Teaching Students How Expert Writers Think

In this episode, Dr. Helen Flores sits down with Barbara Friedlander to explore how Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) can help students become more confident, independent writers. Barbara explains how explicit modeling and think-alouds make the invisible thinking behind writing visible, shares practical examples of what SRSD looks like in the classroom, and discusses how the framework can support students with disabilities while benefiting all learners. Together, they explore the role of writing in executive functioning, inclusion, teacher preparation, and why investing time in explicitly teaching the thinking process can ultimately lead to greater student independence.

More from Barbara Friedlander

Friedlander Education Consultants

Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students (book)

Resources for Teachers

Education Research Reading Room: Karen Harris on Teaching Writing (SRSD) 

Free SRSD Resources from the University of Nebraska

From Struggle to Success: Navigating the Writing Process With Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD)

Research and Background

Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD)

What Works Clearinghouse: SRSD

Ray, A.B. (2023). Writing Interventions Using SRSD for Secondary Students with and At-Risk for Learning Disabilities: A Review of Empirical Research. In: Liu, X., Hebert, M., Alves, R.A. (eds) The Hitchhiker's Guide to Writing Research. Literacy Studies, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36472-3_13

Ruffini, C., Osmani, F., Martini, C., Giera, W. K., & Pecini, C. (2024). The relationship between executive functions and writing in children: a systematic review. Child Neuropsychology, 30(1), 105–163. https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2023.2170998 

Artwork and logo by The Interior Gaze

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Research to Practice Gap, a podcast that bridges the divide between research and classroom practice. I'm Dr. Helen Flores, and each episode I sit down with an expert whose work informs education and translate their insights into practical, evidence-based strategies you can use in your classroom right away. Today with me, I have Barbara Friedlander. Barbara is a national board-certified special education teacher, educational consultant, and adjunct professor at the University of Maryland College of Education. Her work focuses on inclusive practices, writing instruction, co-teaching, and school improvement to support meaningful access and success for all learners. Barbara is the co-author of Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students, serves on the Maryland Council for Exceptional Children Board, chair of the CEC Private School Affinity Group, and the University of Maryland College of Education Alumni Network Board, and was recognized as the 2024 Learning Disabilities Association of America, Sam Kirk Educator of the Year. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Thank you. I'm excited to be here with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Awesome. So in one or two sentences, what problem in education does your research aim to address?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

So my work really focuses on that gap between what students know and then what they're able to demonstrate to independently, especially in writing and other complex learning tasks. So so often our kids are asked to perform without being explicitly taught about the thinking process that expert learners use. For some of our kids, that is not natural. And we need to show them what expert writers do as they're writing. So through self-regulated strategy development or SRSD, because it's a lot of words, we'll go with SRSD. It focuses on using think alouds and modeling and a whole structure of a six-part framework that shows students that invisible thinking that all learners use that we can access instruction. So it really makes that invisible thinking that goes on in all of our heads as we are approaching tasks. It makes it visible. Students can see it and know how expert writers and thinkers think.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

This is so interesting. When I started teaching students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, I really struggled with writing. And thinking back, I can sort of attribute that to executive functioning difficulties that a lot of my students had and other behavioral challenges. But writing was terrible for me. I hated teaching writing. Even my students that could write fluently, then that editing process, writing draft one in the final draft, it was so discouraging. And I don't think I learned about SRSD until my doc program. So it's really interesting to hear about it now and think about how I could have used this as a teacher when I was teaching. And what first drew you to this line of research? Was there a classroom moment that sparked it?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I just happened to be at the University of Maryland when the founder of SRSD, Dr. Karen Harris, was a professor and just beginning her research on this area. And so when I was out in my placements, I did notice and would come back to class asking these questions about how I saw that kids had ideas, but they couldn't organize their ideas or express them or regulate their thinking towards these academic tasks. And I realized that sometimes it wasn't the lack of ideas, but the lack of explicit instruction on how to think through tasks. So Dr. Harris was doing this research, and she taught it to a whole bunch of undergraduates who then went out into schools after graduation and implemented her research. So through my work at my first job in elementary school, I introduced SRSD to my students and I taught them the SRSD framework and strategy. I implemented in a variety of grades and in classrooms. And the students who struggled for years in writing transformed into writers. And the teachers were like, what's going on? Right. So of course, we all got training. Dr. Harris came to my school and did a whole bunch of research. But really what it was is that I was modeling my own thinking for the students and providing that strategic support for them. I gave them this gift of explicit thinking that they could then make their own and they could start to see themselves as writers. And so my spark for SRSD once I got into my own classrooms was like, it really, really does work. And so I'm going to keep at it because I know it works for them and I could see it in multiple grade levels, multiple students that came to us with different varying disabilities. And so we just kept doing the work and we've been doing the work in some form together for over 40 years.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Wow. That's incredible. I don't think many people can say that the research they do, it was sparked by the person who created that strategy. So that's pretty incredible. And in a little bit, I'm going to have you sort of walk us through what SRSD is. But who should care most about this research? Teachers, administrators, teacher educators, policymakers, and why?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

So teachers are the direct users of these practices. Teachers have the greatest impact in the classroom. But that only happens when administrators are also provided with the same training. When the administrator understands SRSD and can be able to support it, use it in their observations, give the faculty feedback, make professional learning a priority for their faculty. That's when the real power comes in. So it's hard to say like who should care most, right? Obviously, teachers in the classroom are your most important player, but administrators need to support it. And it would be wonderful if our teacher prep programs would put a course into their curriculum. Everybody takes a reading class and everybody takes math, everyone takes a behavior, but you rarely see writing in the curriculum for teachers. So teachers don't always see themselves as writing teachers. They don't feel confident themselves enough to teach it. So there's a whole framework of who, but a good example of how a school transformed their writing program is a school that I'm working with in Arizona. The head of the school is this amazingly incredible leader who reads a ton of research and remembers everything she reads. And she read the SRSD research and she read the book that I co-authored with Dr. Harris and Dr. Graham and a few others called Powerful Writing Strategies for All, which is basically a book that takes all the SRSD secrets into one book on how to do it. Anyway, she reads the book and says, I want my faculty to know this. She said, My students are making progress in reading with our Wilson intervention, but they are still really struggling with writing. And my teachers are struggling with teaching writing. So I need to build the teacher pedagogy toolbox of strategies so they can enhance their writing instruction. So three years later, after intensive professional developments, if you ask any faculty member in that school, not just classroom teachers, the counselor, the Spanish teacher, the PE teacher, anybody in that K-12 school, they will tell you they are confident writing teachers. And this only occurred because the head of school made professional learning a priority. She saw a need, she determined the evidence-based strategy that her faculty would benefit from. And she has honored that professional development commitment to them to bring SRSD to them and grow them as educators. So really a top-down should care about SRSD.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, and that's pretty incredible to think that every teacher in that school considers themselves as confident and knowledgeable about the writing process. Wow. So let's jump into what all of this is then. For listeners who aren't familiar with this line of research, writing and teaching writing and challenges that come with it, what are two to three key findings or important facts?

SPEAKER_01 8:13

So the first thing you should know is that SRSD is the only evidence-based approved writing strategy by Clearinghouseworks. There's been over 200 studies internationally across all grade levels and student backgrounds that have shown that explicit modeling and think alouds improve student academic performance because they reveal the cognitive processes about learning. SRSD also has consistently demonstrated positive outcomes across writing, self-regulation, student motivation, and also transferring of those skills to different settings. So, in other words, when students learn the strategy, they use it across classrooms independently. So a good example of this is when I was teaching elementary school and I taught it to my students. And when you're the special educator, you see them multiple grade levels too. So they'd had a lot of SRSD training by the time they walked out my door. But about September of the next school year, um, the middle school English teacher emailed me. I'm like, okay, is everything all right? Like, who's giving you a problem? How can I help you? Immediately I think something's going on. She's like, well, I gave an independent running task to gauge their writing skills. And it was something like, what was the most exciting thing you did this summer? And about four or five of the students had an outline and they had this really cohesive paragraph, and they had T-R-E-E treat on the side, and I didn't know what that meant. And then they told me all about it, and they said that I should call you and learn about it because these five papers were the best papers in the whole sixth grade. Now, remember, these are students with learning disabilities, special ed and IUP. They were identified as needing support, and yet they were the strongest writers in her sixth-grade English class. And so that was actually the moment I really knew it worked because they knew it was an opinion, they knew which mnemonic to use, and they knew how to outline and take it to a paragraph. So that was one of those proud teacher moments that you always remember. But that transfer happens all across the research. You will see them transferring it from class to class. And then although SRSD was originally designed by Dr. Harris specifically for students with disabilities, the research has shown that students with disabilities made significant academic growth. But around year five of the research in my classroom, I was doing a co-teaching model. So we ended up uh doing research on the whole class. And I think you won't be surprised to know that everybody made growth. Everybody in the class benefit really is just good writing strategies originally designed for students with learning disabilities, but now can be used across all students. There's a lot of studies going on with multilingual students now. So every student benefits from seeing expert thinking made visible.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

That's incredible because I think about the things that I used to support writing when I felt like I was drowny as an educator. And I'm thinking of hamburger and fries. You know, like the the meat and the details. And I've always been a decent writer, but I don't think once did I do a think aloud for how that process looked when I did it, even though I knew that was best practice for math and for reading and all of these other things. And it's interesting because it feels like this is universal design for learning. It's helping the most struggling, but it's helping all students. Writing isn't easy for a lot of people, for a lot of students, whether they have disabilities or not. So this is very cool. Um, so if someone's listening to this right now, what are two to three practices or strategies they can try in their classroom to utilize SRSD or at least parts of it?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Right. Uh just what you were just saying is actually interesting. The teachers will tell you they're better writers too after doing this. And I often say, how would I have ever written my master's thesis without knowing SRSD? Right. Like, I think we as adults become better writers too, as a result of learning these strategies. Teachers will also tell you that they didn't learn to write either, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I'm thinking we're having this in higher ed challenges with generative AI and students using it to help them write. And I think the reason a lot of students use it is because they are not comfortable with writing.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Writing is very different from math and reading. Math is somebody else's ideas that you are learning. Reading is somebody else's words. But when you produce writing, even your students who are reflecting on their lessons, that's their heart. That's their personal thoughts. It is about them and it's unique to them. So writing is very different from reading and math because it's about you. And for our students, uh, they're giving you their best, and we have to help them enhance that. But it's very personal what we write, whether it's an email, whether it's a social media post or a reflection on your lesson or a newsletter. It's personal. It's our writing. We're the only ones that own it. So it's very different. Anyway. I'll go back to your original question, which are two or three practices that you can do. So, first of all, SRSD is a six-framework plan. There is no curriculum. So it's not something you buy. I'm going to say it again. It's not something you buy. It's a no-cost tool, unless you want to look at the book and get free lesson plans in there, but there's a lot of free stuff online. It's a framework that starts very intensive with the teacher and the teacher's time and effort. And then it's a gradual release of responsibility to the student. So we always start with understanding the genre. If we're talking about opinion, do our students really know the difference between fact and opinion? We might need to spend some time figuring that out before we write an opinion paper. Understanding the genre is really important. And then we're going to give them examples and non-examples. So here is a great example of an opinion paper. And here's one that's not. Let's talk about it. What does this one need? What does this one have? Look at our rubric. Did it follow it? So it's examples and non-examples are there. And then we're going to model how we do it, which is really thinking out loud. And in a second, I will do a quick model for you so you can hear what it sounds like. And then we're going to model, we're going to do a collaborative write, and then finally get to independent writing. So it starts heavy on the teacher and then a gradual release onto the students. The modeling is where the teachers sometimes feel uncomfortable. Sometimes you have to be a little actress or an actor to do it. Yeah, just keep their attention. It can look many different ways. There's no perfect way to do a modeling. Sometimes with the groups in front of me, I have to stop every two minutes and go, like, what did I do? What did I say? What did you do? And then there's some kids I can go on for five minutes and I still have their attention. So you really have to know the kids in front of you when you're modeling. And that's this wonderful thing about SRSD is that it's flexible. And so it's about who's sitting in front of you at that moment in time and knowing them and the way they learn. And you can adapt it to them. So let's say, and I just did this recently with a teacher that I'm coaching on SRSD. They had just read Charlotte Swim. And the prompt was create hook sentences. She noticed after looking at all of their writing that it was a very boring beginning to their stories and essays and paragraphs. So she wanted them to build more exciting topic sentences. So we called them hook sentences because you're hooking in the reader and we do all kinds of visuals. She asked them to think about the Charlotte's Webb book and talk about a character that showed kindness. Yes, I'm gonna put my teacher modeling hat on. Hmm. My teacher said to write a paragraph on a character from Charlotte's Webb. Oh, and it has to show how that character shows kindness. Okay, well, at least I liked the book, so at least it's a good book. Kindness, let me think. Well, I think Charlotte's pretty smart. I can I can write that. I think Charlotte is smart, is my topic sentence. Writing it on the board. Yes, that's a good topic sentence. Charlotte is smart. I remember my teacher said to reread the prompt again to make sure I'm on topic. Charlotte is smart. Well, that's true, but I was supposed to write about a character that shows kindness. Ugh, that was such a waste of time. Spent all that time on a sentence that doesn't even match the prompt. Now I'm never gonna get this done on time. I hope I get to go off a recess. Well, I hope Johnny plays with me at recess. Wait, do you think they're gonna have the balls at recess? Okay, wait, wait, recess is not what I'm supposed to be thinking about right now. I have to think about who in Charlotte's Web shows kindness. Okay, it's okay. My mom says it's okay to make mistakes, so I'm just gonna keep going. Kindness. Well Charlotte showed kindness to Wilbur. She was very nice to Wilbur. I will write in Charlotte's Web Charlotte showed kindness to Okay, that's my topic sentence. Go me. Okay, that's my topic sentence. But if I were the reader, I'm not sure I'd be very excited to keep reading. I want my readers to think, tell me more. I want to read more. So what is something really interesting about kindness? Can I ask a question? What would surprise the reader, maybe? I'm thinking. Well, Charlotte didn't say kind words, but she used her time and effort to help Wilber. And that feels pretty important to me. Maybe I'll start with a question. Would you help a friend, even if it took a lot of hard work? Ooh, I like that, because my reader will stop and think. Now I just need to make a better connection to my topic. Okay, I'm taking my head off now, so you can kind of see how it works, right? And honestly, you're gonna find this now that you're hearing this, but it doesn't matter what you're writing. There are thoughts that go into your head while you're crafting it. You're responding to an email thinking, is that the right tone? Is that what I wanted to say? Well, let me change that word around. Or maybe, you know, I should start with a little bit nicer, like, how was your weekend? Rather, and then then get into what I need from that person. So we have thoughts all the time that we say in our head when we're starting to write. We just don't realize it. And that's what expert writers and learners do. But our kids, specifically with iron disabilities or dyslexia, don't have those thoughts built in. And so we need to show them and make it visible so then they can put those thoughts in their head as they write.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

That was so neat to see, Barbara. It's so clear that you've done this for a few years and that you must be an excellent coach for the teachers and the schools that you work with. It's fun. Yeah. It wow, it made it made me think of a lot of things about how I can use it now, how I could have used it in the past. But it is so powerful to hear that. Your example with the email. Yes, I do that every single time. I send an email. And to think that we teach, like you were saying, we have a reading course, we have math courses, we teach these things in very explicit ways. But oftentimes, I'll just speak for myself. I never thought about modeling that part of the process. You know, I modeled, you read the prompt, you figure out what it is that you're doing, and then you write. And maybe I had a checklist or maybe a graphic organizer. Um, but I was really missing that piece of thinking through as I'm writing. That sort of internal monologue as a student, the labor of making sure, okay, I wrote something down, but did it connect to the prompt? Is it what's being asked? Is it interesting? All of those other things that fit on a checklist, but we don't always model that think through of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

That's true. And also you have to know the kids in front of you when you're modeling. When you get really good at it and you're used to doing it, especially as you get into upper elementary and middle school, they have been hearing negative reinforcement for a long time about their writing. They are fairly convinced that they are not writers. And so just modeling those negative thoughts and turning them into positive thoughts, or modeling positive reinforcement, like go me. No, I like that. My teacher's gonna like that. That doesn't come naturally because they've been told for years that they can't do it. So sort of switching that mindset also makes a really big difference.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I really like that, Barbara. Do you have any more concrete examples of how you've seen this used well?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

It's not just for writing. You can use it in math and reading, but it's a six framework that makes a difference. It is understanding the concept or the genre. It is understanding examples, non-examples. It goes up into high school. Uh, in the fall, I supported a new teacher teaching English, and his students were really struggling with writing, but moreover, he didn't know how to teach writing. He went into one of those fast-forward one-year online and became a teacher. But what he realized is that he didn't really have the strategies that like Romeo and Juliet, he was really reading it to them and giving them a prompt answer. But once I showed him how to model the answer that he wants from them, and it could be fine evidence that supports this, you know, upper middle high school information, his students really responded. They were then, after just a couple modeling and a couple of co-collaborative writing, were able to do it on their own. So they just didn't know how to do it, and he didn't really know how to teach it. So once we went through the six framework with the students, the rest of the year, the curriculum just moved so much faster.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

That's awesome. Are there specific grade levels, content areas, or student populations where this research is especially impactful? Impactful.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Most of the research has been done in elementary in the beginning. And then in the last like 10 years, they've done a lot of middle school, high school, and college studies that are being shown the growth. So we knew it, but we didn't have the data to support it. So it's impactful everywhere. But the clearinghouse works was specifically for K-12. Whenever I work with a school, especially in new school, you go into the belief that every teacher is doing the very best they can. But it's our responsibility to build their toolbox and to be able to give them the strategies to then turn around and give to their students. And once they know it, it's good. But if they are not given the opportunity for intensive professional learning, then they're not going to have the strategies they need. And then that's what's going to happen. You're going to go from elementary to middle to high school and go to college, and you're not going to be able to write a paper. So it really starts with those lower grade teachers to be able to give them the strategies and then keep moving it up the grade levels.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Imagine in middle school and high school, science, social studies, even math teachers could be using this because students are writing essays or at least reflections or expansion of their thinking in each of those courses. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

I worked with a science teacher who said, you know, it's December and there are labs. They don't know how to write a lab. And I don't understand. By this time they should have gotten it. I gave them the rubric. I'm like, okay, let's just start. And we did SRSD with the lab. We did examples, non-examples. He wrote one and showed his thinking. They did a collaborative rate, and it took about two months, but he did it all. And really by February, everybody was writing their labs. But they didn't know how to do it. They didn't know the thinking that went into it. They didn't know how to approach it. They were doing the very best they could.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

They just needed that invisible thinking to be visible.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

That makes a lot of sense. Um, anything you have to add about how teacher prep programs can incorporate this? How else can we integrate this into coursework and field experiences?

SPEAKER_01 23:57

I embed it into my own instruction with them. So when we are together in person, I will model an assignment or I will model the expectations I have for their reflections in the next chapter. And then I will tell them what I'm doing and then introduce SRSDs. So it's just embedding it and just saying, what did you just see me do? How do you think that could help your students? Here's some research you can read on SRSD. Here, here's a video. Just being able for them to see it and understand it and take it back to their schools, whether it's a practicum or back into their classrooms.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yeah, that's a great idea. For in-service teachers, what barriers might they face when trying to use this? And how could they overcome them?

SPEAKER_01 24:42

In general, teachers feel pressured by the curriculum and the pacing guides. And I think I don't have time for that. It's not directly in my curriculum and it's not directly in my space in those guides that say I have to have this done by this time and this done by this time. How am I gonna do it all? But in reality, if you spend some time doing SRSD and the modeling and explicit thinking, you will go faster through your curriculum in the end. So it might slow you down in the beginning, but you will catch up fast. Time is always the factor for everything that teachers do. We don't have time. In this way, if you put the time in, then you will find the benefit on the other end. And then the other thing is that most curriculums, and I've been looking at a lot of curriculums as I am supporting and coaching teachers, it will say do this, this, and this really explicitly, and then it says model, and then it moves on. So even the curriculums don't necessarily tell you what modeling means. And so most people just skip it because they're like, oh, I don't really know what they mean by that. Or I'm just going to show them how I did it, but not necessarily how you thought about it while you were doing it. And so when it says model, think about our conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

It's it is neat to think that curriculums technically already have this embedded then. We just need to be much more intentional, maybe, about how we actually model and taking the time to do it. Because it is hard. There's so much that we have to do as teachers. And I love that this is no cost, also. And there's a lot of resources online that teachers can find because I know as a teacher, I would go to a website such as What Works Clearing House or something like that to try to mull through the interventions to figure out what I could do because something wasn't working. And oftentimes I was met with things that had to be paid for or things that I couldn't find a lot of resources for, and it was more discouraging to try to figure it out. So I love this idea that we can use this often and all the time and embed it.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

And Dr. Harris has been very diligent about it not being a costly strategy to use. We did write a book and put all kinds of lesson plans in there, and that is an inexpensive way to get a whole lot of free lesson plans and free modeling scripts until you get really good at it, then you just develop your own. But there is no curriculum. People have wanted to make them over the years, and she is very adamant that everything should be free and accessible to teachers.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

I love that. Thank you, Dr. Harris. And how has your own thinking as a researcher or educator changed because of this work?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Coming out of the university and in those first 10 years of teaching, we were heavy on what the kids are producing. We had to have examples and portfolios, and I had to go to the IEP meeting with all of this stuff. And it was about them producing and getting information out. Over time, I realized that it was more about the process of what they were doing than what they were producing. So I would start to show data on their process and their progress rather than the end, what they produced. So it's going from independent to independent learners, like, look what they can do now. Then this is the process they went through to get there. The other thing is very and from day one, huge proponent on inclusion. I think every kid deserves to be in the school that they choose alongside the peers they want to be with. And it's our job to make that classroom accessible to all learners. So SRSD, an example of making it that way. There's a whole bunch of other research out there, like scaffolding and all the UDL and retrieval and spacing and all these strategies that work. SRSD is one of those that really works to keep kids in the classroom with their peers. So my viewpoint grew as I grew as an educator and really thinking about the process kids went through rather than the ultimate product.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

It's great. And I love that as a special educator because my students writing to an untrained eye or an administrator eye or a parent eye that might not know, you know, maybe they're still only writing three or four sentences from beginning to end of the year. But these other pieces, is it more on topic? What was their planning process, their editing process, their thought process? Is a really nice way to think about the progress they're making. So what questions remain unanswered? What are you all studying next with SRSD?

SPEAKER_01 29:00

So I actually just recently talked to a doctoral student. She is doing work on executive functioning and SRSD. So it makes sense that your executive functioning improves after you learn SRSD, but there just hasn't been peer-reviewed research to show it. So I'm really excited for her research to come out. There's also a lot of research going on multilingual students and some international studies. We have a lot of new modniks that we have built for all kinds of writing, reading, math, and all kinds of research, but how do you take that into a different language?

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Yeah, that's very cool. All right. So I guess last, where where can educators go to learn more about your work? I know you're doing a lot of different things. So tell us about it.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Yeah. So first of all, um my business is Freelender Education, freelendereducation at gmail.com. I love talking about teaching and learning. So email me if you want to talk about teaching and learning. Uh, it is my favorite subject, and building inclusive classrooms by empowering teachers is really what I do day in and day out. I do a lot of professional development, whether it's in person or virtual, um, and present at a lot of conferences. So I hope I get to meet you or see you or connect with you, um, maybe be able to work in your school or your classrooms. It's really a lot of fun being able to go and see uh what is happening in education across the country and across the world. I often say when I finish my professional development sessions that I may have learned as much or more than the people that received my professional development, but just by listening to their stories and the uh strategies that they're using and ways they're thinking about taking this into their classroom. So those professional conversations really help us all grow. And I take the ideas from place to place as I move around.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Absolutely. And I'll link to all of the things we talked about today in the show notes. I'll provide your email address and website so that any listener that's interested will have that information. That'd be great. Thank you so much. Yeah, well, thanks, Barbara, for joining us today. This has been a chock full of information. Happy summer, everybody. Thank you for listening to the research to practice gap. If this episode challenged your thinking or gave you something practical to try, share it with a fellow educator. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook at the Research to PracticeCap. Subscribe anywhere you listen to your podcast and if you have any questions or feedback or you'd like to make a podcast.