On this episode, we explore literacy instruction, the science of reading, early childhood literacy, and the differences between skills-focused and knowledge-focused classrooms. Our two guests are passionate leaders in the field: Dr. Lynne Kulich, Director of Early Learning at NWEA, and Natalie Wexler, an education writer and author.

Let’s take a trip to where it all begins, at least academically, with early literacy and numeracy. On this episode, early learning experts Cindy Jiban and Tammy Baumann join us to share classroom strategies to help young learners navigate this important season of life. The discussion touches on the science of reading, why early numeracy sometimes takes a backseat to early literacy, and how teachers early in their career can hit the ground running in these areas.

For episode 4, we head to Las Vegas and the nation’s fifth largest school district. NWEA and Clark County School District are longtime partners who recently engaged on developing a robust and holistic professional learning program that could have major implications for school districts throughout the country. Two members of the NWEA professional learning team, Angela Morton and Lindsay Prendergast, join us to give their stories of how the program took shape and their perspective on how it’s helping educators and kids in Las Vegas.

“For many, learning mathematics leads to perceiving the subject as a collection of procedures that are disconnected from any big picture. It’s much like filling a box with puzzle pieces, yet never building the puzzle.”

For this episode, we are joined by Dr. Ted Coe and Anita Brown of NWEA to discuss how educators move beyond doing math to thinking about mathematical concepts, with a focus on formative conversation starters.

Two years on from the start of the pandemic and we’re starting to see a glimmer of hope and pieces of normalcy return to our schools and classrooms. But as we move forward, we cannot ignore the lingering impact of pandemic disruptions.

Equity is not a buzzword. It’s not a synonym for diversity. So, what is it? Fenesha Hubbard and Joyce Smith of NWEA join the pod to show what schools and classrooms would look like if we truly valued equity in the context of instruction.

For our final episode on student agency, we thought it was time to help our students set some better goals. So, we brought in Chase Nordengren, senior research scientist at NWEA and author of the forthcoming book, Step Into Student Goal Setting (Corwin, Jan 2022).