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds' book "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You."
Once schools went fully remote, learning online during the pandemic became a major struggle for so many students. However, for some students, being online and away from distractions at school helped them do better academically.
As a child, Connie Williams learned to read using the “whole word” strategy, which has since been disproven as an effective technique. She graduated high school in Oakland, Calif., but she was functionally illiterate. Since then, her children and grandchildren have attended Oakland public schools, all of them struggling to learn to read. And it wasn’t just her family -- the district is failing thousands of kids. Now, Connie Williams is part of a movement of families advocating for phonics instru...
For many students, writing can be tedious, especially after years of boring grammar, spelling and structure drills. But for kids who have discovered fan fiction, writing about something they’re already passionate about can ignite countless hours of creative writing, music and art.
Culturally relevant teaching strategies help make learning more meaningful to the lives of students and address some of the equity issues in curriculum. When schools closed in March because of COVID-19, about 150 teachers from around the country began creating a resource document to share ideas that would engage students in learning through the events happening in their lives. Students at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School in New York City were at the heart of the worst outbreak in...
Seniors missed out on prom, signing yearbooks, sharing the news of college acceptances with friends and teachers in person, and walking across the graduation stage in front of their family and friends. Juniors took AP tests at home and worried what this would mean for their futures. Hear what students recorded in their audio journals as they adjust their expectations for this school year and the future. Further Reading: See photos of the students Check out MindShift's website Sign up for the wee...
