105 Technology Applications & Feedback Structure
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A listener request led us to a paper on eye-tracking technology for emerging multilingual learners. ...
104 Dopamine Motivation & Emotion to Memory
12 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a neuroscience-focused episode, we start with a new model of how having agency influences how muc...
103 Peer Tutoring & Collaborative Creativity
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Student collaboration is a powerful tool for learning in many contexts, and we read a meta-analysis ...
102 Season 8 Finale
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our season finale again reviews the most noteworthy papers from the past year. We reflect on hosting...
101 Ed Tech & Opportunity Makers
12 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Education research, from technology to instruction to design, too often uses an instrumentalist appr...
100 Data Talks with Imogen Herrick
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this extra length episode, we talk with Dr. Imogen Herrick about her work developing Community Sc...
099 Synthesis of PD & Classroom Technology
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
All professional learning occurs when teachers try things in their classroom and iterate to make it ...
098 Racial Literacies & Multilingual Content
12 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dual language programs provide a local opportunity for students to get closer to an immersive experi...
097 Team Teaching & Epistemic Empathy
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Team teaching is increasing in popularity among schools to help educators work together in their dai...
096 PLC Outcomes & Early Numeracy
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Professional Learning Communities, or PLCs, provide a collegial network for educators to reflect on ...
095 Error Climate & Remembered Success
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Edutopia did another review of the best research of 2024, and we are here to talk about it. First, d...
094 Playback Memory & UDL Differentiation
11 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Teachers may give lectures or create videos to provide information to students, and the speed of inf...
093 The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Episode
11 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This month is our official “AI episode.” We are joined by Ben Riley, who wrote a guide for consi...
092 Teaching Statistics & Fostering Creativity
12 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Effective statistics instruction - like many other disciplines - should empower students to ask ques...
091 Political Discourse & Media Literacy
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We start Season 8 in a tempestuous election cycle in the United States. We are joined by guest host ...
090 Season 7 Finale
12 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We review the most noteworthy papers of the past year, developments in our practice, and the top bee...
089 Curriculum Sensemaking & Behavior Grading
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Many curriculum decisions are made at the district-level, but each classroom teacher must figure out...
088 Disagreement Listening & Aphantasia
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It can feel like people in disagreement just aren’t listening to each other. We read a study showi...
087 Memory Spacing & Homework Parents
13 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Practice is more effective when we space it out, rather than doing lots of repetitions all at once. ...
086 PBL Effects & Mindfulness Introspection
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Project-Based Learning is a thoroughly researched method of instruction with many benefits. We read ...
085 Academic Anxiety & Principal Leadership
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
More schools are looking to address the socio-emotional needs of students, and a key area for that w...
084 Theater Empathy & Cognitive Load
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Field trips to the theater can be memorable opportunities for students to engage in community-based ...
083 Underachievement & Artificial Intelligence
12 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Student underachievement occurs when students’ day-to-day class performance is lower than their te...
082 Stimulus Complexity & Student Caregiving
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This month is a collaborative episode with the hosts of the School Spirits podcast. We read a study ...
081 Instructional Agency & Bilingual Math
12 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Researchers measured the impact of student-directed project weeks on their sense of motivation over ...
080 Growth Mindset & Music Distractions
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This month we talk with Dr. Elisabeth Tipton about the research support for growth mindset intervent...
079 Meta-Analyses: Co-Teaching & Growth Mindset
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A meta-analysis of co-teaching showed that it benefits students to have more than one adult in the c...
078 Season 6 In Review
13 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This month we reflect on our year of reading scholarship and growing as humans. First we’ll return...
077 PBIS Trauma & Reciprocal Reading
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a framework being adopted by many schools, ...
076 Standards - Based Instruction & Belonging Interventions
12 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many schools have adopted new instructional standards in recent years, but some schools have struggl...
075 Evaluation Reform & Retrieval Memory
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Feedback is an essential component of professional growth, and teacher evaluation has changed in mos...
074 UDL In MTSS & Feedback Processing
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Universal Design for Learning represents a framework that can impact every part of the school. We re...
073 Creative Constraints & Good Errors
12 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This month we are joined by two authors of a piece on constraints that fuel creativity. They share h...
072 Contextual PD & Teacher Mentorship
12 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This month we look at professional development. A fresh framework for PD lays out how we need to con...
071 Extended Research With Youki Terada
13 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This month we are joined again by guest Youki Terada to discuss his 2022 education research roundup....
070 Critical Ignoring & Reverse Engineering
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Digital literacy skills are important for teachers to consider across many teaching contexts. We rea...
069 Self-Regulation & Pedagogy Of Enactment
12 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This month we read a robust, experimental study on teaching self-regulation and the increasing benef...
068 Learning Styles & Learning To Learn
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The theories about teaching students according to learning styles have been debunked in research, bu...
067 Teacher Shortage & Homework Inequality
12 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Staffing challenges in districts across the United States are fueling a narrative of a nationwide te...
066 Season 5 Year in Review
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This month we reflect on our year of reading scholarship and growing as humans. First we’ll return...
065 COVID Consequences & Visual Display
12 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the summer of 2022 wanes, we will spend some time looking at the bigger picture of how education ...
064 Evaluative Mindsets & Sociopolitical Consciousness
12 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why are people so influenced by false information, even when they know better? We are joined by rese...
063 Writing Achievement & Cultural Socialization
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When professional development programs conflict with overemphasis on test scores, teachers face a pr...
062 Cognitive Effort & Professional Learning
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The routines, rewards, and incentives we use in the classroom can help students build productive hab...
061 Errorful Generation & Local Poems
12 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Retrieval practice has a ton of research support, but we’re still figuring out the when and how of...
060 Digital Equity & (L)ove Praxis
12 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Technology has taken a prominent position in many schools as we have taught these past few years, ye...
059 Studying UDL And Science Discourse
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Universal Design for Learning is an exciting framework to improve accessibility of instruction. Howe...
058 Habits Of Mind & Scaffolded Argumentation
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
All learning is brain-based, which means taking care of our brain is part of a good education. We re...
057 Feedback Delivery And Cognitive Load
12 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Students need feedback on their work in order to improve, but what is the impact of different approa...
056 Indigenous Erasure & Teacher Responsiveness
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
State standards set the expectations for what teachers teach in the classroom, but we should continu...
055 Mental Health & Multilingual Literacy
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Starting another school year with pandemic concerns rising again, it’s important to address studen...
054 Season 4 Year In Review
12 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This month we reflect on our year of reading scholarship and growing as humans. First we’ll return...
053 Making Spaces & Autonomy Support
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This month we are talking about race, and read a series of papers looking at the experience of Black...
052 Socio - Emotional Screening & Teacher Expressions
12 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Student social, emotional, and behavior development will be a critical consideration for teachers re...
051 Retrieval Practice & Metacognition Translation
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This month we are thinking… about thinking. We read a review of the applied research on retrieval ...
050 Standardized Tests & Start Times
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Standardized testing is happening again this year. Researchers are talking about how to use the data...
049 Multimedia Models & Administrative Dysfunction
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Images and animations offer tools to visualize our content, but must strike a balance between ease-o...
048 Gamification & Research Impact
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gamification offers a fresh take on teaching design that offers increased engagement and improved le...
047 Epistemic Disobedience & Neuroscience Motivation
07 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
047 Epistemic Disobedience & Neuroscience Motivation by Laurence Woodruff & Michael Ralph
046 Nature Of Science & Malleable Self - Concept
13 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Science communication has been turned upside down by the explosion of popularity of social media pla...
045 Differentiated Numeracy & Goal Consensus
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The importance of mathematical reasoning is visible in conversations from pandemics to politics. Sar...
044 Student Teaching And Scripted Curricula
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The future of teaching depends on training future educators, but pairing student teachers with effec...
043 Video Technique & Need - Supportive Teaching
13 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With many schools beginning the fall in remote or hybrid settings, we’re still thinking about digi...
042 Season 3 Finale
12 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This month we’ll have our year in review! We’re looking back at the papers that impacted our thi...
041 We Discuss How Racism Impacts Students
12 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This month we’re talking about racism in US education. Our first paper presents the experience of...
040 Kelly Plans For A Fall Reopening
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As our minds turn to plans for the fall, many districts are making “what if” plans for whether a...
039 We Navigate Helping Students Grow, Remotely
12 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Our second month of emergency remote teaching leaves us searching for ways to help our students grow...
038 We All Adjust To Remote Learning
12 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Lali DeRosier joins us as a guest host for this month’s look at online teaching. The global pandem...
037 Laurence Thinks About Spatial Reasoning
12 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We read a longitudinal study examining US gifted systems failing to identify students with spatial a...
036 Michael Examines Weight Bias
14 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Grading always occurs in a social context. We’ll examine a study that measured how weight bias man...
035 Laurence Balances Data And Judgement
12 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The push for data-driven instruction can sometimes feel at odds with empowering educators to exercis...
034 Michael Considers Third Culture
12 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In our increasingly globalized world, ever more students are growing up immersed in multiple culture...
033 Jennifer Shares Universal Design
12 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Every student deserves an equitable opportunity to learn in our classroom. Jennifer Pusateri joins u...
032 Laurence Improves His Feedback
12 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Research on growth mindset took the education world by storm in the 2000’s, prompting excitement a...
031 Nahuel & Auriana Investigate K - 12 Physics
13 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Even young students can begin to understand abstract topics like quantum mechanics, if given the cha...
030 Season Two Finale
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Summer is a time for reflection and renewal of purpose. We pause from our usual analysis of research...
029 Skills And Content
12 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We must balance teaching content knowledge and professional skills. Will Dunn joins as a guest host ...
028 Retrieval And Summer
12 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Retrieval of information is a demanding cognitive process, and teachers must find instructional appr...
027 Reading And Metacognition
12 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Open Access Educational Resources (OERs) are an emerging alternative to traditional textbooks, but h...
26 Perspectives And Networks
12 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Problems in education are often a complex mix of social, cognitive, and historical processes. Dr. Be...
025 Factories And Cohesion
12 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The notion that “schools are designed like factories” is a pernicious myth in education. Jenn Bi...
024 Innovation And Highlights
12 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Good teaching requires creativity, but how do we create a supportive environment for innovative teac...
023 Software And Spaces
12 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Algorithms that effectively guide instruction is the dream of some people… but the reality of what...
022 Socialization And Community
12 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Building culture has a tremendous impact on teacher satisfaction, student engagement, and the daily ...
021 Relationships And Rigor
12 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Teachers must build relationships with their students, despite the great breadth in their cultural b...
020 Devices And Behaviors
13 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Technology seems to be everywhere, and it is tempting to imagine children grow up with expertise thr...
019 Evidence And Action
12 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
All students should have access to challenging coursework that lets them grow in their areas of inte...
0185 Summer Season One Finale
27 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Enjoy a bonus episode that wraps our first season of production. Check in with many of our guests an...
018 Listen For What's Behind The Words
12 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Responsive teaching is is an exciting way to highlight student voice, but it comes with its own shar...
017 The Language Of Our Forebears
12 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Multilingual learners are sitting in most classrooms today. How do we support ELL students’ learni...
016 A For Effort
12 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Standards-based grades are an exciting option for making grades more meaningful. We look at some rec...
015 Learn Free, Or Try
12 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Students should drive their own learning. Drew Ising, another biology teacher from Baldwin High Scho...
014 First, We Require Audacity
12 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Social controversy swirls in the public space. Societal tensions carry into the classroom and affect...
013 Thereafter, Our Tools Shape Us
12 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Online education makes learning opportunities available for millions of people who otherwise would h...
012 Coherence And Dissonance
12 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Heidi Hallman, associate professor of English education at the University of Kansas and author o...
011 For Whom Does The Bell Toll
11 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Differentiation can be a contentious topic. Most educators want to reach all of their students, but ...
010 An Eye On The Canary
11 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Shannon Ralph, the 2015 Kansas Teacher of the Year, joins our PLC this month. Data analysis is getti...
009 Planning Is Essential, Plans Are Useless
10 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Lesson planning and sequencing seem to be ever present problems for teachers and coordinators. Which...
008 Postsecondary, Posthaste
11 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Camden Hanzlick-Burton joins us from Washington to discuss the effects of high school students earni...
007 Measure Twice, Think Three Times
12 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Standardized testing is a major concern for teachers, administrators and parents. The problem is sta...