The Continuing Educator
A math teacher and a professional learning pro bring a blast of fresh air to educators everywhere, every week!
Here's what makes this teaching podcast different: We have big ideas about education AND we know how to put them to work in your classroom AND we'll tell you funny stories about doing it. Every episode is packed with tips from your peers working in schools right now and strategies from the pros on the professional learning team at NWEA. Plus, our co-hosts Jacob Bruno (EVP of Learning & Improvement Services at NWEA) and Kailey Rhodes (middle school math teacher in Portland) guarantee that you will laugh at least 12.8 times per episode.
If you've got a comment about an episode or a funny story you want to tell, send us a voice memo at social.media@nwea.org and we might respond on air. AND! If you enjoy the podcast so much that you want to learn more about how NWEA professional learning delivers high-quality online, onsite, virtual, and blended learning experiences to help educators bring curriculum, instruction, and assessment into alignment to improve student outcomes, go here: https://www.nwea.org/professional-learning-overview
The Continuing Educator
Unfinished Learning, with Megan Kuhfeld and Jim Knight (Season 3, Ep. 1)
Welcome to Season 3 of The Continuing Educator, a professional learning podcast for K-12 educators produced by NWEA. This season, we are bringing in experts in math, ELA, and unfinished learning to examine the bold, creative action teachers and school leaders are taking to help students get back on track academically, socially, and emotionally.
Two years on from the start of the pandemic and we’re starting to see a glimmer of hope and pieces of normalcy return to our schools and classrooms. But as we move forward, we cannot ignore the lingering impact of pandemic disruptions. From behavioral and social-emotional learning challenges to unfinished learning in core subjects, particularly for our youngest learners, students from traditionally marginalized groups and students in high poverty schools. While educators are accustomed to navigating summer learning loss, the effects of the pandemic are more complex.
This week's guests:
Dr. Megan Kuhfeld is a Senior Research Scientists with NWEA. In her role she seeks to understand students’ trajectories of academic and social-emotional learning and the school and neighborhood influences that promote optimal growth. Megan’s work covers a range of topics, including longitudinal growth modeling, achievement gaps, and summer learning loss. Her research has been featured in Education Week, the Los Angeles Times, the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, and Applied Psychological Measurement.
Dr. Jim Knight is Founder and Senior Partner of Instructional Coaching Group (ICG) and also a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. He has spent more than two decades studying professional learning and instructional coaching. The pioneering work Jim and his colleagues have conducted has led to many innovations that are now central to professional development in schools. Jim wrote the first major article about instructional coaching for the Journal of Staff Development, and his book Instructional Coaching offered the first extended description of instructional coaching.