Digical Education

Prayer, Faith, and the Profession: Conversation with Marilyn Rhames

I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Marilyn Rhames of "Teachers who Pray" who I met in June 2017 at an Urban Education Summit. She was recently interviewed by Frederick Hess for Education Next, and I wanted to ask her some follow-up questions about her work, the role of faith and pray in our profession, and what gets her excited for schools and our profession.
Article: https://www.educationnext.org/straight-conversation-teachers-pray-founder-marilyn-rhames/ 
Marilyn Rhames is the founder and CEO of Teachers Who Pray. Marilyn also taught in Chicago Public Schools for 15 years and is a blogger for the Education Post (www.educationpost.org/network/marilyn-rhames/). And she is in the process of completing her book The Master Teacher: 12 Spiritual Lessons That Can Transform Schools and Revolutionize Public Education.
 

Policy & Lessons from Charter Schools: Conversation with Cara Stillings Candal

I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Cara Stillings Candal who is a Senior Fellow at Pioneer Institute and the author of The Fight for the Best Public Charter Schools in the Nation. In this conversation, we discuss the findings of her research, the lessons learned from Massachusetts about the role of autonomy and accountability in state policy, and how to foster innovative school solutions as a desire to impact the educational quality for all students.
Here is a great article that helps summarize the findings of the book: https://www.educationnext.org/fight-for-the-best-charter-schools-in-the-country-what-massachusetts-got-right-wrong/

Technology, Coherence, Metrics & Collaboration: Ben Bajarin

This conversation is with Ben Bajarin who is a tech analyst for Creative Strategies in Silicon Valley, a parent of middle and high school students, spouse of a special education teacher, and a high school tennis coach.
In this conversation, I started with a question from a prior podcast visitor (Tom Arnett), will tech (AI) replace teachers? And then we roll into a slew of other topics in regard to tech and schools. Ben's points on data, integration, and collaboration really struck me as these are places where we can make significant strides in thinking more creatively about teaching and learning.
For more about Ben and Creative Strategies: https://creativestrategies.com/team/ben-bajarin/
 

Lessons in Innovation: Ryan Hoch

Ryan Hoch is co-founder of Overgrad (www.overgrad.com).
I was interested to learn about his story and why he went from teaching in St. Louis to a corporate job, and then eventually founding Overgrad. Likewise, I was quite interested in his concept that Overgrad as a social enterprise is more than just a tool for schools, but more significantly "a platform that unites a student's support network" in order to promote student agency.

Activate Teacher Motivation and Cultivate Innovation: Thomas Arnett

In his new report Thomas Arnett states, "the success of any school improvement hinges on teachers;" however later in the report he also states, "one key reason most school-improvement initiatives struggle to gain traction is that they are coercive."
This podcast conversation delves deeper into the research Tom did with Bob Moesta and Michael Horn entitled "The Teacher's Quest for Progress: How school leaders can motivate instructional innovation" https://www.christenseninstitute.org/publications/teachers-jobs-to-be-done/
 

Innovation or Irrelevance: Bill Latham

This is podcast #2 with Bill Latham as in a recent conversation he challenged my own thinking about the choice between Innovation and Irrelevance in my work, our profession, and our school system. In this conversation Bill will also share what he is discovering about high quality leadership, the impact of Collective Teacher Efficacy, and professional engagement and well-being of educators.
Bill is CEO of MeTeor Education (www.meteoreducation.com)

Catalytic Leadership and Collective Teacher Efficacy: Conversation with Jon Eckert

This is the third conversation I've had since the beginning of the podcast with Jon Eckert. In this podcast I ask Jon about what John Hattie calls "Collective Teacher Efficacy" and how it is the factor that has the greatest impact on student learning. Likewise, I ask Jon about what he calls "Catalytic" leadership in his book Leading Together.
Jon's Bio: As a Professor of Education at Wheaton College, Jon’s research includes teaching effectiveness, teacher preparation, teacher evaluation, and teacher compensation. In addition to his work at Wheaton he is a Research Consultant for the Center for Teaching Quality and he has also consulted with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching and the U.S. Department of Education. You can find his recent research on Collective Leadership in his new book, “Leading Together: Teachers and Administrators Improving Student Outcomes.”

Millennials & Ed Leadership: Conversation with Daniel Pampuch

Daniel Pampuch is CEO of Christian Schools Australia where he oversees 140 schools and provides advocacy for another 40 - representing 60,000 students. He completed his Ph.D. dissertation on "Next Generation Leadership", and this blog (https://blog.acsi.org/making-way-millennials-leadership) is what led to this podcast conversation.
Millennials have been much maligned and parodied for a perceived lack of work ethic and ambition for leadership, but what Daniel has found in his research on the generations and work with younger leaders is hopefully a renewed interest in thinking differently about schools, the profession, and leadership.

Beautiful Work and the Beautiful Worker: Conversation with Justin Cook

Justin Cook is Director of Learning for the Ontario Aliance of Christian Schools (http://www.oacs.org/author/justinc/).
A few months ago he and I had a conversation where he shared Ron Berger's article "Beautiful Work" (http://www.bie.org/object/document/beautiful_work), and in his own writing Justin states that "our work is beautiful" because it reveals coherence, interconnectedness, craftsmanship, and authenticity.
But the primary conversation that we have pertain to his developing ideas on what he calls the Beautiful Worker.
 

Find Your Calling: Conversation with Bryan Dik

I was recently introduced to Bryan Dik who is Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University, Founder and Chief Science Officer for Jobzology (www.jobzology.com), and author of the book "Make Your Job a Calling."
As an educator and counselor I'm quite interested in this idea of "calling" and finding meaning or purpose in work. Likewise, I've written a number of blogs entitled "Engagement Matters" where I review much of the research on organizations that are more successful than others in developing engagement and meaningfulness (https://cace.org/building-an-engaged-school-educators-crave-it/). I am quite interested in re-thinking schools for both students and adults as we attempt to find meaning in the work we do.
I think you'll be interested in Bryan's definition of "calling" as he points to three commonalities of a calling (1) transcendent summons, (2) purpseful work, and (3) pro-social orientation, and I hope you enjoy the conversation.