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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
About the Podcast
About the Podcast
The ETCN Teacher Talk Podcast: Strategies and Ideas for Teachers by Teachers Around the Net is a podcast that highlights what's working for teachers in their classrooms and for their students around the ETCN consortium of schools. The goal of the podcast is to amplify teacher voice and professional learning by a teacher-driven podcast. Each week a teacher will be interviewed from one of our six schools from around the net and shared out via our Around the Net Newsletter and then housed on this webpage. If you're interested in being interviewed, please feel free to click here and complete the survey to be added to our list of teachers to be interviewed.
Below is our table of contents, which outlines all of our episodes. Each episode is directly hyperlinked on this page and its key topics and themes are highlighted underneath the link. We hope you enjoy listening to each episode!
2022-2023 Podcast Episodes
2022-2023 Podcast Episodes
In this episode, we discuss how to create community and business partnerships. Joined by ETCN's Partnership Coordinator Jenn Prado, she outlines how teachers and schools can build business and community partnerships. Business and community partnerships are key to building career pathways for our students as well as creating new education and career opportunities for our schools and students.
Key Themes and Quotes
Business and community partnerships can create new career pathways.
Teachers, staff, and students are key to building new partnerships as they have direct ties to the community and businesses.
New programs and pathways can be created with partnerships that can benefit not only just one school, but also our entire consortium.
2021-2022 Podcast Episodes
2021-2022 Podcast Episodes
In this episode, Elaine Moore, an ESL teacher from Escondido Adult School joined the podcast to discuss digital flash and active learning strategies that she uses to amplify her student's abilities to practice and learn English. Throughout the episode, she discussed how she uses Quizlet digital flashcards where her students create their own flashcards related to the week's vocabulary words, which they can then practice individually as well as with one another to improve their English vocabulary. Additionally, Ms. Moore outlined how she utilizes active learning and the universal design for learning to create a variety of learning opportunities for her students. After listening to this episode, you will have a number of new strategies and one new technology tool integration to try in your classroom!
Key Themes and Quotes
Digital flashcards with student choice create more student agency.
Retrieval practice and the universal design for learning-based strategies help move our student's memories from their working memory to long-term memory with repetition and practice.
Create classrooms with student agency and voice - especially for adult learners.
In this episode, Kelly Hathaway, an ESL, ABE, ASE, GED, and HiSet teacher from Poway Adult School discussed using a novel to help students in HiSET and GED work on their reading comprehension, listening, and speaking skills. She outlined how she implements the novel study strategy in her class and how she facilitates it on Zoom for students in-person and online. Last, she spoke about how flexibility is a key to equity and access within Adult Education. By providing opportunities for 24/7 instruction, we can meet students where they are at and help them achieve their goals.
Key Themes and Quotes
Using a novel can help create relevancy for students.
Breaking down content in chunks, asking clarifying questions, and having students comprehend the text they are reading.
Novel studies for HiSet and GED students can be done online, in-person, on done simultaneously.
Flexibility for our students is key to equity and access in Adult Education.
In this episode, Jon Colon, a Career Education Specialist and CTE teacher was our guest and discussed strategies to help make Canvas and asynchronous tasks and assignments engaging for students. From a variety of different assignment types, structures of how the Canvas course was developed, to developing an online community of learners, we outlined strategies to help support in doing so on Canvas for classes that take place in-person, online, and asynchronously online. Throughout the conversation, we discussed step by step how to implement many of these strategies, which makes it a great episode to listen to for anyone wanting to build their skills using Canvas and their instructional toolkit.
Key Themes and Quotes
Developing relationships with students is essential to their engagement and success in a class.
Create routines to help students navigate Canvas such as an onboarding module once they begin the course.
Utilize a variety of different modalities students can demonstrate their learning. For example, have students provide video responses as well as written responses to show what they have learned.
Organization of your Canvas courses modules and the consistency of what types of assignments and tasks within the module are key to keeping the class uniform and organized.
In this episode, Pattie Campbell, a Vista Adult School ESL teacher provided a great discussion regarding a number of strategies she utilizes to engage and motivate Adult ESL students to actively participate in class. One strategy she outlines is to use a socratic seminar, which provides students the opportunity to research and build up their arguments before discussing them within a whole group. Additionally, it provides students an opportunity to summarize and reflect upon their thoughts at the end of the seminar. Another strategy she discusses is to provide students with relevant topics to discuss that are important to students. Including opportunities for students select topics they would like to talk about with each that relate to their lives has impacted her classroom greatly over the course of her time teaching Adult ESL students.
Key Themes and Quotes
Creating open forums helps formulate talking points for the week.
Student choice and open dialogue when selecting topics to discuss greatly impacts student engagement.
The socratic seminar is an impactful strategy where students must research and come up with their talking points before discussing them with others.
Teachers working together and asking questions helps build the skills needed to support students and amplify their teaching.
In this episode, our ETCN Student Disability Coordinator and Counselor Van Pham discusses with us a number of services and supports that she provides the students and teachers around our consortium. From providing students with differentiated instruction, one on one support, developing and implementing accommodations, and giving students resources for additional supports outside of academics, Ms. Pham is here to support our students achieve their career and education goals. Additionally, outside of the student supports she provides, she also collaborates with teachers on strategies to support our neurodiverse students in their classrooms. In this episode, she will elaborate on all of these topics, including a short discussion on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which is a great strategy to support a wide range of students in their learning.
Key Themes and Quotes
Understanding and providing students accommodations supports them in gaining further access to the content.
In her role, Ms. Pham helps support students with providing them resources outside of academics such as mental health, food security, and career and community support.
UDL provides a variety of different modalities for students to process information.
In this episode, our ETCN Data Coordinator, Patrick Ross joins to show to discuss how the data we collect from our students impacts our schools and programs we offer. Mr. Ross provides us with his background in Public Policy and Education before discussing his day to day work for the consortium as our Data Coordinator. Then, he outlines things we can do that can really make a difference for our schools, consortium, and most importantly our students. From taking attendance, documenting test scores, and student successes in obtaining jobs and promotions, it helps fund and builds the programs we offer at our Adult Schools within our consortium. Ultimately, by collecting this data and doing so consistently, that work will improve our current and future students' experience in the future
Key Themes and Quotes
Our collection of data provides us opportunities to receive funding.
Staying on top of our attendance in ASAP is one of the best things we can do!
The more data we have on our students from our programs, the more funding we may have the opportunity to obtain.
Pass forward to Mr. Ross when a student gets a raise or promotion.
With our data, we want to demonstrate to the state Adult Education is working and further promote further expansion and program offerings
In this episode of the ETCN Teacher Talk Podcast, Jacque Uriell and Ann Fisher, Department Chairs and ESL Teachers, joined the podcast for this episode. Both Ms. Fisher and Uriell discuss the foundations of building a community of learners. They focus on strategies to help cultivate these relationships with students. Additionally, they focus on community events that are embedded within the school culture and curriculum that help with building these relationships with students and the school community. They also outline how they are using a wide variety of tools to integrate into their classroom instruction that allows for gamification and student collaboration to take place. Last, they discuss the power of building strong relationships and supporting our learners along their journey as we finished up the episode.
Key Themes and Quotes
Giving them choices for classses: Zoom/In person AM blended class sessions.
Advising appointments, discussing goals-set goals, helping whole student-barriers, career support, counseling with students.
Word of mouth-students refer family members/friends/neighbors/coworkers to program.
Building relationships-our teacher-student relationships are strong.
Department wide cultural fair to build community.
The use of EdTech tools that allows for gamification and student collaboration.
Know your students! Build strong relationships so you can meet their needs, know their goals, and support them throughout their learning journey.
In this episode of the Teacher Talk Podcast, Alfredo Hernandez, a CTE teacher from Poway Adult School, joined the podcast. He discusses his journey in education from working in the non-profit and private sectors in the Philippines and outlines how Project-Based Learning (PBL) provides a great instructional foundation to teach adults as it allows them to solve a problem with multiple solutions. Additionally, Mr. Hernandez discusses how using PBLI gives our adult learners an opportunity to think about each step of the process. Last, he provides a number of tips and tricks that can help you meet your students where they are at, including "beginning with the end in mind." This is an episode you will not want to miss out on! If you are interested in being a guest on the podcast, please complete the following interest form. We hope to see you on the podcast in the future!
Key Themes and Quotes
"I sincerely believe that adult ed schools are there because people are always on a quest for relevance."
"I have relied a lot on Project Based Learning concepts and strategies for all my classes. PBL lends itself very well when it comes to teaching technology."
The words that guide me: “Begin from where the learners are” and Stephen Covey’s Habit # 2, “begin with the end in mind.”
In episode 3 of the ETCN Teacher Talk Podcast, we feature Anna Weirather, a Nursing and Healthcare Teacher, from Vista Adult School. She discusses how she sets up her Canvas courses to try to meet students where they are at as well as set up routines to help adjust students navigating her courses. Additionally, she discusses how important being a lifelong learner as an educator is a key to meeting students where they are at. Thank you Ms. Weirather for joining the podcast this week! If you are interested in being a guest on the podcast, please complete the following interest form. We hope to see you on in the future!
Key Themes and Quotes
You have to meet the student where they are. Their past experience in school, online or in person, has solidified their view of being a student. For this reason I always create a model that follows a consistent plan each week with due dates and expectations and I understand that it takes at least 2 weeks for a student to develop a schedule that works for them.
Encourage communication , the students may be enrolled in the same class but they have individual needs.
Everyday is a school day for the instructor, not just for the student. No matter your role ( instructor, support staff administrator) we have to continually strive to modify and improve what we offer to meet the needs of our current students and the technology/resources that are available to them.
In Episode 2 of the ETCN Teacher Talk Podcast, we have Denise McAndrews who is a Career Educational Specialist who works with students at Poway Adult School and across our ETCN consortium. In this episode, she discusses a number of strategies of how she supports students in completing their coursework as well as obtaining future employment or advancing their current employment. One strategy that was fantastic she discussed is called her Trifecta strategy, which you will learn quite a bit about by listening to this episode.
Overall, you will learn a lot about how Career Educational Specialists work hand in hand with teachers to help our students achieve their academic and career goals across our ETCN consortium of schools.
Key Themes and Quotes
"Most students have difficulty seeing themselves in their future, looking at cross over skills that will serve them well in their future. Helping them see their work history in a fresh way by breaking the tasks they did into more general terms and learning to rephrase those tasks into key words and phrases that are found in their future job tasks."
"Remember that we are all on a path and no two paths are the same. Students as teachers."
"I try to never assume where a person is in their path and always give people the freedom to start at the beginning."
In this episode, Poway Adult School ESL Teacher Christian Vela Che discussed a number of strategies that are working for her in her classroom as well as for her students. Her major topics and themes from the conversation included providing instruction in multiple modalities, repetition and chunking, and building community.
Key Themes and Quotes
"A useful strategy that has worked for my classes, is using multiple modalities to explain instructions and assignments, especially technology related instructions."
"Repetition is key, and you know I think building material that can be reused in future classes is good for us as teachers, we will save time, you know, in the future for future classes, if you create your own material explaining instructions and caption those videos and so it, you know he reaches."
"Building community in any environment is key to student engagement and belonging."
"I have found that by being honest and vocal about the issues facing us as teachers our students are more likely to open up when we acknowledge and validate their struggles and frustrations, which will build community. It also helps their persistence and in class. "
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