Real Talk Intervention
25 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 6 years ago - ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsTalking about how to increase student success since 2006 - talking on the internet since 2017
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Episodes
Blog Post: Why do you stay?
May 21, 2018 14:14I don’t make sweeping generalizations because they are always wrong, but if you are a teacher, people have wondered why you actually do that. The curiosity about WHY on EARTH you would choose this profession is so deep-seated that we even ask it of each other in job interviews. I mean think about that for a second. Can you imagine at NASA: “So Christina, why did you decide to become an astronaut?” Sitting before the medical review board: “What motivated you to become a neurosurgeon?”...
Episode 26: All My Messes Live in Texas: The Special Education Cap in Texas
April 18, 2018 16:53In 2016 the Houston Chronicle published a report claiming that the Texas Education Agency had imposed a "special education cap" on the percentage of a district's students that could be classified as special education. In 2018 the US Department of Education completed its investigation and found that Texas had indeed illegally set this cap at 8.5% and that this cap had caused qualified students to be denied services. On today's podcast we talk about how, yep, this is totally a thing, a t...
Episode 25: Intervention with gifted and talented students
March 20, 2018 17:10Your at-risk student is looking for your support. Your GT student is looking for a challenge. We've talked a lot about intervention for your struggling students, but what do you do when you have gifted and talented students who are struggling? The struggle may look different when you're working with advanced courses and high achieving students, but the struggle is real all the same. Today on the podcast we have veteran AP teacher, multiple Teacher of the Year winner Valerie Minor on to t...
Episode 24: Why do you STAY a teacher?
February 21, 2018 17:48All of us have been asked the question at one point or another. What made you decide to become a teacher? You've been asked it in job interviews, where the right answer seemed critical. You've been asked it by incredulous family members, where the right answer seemed impossible. You've been asked it by students, where the right answer seemed loaded. We've all got our response memorized. Whether that response reflects your deeply felt, inspirational path into the classroom, the safe-for...
Blog Post: What Happens After
February 16, 2018 15:59What Happens After... 2/14/2018 5:50 PM Another 10 hour day….I never knew I would have to wear so many hats at one job. Exhausted, I walk in the door of my home and fall onto the couch. Time to switch off, turn on Facebook, pictures of cats and babies. Only instead of a smiling baby, there’s a woman embracing a child. She has an ash cross on her forehead and her mouth, silenced by the photograph, screams only in my mind…not my child….not mine! My husband interrupts my moment of nationa...
Episode 23: The Curious Case of Gender in Educational Leadership
January 25, 2018 21:38In the midst of our wider, cultural conversation about women, and power, and leadership, and power, let us pause for a moment to consider the quite curious case of gender in education. Of course, education is an historically female driven profession - for much of the last century it was, in fact, one of the few jobs a woman could even realistically perform. That history continues to influence our profession today. 76% of classroom teachers remain women. As women slowly take on larger an...
Episode 22: Your Educational Technology WishList
January 03, 2018 19:49Well my friends and colleagues, welcome to 2018! Welcome to the second half of our year ... the LAST half of our year! Are you back at work? Are you sitting in professional development? Are you currently being trained on the latest piece of life changing #edtech that your district has bought for you? Don't you wish you could find a piece of educational technology that would ACTUALLY change your life? What are the things that you wish edtech would for you? On today's episode we talk about...
Episode 21: Know Thy Student: Differentiation Made Simple
December 01, 2017 18:07On today's episode, we have a special treat -we are joined by our guest, long-time teacher, first time author Brendon Lowe, who speaks with us about his new book, Know Thy Students: Differentiation Made Simple available now on Amazon right here. Differentiation made simple? We're in. Brendon comes to the tricky topic of differentiation as a secondary educator, who can speak to the particular difficulty of differentiating in the overcrowded, content-driven high school classroom. His system...
Episode 20: YOU are enough. Empowering the you in EdUcation
October 17, 2017 15:48Hey teachers. We've got a subversive message today. YOU are enough for your students. Drop the professional development. Drop the instructional strategies. Drop the trainings. It's not that. It's not pedagogy. It's not curriculum. It's not co-teaching. It's not graphic organizers. It is YOU. On today's episode we talk about the empowering, amazing, humbling power that is being a teacher. Take fifteen minutes today to listen to our podcast to remind you that no matter what you do i...
Episode 019: A Data Driven Classroom - Personalized to YOU
September 26, 2017 13:58In today's episode we discuss what a data driven classroom can ACTUALLY do for you. What does state wide, school wide, or even classroom wide data actually mean to you? Can you really use data trends to inform your teaching? Does that even make sense? Listen to our new episode here or where you listen to your podcasts. As always if you like our podcast please subscribe or rate and review us on iTunes or Stitcher.
Episode 018: Start the school year off right with our podcast!
August 22, 2017 14:21Real Talk Intervention is back! We took a summer hiatus to refresh our hearts and souls and prepare to return to school, intervention, and podcasting. But it's August now, school is back in swing, and on today's episode we discuss how to get a great start to the new year. In our conversation we move beyond the First Day of School, policies and procedures, and dig into what you can start implementing right NOW at the beginning of the year that will seriously improve your classroom for the ...
Episode 17: The controversial science standards - the state of evolution in Texas
June 28, 2017 13:40In today's episode, we take on the Texas science standards with our friend John Long, a former AP/IB/PAP biology teacher. We take on how we differentiate instruction both for at-risk students and for students who really need to be gearing up to take AP classes in a few years. And, of course, we address the ongoing controversy over those re-written evolution standards in Texas. How do those standards change our teaching? Does the wording of the standards provide an opening for creationism ...
Episode 16: Who Writes the TEKS?
June 19, 2017 14:39In today's episode we speak with two women who served on the Texas Education Agency's standards writing committee for the brand new English Language Arts TEKS. They shed light on who it is, exactly, that writes these standards we all follow, how involved the state assessment department is with the standards, and they give their opinions on how their work came out in the end. Referenced links in this episode include: Dr. Revelle's opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News where she criticiz...
(Pod)Casting a Net for Student Engagement
June 12, 2017 23:58Try incorporating student-created podcasts into your classroom to inspire and engage your students. Learn how with our introductory course.
Podcast Episode 15: Where do the standards come from?
June 06, 2017 19:53In today's episode, we discuss the philosophy behind the standards. How can one set of standards for every content possibly satisfy all the different educational outcomes a student might want to achieve? This month we're looking at the philosophy behind the standards, wondering how the standards align to college and career readiness standards and college entrance exams such as the SAT, and talking to experts in the field of English and science standard writing. Listen to our episode here, ...
Texas Holds Students With Disabilities to a Higher Standard on State Exams
June 04, 2017 03:18Let’s just call it like it is. 2016-2017 was not a great year for student assessment in Texas. Between the scandal of mis-graded STAAR tests, graders hired for peanuts on Craigslist, and large numbers of parents and students conscientiously objecting to even taking part in our state’s annual testing rituals, many Texans have been left wondering where, exactly, IS the accountability in our state accountability system. But if there is one person who is keenly aware of where the accountabi...
Special Episode 03: How do you solve a problem like state testing?
May 18, 2017 14:18Accountability measures force us to take students not just from where they were to somewhere better but all the way We have been very vocal here at Real Talk Intervention about our support of school accountability measures, standardized testing in general, and the high school STAAR EOC tests specifically. Last month we took action and spoke before the Texas legislature in support of school accountability, specifically against HB 1333 The Teaching Over Testing Act. When we returned to our ...
Episode 14: Become a happier teacher today!
May 09, 2017 14:57May is #happyteacher month at Real Talk Intervention! Standardized testing is behind you, and before you lies the most rewarding time to be an educator - June, July, and part of August. It's time to recharge those batteries by thinking about what you really LOVE about your profession. What makes you a #happy teacher? Stefanie and I share some tricks and tips from our eleven years of working with at-risk students that we've found make our lives, and our students' lives, just so much happier...
Episode 13: Wait ... why are we doing this again?
April 29, 2017 15:03April is a tough month. The weather is getting beautiful, teachers and students are getting burnt out, and end of the year assessments are looming. We spent the month of April casting a critical eye on education - from teachers to the government - and now we're casting that eye on ourselves. It's time for some Real Talk - why do WE do the things we do in the classroom? We ask each other about some of the questionable practices or mistakes we've seen each other make over the years. We are ...
Special Episode 02: Real Talk at the Texas Capitol
April 27, 2017 19:15Today's special episode was recorded live and on location inside a Senate meeting room as we prepared to give testimony against Texas House Bill 1333, colloquially known as The Teaching Over Testing Act. This bill, which aims to reduce the number of standardized tests given by Texas to the federal minimum while also drastically reducing the emphasis these tests have on school accountability, has been well received by the state anti-testing movement. We, however, stand with the many civil ...
Episode 12: Why are we doing this? High school graduation edition
April 18, 2017 20:42The human face of the school accountability movement is one no one wants to see. The human face is 18 years old. He has attended school for 90% of his Mondays through Fridays. She has ridden the bus for twelve years. Attended all the classes. And done it all with the entirely reasonable expectation that at the end of this journey lies the cap, the gown, and the high school diploma. And even the hardest of hard liners on the school accountability movement does not want to tell that student...
Episode 11: What you're wishing you could say in the teacher's lounge
April 10, 2017 19:36Let's be real - there can be a LOT of complaining in education. You're sitting in the teacher's lounge, just trying to eat your noodle cup and chat about last night's episode of The Bachelor, when in comes THAT teacher. That guy who's always mad; the lady who yells at her students every day at 2:45 like clock work. And you feel for them. You do. You used to be that teacher. Heck, some days you ARE that teacher. You listen to them sympathetically - because we've all been there- , but you r...
Special Episode 01: Are you enjoying test review season?
April 06, 2017 15:56Its April, and that means just one thing - less time spent outdoors in the beautiful spring weather, and more time spent inside preparing detailed test reviews before your STAAR exam in May, your class's final exam, or, if you're SUPER lucky - BOTH! Test reviews are that special kind of terrible - not only are they frequently no fun for teachers or students, but they also usually feel extremely ineffective. The kids who need to do them usually don't, and often no matter how much effort we ...
Are your test reviews not working? Here's how I get THAT kid in your classroom to pass his tests!
April 06, 2017 15:42“Test prep” is a bit of a dirty word in public education. Time spent in a classroom doing explicit test preparation work is implied to be time wasted – time spent, not on educational goals, but on hazy “good test-taker” skills. Skills like eliminating the distractor answer choices, using the answers from the previous questions to inform your guesses, getting good sleep the night before – to be honest I’m not sure exactly what behaviors our “good” test takers engage in. I only know that we f...
What Your ESL Certification Didn't Teach You (It's A Lot)
April 03, 2017 18:42 - 1.01 MB application/pdfI May Be Certified, But Do I Feel Qualified? If you’re like us, you took your ESL certification test for one inspiring reason - your district mandated it. And despite the rigorous preparation provided by taking that test, we still felt unprepared for the actual reality of beginner and intermediate English learners in our classrooms. This year close to a million Texas students are classified as English Language Learners or ELLs, according to PEIMS data released by TEA. Teaching English La...