Hallway Conversations

Episode 032: Our Areas of Expertise - Leadership

This week we conclude our mini-series in which we reflect upon and share about our areas of expertise. This week, we ask Matt to share about one of his areas of expertise and passion: school leadership. Matt shares his story of how he became a school leader, and some of the key lessons he learned along the way. Abby shares that her kids’ school is currently looking for a school leader, and asks Matt for advice on what they might look for in an effective school leader. As always, lots of laughter, as we try to take our work very seriously even when we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Episode 031: Our Areas of Expertise - Literacy

This week we continue our mini-series in which we reflect upon and share about our areas of expertise. This week, Abby shares from her well of wisdom about one of her several areas of expertise: Literacy. We focus especially on content-area literacy, and Abby helps us expand our understanding of what literacy looks like in content areas beyond language arts courses--and how it actually shows up in every discipline in some ways. She also shares some stories and tips for helping students effectively communicate their ideas, and encounter the ideas of others--the real key for literacy instruction!

• In this episode, Abby shared the book This Is Disciplinary Literacy: Reading, Writing, Thinking, and Doing...Content Area by Content Area. More information about the book here: https://www.amazon.com/This-Disciplinary-Literacy-Reading-Thinking/dp/1506306691 

Episode 030: Our Areas of Expertise - Educational Technology

This week we are beginning a mini-series in which we reflect on and share about our areas of expertise. This week, Dave shares his thoughts about his area of expertise: Educational Technology. We talk about how technology is changing the teaching and learning environment. Dave tells his story of how he got started in Educational Technology, the things he’s learned along the way, and some tips for educators on how to keep learning about new technologies.

Episode 029: Remembering How to Teach

Welcome to Season 3 of Hallway Conversations! We are excited to keep playing with ideas with you all, and we look forward to continuing to grapple with what teaching Christianly looks like as we begin this new academic year and new season of topics and questions. As we record this episode, we are at the end of our first week of the new academic year. To kick off this season, Dave asks the question, “What have you learned or remembered about teaching after week one?” We play around with some of the things we have remembered about how to teach. We hope you’re encouraged by listening in on our stories and wonderings about the joys and challenges of teaching!

A Beginning-of-the-Year Blessing

It's a busy time of preparation for the new academic year for all of us who serve in education, and because of this, we are taking a week off from recording a regular episode. But...we wanted to leave you, our dear listeners, with this word of encouragement and blessing as you begin again. This poetic prayer comes from Ted Loder's book, Guerrillas of Grace.

Grace and peace to you all, friends.

Episode 028: First Day of School

This week, Matt asks the question, “How do we go about setting good rhythms for the first day of school?” We think through some of our favorite activities for the first day--ways to get students actively involved, setting the culture of the classroom, and engaging in real learning from day 1. Along the way, we discover that Abby loves scavenger hunts, that Matt has passion for knowing kids by name as a key part of building relationships, and that Dave knows all the countries of the world. (It’s a weird, free-flowing conversation, friends!) We hope that you’ll be encouraged and maybe even get a few ideas for how you’ll approach your first day of the new school year.

Episode 027: Teaching for Service

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! Nate is wondering about how schools emphasize “service” and how we expect students to develop the skills and attitudes to engage in acts of service. Specifically, he asks, “How can schools cultivate a heart of service in students?” We share some of our own experiences as students being expected and required to participate in service projects. We think through the challenges of creating a culture where service is the norm, but we also share some ideas for ways to make service become more a way of life for students--a shift from “have to” towards “get to.”

Episode 026: Book Talks, Part II

Our second “book talks” episode! Perhaps you’ll still have time to pick up a read for this summer? We each brought two books to recommend, and we are trying to refine our sharing protocol that we call “2 by 2 by 2”: 2 books, 2 things about each book, and 2 minutes to talk about the book. (We again totally failed at sticking to this protocol, so we will certainly need to keep refining it…) But where things get interesting is that though we brought diverse reads, we found connections between the books in what we think are interesting and meaningful ways. We hope you might find some valuable reading suggestions here! The books that we discussed are these:

• Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
  https://www.amazon.com/Dare-to-Lead-Brene-Brown-audiobook/dp/B07DJYFLX8/
• The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller
  https://www.amazon.com/Prodigal-God-Recovering-Heart-Christian/dp/0525950796/
• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer
  https://www.amazon.com/Ruthless-Elimination-Hurry-Emotionally-Spiritually/dp/0525653090/
• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
  https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748/
• Technopoly: The Surrender of Technology to Culture by Neil Postman
  https://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-Postman/dp/0679745408/

Episode 025: The Staff Room

This week, Dave asks the question, “What happens in the staff room? What *should* happen in the staff room?” We discuss some of the positive and negative aspects of what can happen in the staff room. We share stories from our own experiences for good or ill that happened in the teachers’ lounges or faculty workrooms we’ve been part of. We also wonder about the benefits of explicitly deciding on norms for what staff members should be able to expect for what happens in the staff room--including perhaps napping?

Episode 024: Changing Our Minds

This week, Dave asks the question, “What is something you’ve changed your mind about?” We share a variety of stories from our own teaching practices, including the idea of learning styles, the importance of bringing in diverse perspectives, and even the way we think about what “rigor” means in education. We talk through reasons why we should change our minds about things, and whether there are things we should *not* change our minds about.

We mentioned a few resources in this episode that we wanted to include here in the show notes:

• The report on the myth of learning styles Dave mentioned: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x 
• The video on the myth of learning styles Dave mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhgwIhB58PA
• The TED Talk on the Danger of a Single Story that Abby mentioned: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en