The Teacher As...
The goal of The Teacher As... podcast is to help you explore your passions and learn from others in education and beyond to better your teaching. The Teacher As... highlights innovative practices and uncommon parallels in education. Melissa Milner, veteran teacher, is your host. Melissa shares her own thoughts in The Teacher As...episodes. She also interviews educators as well as professionals outside of education in the Zooming In episodes. A new type of episode on The Teacher As...podcast is an educational "draft" similar to a football draft but about educational topics.
Episodes
141 episodes
Zooming In on Connecting Through Conversation with Erika Bare and Tiffany Burns
Melissa Milner talks with Erika Bare and Tiffany Burns who have collaborated on a book titled "Connecting Through Conversation: A Playbook for Talking with Students." Erica, a superintendent, and Tiffany, a university administrator, share their...
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Season 6
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54:00
Zooming In on Drama Club Planning and Preparation
In this episode, Melissa shares the process of planning for her afterschool drama club. She talks about one main resource that she is pulling from, dramanotebook.com created by Janea Dahl.
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Season 6
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14:05
Zooming In on Math Anxiety and Gamification with Dr. Aditya Nagrath
Melissa talks to Dr. Aditya Nagrath, founder of Elephant Learning, who discusses his company's program, which has helped over 175,000 students learn a year's worth of math in three months with 30 minutes of weekly use. He emphasized the importa...
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Season 6
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28:05
Zooming In on Math Talk
Melissa discusses her experience with the WIDA course on developing language for learning in mathematics, which aligns well with her district's Illustrative Mathematics (IM) curriculum. She highlights the importance of math discourse and the ro...
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Season 6
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28:43
Rewind Episode: Zooming In on Podcasting with Students Part One
This was the first of three episodes about podcasting with students that was originally published in July, 2021. I am teaching a workshop on this topic at the Reynolds TLC Center in Dedham, MA in May so it seemed like a good time to revisit it....
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Season 6
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17:10
Zooming In on Math Coaching with Lana Montero
Lana Montero, a K-8 math coach with 12 years of experience, discusses her transition from the classroom to coaching, emphasizing the importance of feedback and collaboration. Lana emphasizes the role of coaching as a supportive, collaborative e...
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Season 6
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33:58
Zooming In on Drama Education with Janea Dahl
Melissa chats with Janea Dahl, the creator of Drama Notebook, a resource for drama teachers with over 1,500 lesson plans, royalty-free scripts, and tutorial videos. Janea founded Drama Notebook to provide high-quality, flexible resources for dr...
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Season 6
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31:35
Zooming In on Calm Within Adult Swim with Cori Myka
Melissa chats with Cori Myka. Cori runs Calm Within Adult Swim, a swim school focused on helping adults overcome water fears. Corey emphasizes the 80% mental, 20% physical approach to learning to swim, using a program called Foundations of Chan...
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Season 6
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30:58
Zooming In on Music Education with Jon Ryan from Ball in the House
Melissa chats with Jon Ryan, founder of the acapella group Ball in the House. Ryan discusses the group's origins, evolution, and educational outreach. Ball in the House teaches K-12, emphasizing performance, songwriting, and music history.
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Season 6
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Episode 123
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46:16
The Teacher As Author with Megan Daly
Melissa talks with Megan Daly, the author of My Teacher Doesn't Like Me. Megan shares the inspiration for her first book and her writing and publishing process.
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Season 6
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Episode 122
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29:01
Zooming In on Genocide Education with Janet Singer Applefield
In this episode, Melissa speaks with Janet Singer Applefield, author of Becoming Janet. She is a child survivor of the Holocaust, author, notable speaker, and change agent. Janet spoke about her years of hiding in plain sight, how she helped ge...
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Season 6
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Episode 121
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25:06
Zooming In on Sound Play in the Classroom with Hayes Greenfield
In this episode, Melissa speaks with Hayes Greenfield, the founder of Creative Sound Play, an interconnected, play-based, generative learning system for Pre-K educators. Hayes shares about his book, Creative Sound Play for Young Learners: A Tea...
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Season 6
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Episode 120
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41:44
Zooming In on Optimized Learning with Paul Solarz
Is your classroom filled with self-driven, collaborative learners? Do you wish your students were more confident and independent? In this episode, Melissa talks again with Paul Solarz who has created am amazing book, Optimized Learning, that he...
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Season 6
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Episode 119
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37:24
The Teacher As Facilitator: Student Voice and Choice Part 2
In this minisode season finale, Melissa continues to share one of her favorite articles about voice and choice by Alfie Kohn. Choices for Children: Why and How to Let Students Decide. In addition, she talks about a time management concept that ...
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Season 5
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Episode 118
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16:11
Zooming In on Narrative Nonfiction with Candace Fleming
Candace Fleming is an author of many fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults. Among other things, Melissa and Candace talk about the research process, the power of nonfiction and how teachers can help students get more specif...
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Season 5
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Episode 117
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41:40
The Teacher As Facilitator: Student Voice and Choice
In this minisode, Melissa shares from one of her favorite articles about voice and choice. Choices for Children: Why and How to Let Students Decide by Alfie Kohn lays out the rationale for voice and choice as well as what it looks like in pract...
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Season 5
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Episode 116
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7:23
Zooming In on Teacher Creativity with Jane Reynolds
Jane Reynolds, sister of author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds, chats about her work in helping teachers tap into their creativity so they can model it for their students. Her teacher education work with her brothers, Peter and Paul, is revoluti...
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Season 5
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Episode 115
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36:00
The Teacher As Proud Supporter of Students' Reading Lives
In this minisode, Melissa talks about the importance of read alouds and silent reading time. She shares some reading successes in her classroom and encourages teachers to reflect on how far their students have come.
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Season 5
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Episode 114
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6:39
Zooming In on Balance, Boundaries, and Breaks with Evan Whitehead
Evan Whitehead, M.Ed. is an author, speaker, Mental Health Advocate, and the creator of Balance Boundaries and Breaks.™️ Evan shares his struggles with finding balance that brought him to his new focus of helping all educators find a healthy wo...
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Season 5
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Episode 113
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40:21
The Teacher As Encourager of Logic
In this very short minisode, Melissa, with laryngitis, shares that listeners should go to the Episode 112 page on theteacheras.com to see her students' reflections about logic puzzles. The students share how the puzzles got easier with continue...
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Season 5
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Episode 112
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1:47
Zooming In on Math Puzzles with Dr.Nicki Newton and Ann Elise Record
Dr. Nicki and Ann Elise share 10+ fun math puzzles you can use in your classroom tomorrow! Puzzles to practice math facts, understand algebra, and many more math concepts. "Puzzles are a portal to perseverance," Dr. Nicki Newton.
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Season 5
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Episode 111
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42:59
Zooming In on Math Student Vital Actions with Jen Hawkins
In this episode, math educator Jen Hawkins shares the 7 student vital actions in the math classroom that are grounded in equity and logical thinking/reasoning. Jen talks about the importance of productive struggle as well as all students regula...
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Season 5
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Episode 110
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25:31