New Teacher Talk

New Teacher Talk takes on a topic most new teachers know matters but few feel ready to handle in the moment: digital citizenship. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcome Bianca Tolentino, a high school English teacher, who makes the case that digital citizenship is less a stack of lesson plans and more a set of conversations you have when real situations surface in your classroom culture.

Building on ISTE Standard 1.2 and Carolyn Sikora's framing, Bianca organizes the work around three ideas: the student's digital self, the student as a digital agent, and the student's digital interactions. She names a challenge many new teachers recognize, that moment when something happens online and you simply do not have the words ready. Her answer is to prepare that language in advance and to choose strategically which issues warrant a whole-class conversation and which are better handled one on one. From there she walks through what these conversations can look like at each level, always grounded in the reality that online behavior has real-world consequences.

What you will take away:

• A responsive framework for digital-citizenship conversations built on the student's digital self, agency, and interactions
• Elementary: focus on closed spaces like group chats, Canvas, and Padlet, where a hurtful post is still intentional communication
• Middle school: digital footprints, public audiences, privacy settings, and how online posts shape offline relationships
• High school: privacy, data breaches, online speech, and public identity, using tools like LinkedIn and Pew Research data
• Why teacher judgment matters, since not every incident should become a public teaching moment

Bianca's throughline is a good reminder: your classroom is part of your students' real world, and your job is less about policing and more about giving students the vocabulary to recognize these issues and reason through them on their own.

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New Teacher Talk tackles something every teacher pours hours into and often watches go to waste: feedback. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcome Dr. Aletha Williams, a program manager and educator development coach, to help you design feedback students will actually pick up and use, instead of the kind that gets skipped on the way to the grade.

Aletha names the problem plainly. When students flip straight to the grade and file the assignment away, the comments you wrote never change their thinking, and feedback that does not change thinking or work is not really feedback, it is commentary. She points to three familiar failure modes, feedback that is too vague, too late, or too overwhelming, and offers a simple diagnostic: if a student cannot answer what do I do next after reading your comments, the feedback is not usable yet. From there she lays out five concrete strategies, each with examples across elementary, middle, and high school.

The five strategies:

• Focus on one move at a time instead of correcting everything at once
• End every piece of feedback with a next-step sentence frame, Next, you will
• Make feedback conversational, since 20 to 30 seconds of targeted talk can beat a written paragraph
• Use glow and grow with precision, tying the glow to the learning target and the grow to one clear step
• Build a revision culture, not a completion culture, so feedback has somewhere to go

She closes with a ready-to-use toolkit: a feedback sentence bank, voice notes, single-target rubrics, and revision checklists drawn straight from your feedback. Her advice for getting started is refreshingly doable. Pick one strategy, one assignment, one clear step.

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New Teacher Talk turns a professional development session into something you can put to work right away. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcome Helene Alalouf, an instructional math and literacy coach, who shares two Mathematical Language Routines designed to deepen student thinking, strengthen mathematical communication, and turn your classroom into a place where students make sense of math together.

Helene opens with two questions worth sitting with. Are your word problems reaching students at every proficiency level? And are students learning from one another, not just from you? From there she walks through two routines you can start using this week. The Information Gap gives students an incomplete problem and asks them to identify what is missing, then justify why they need each piece before you hand it over, which forces their reasoning into the open. Stronger and Clearer Each Time, her personal favorite, has students draft independently, then trade structured feedback with a series of partners, no copying allowed, before revising their work and reflecting on what made it better. The payoff is not just theoretical: Helene reports that four months of the second routine with grades 3 through 5 lifted state math and English scores from 48 to 61 percent, and she is now using both routines in AP history and science, too.

What you will take away:

• Two routines you can implement immediately at any grade level and in any math content area
• How the Information Gap turns missing information into an engine for student reasoning
• How Stronger and Clearer Each Time builds revision and communication through structured partner talk
• Why norms, warm-ups, and explicit modeling set these routines up to succeed
• Evidence that consistent language routines transfer across subjects and raise performance

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New Teacher Talk takes on a part of the job that makes many early-career teachers anxious: the post-observation conference. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcome Dr. Amy Howerton, an English teacher and department chair at Oswego High School, and Dr. Ed Howerton, associate professor and director of graduate education at Aurora University, who together own Two Paths Educational Consulting. With decades of experience as evaluators between them, they reframe the post-observation meeting as an engine of professional growth rather than a source of dread.

Ed explains why this conversation matters so much: it is where you establish yourself as a serious professional committed to growth. Observers collect evidence during a visit and map it to Domains 2 and 3 of the Danielson Framework, and the strongest conferences stay grounded in that specific evidence rather than general impressions. A recurring theme is that you deserve to know the rubric as well as your evaluator does. Just as you share success criteria with your students, you should understand what distinguished looks like and be able to self-assess against it. Amy and Ed walk through what observers actually watch for, how to prepare, and how to turn feedback, even critical feedback, into a concrete roadmap.

What you will take away:

• Why the post-observation conference is a dialogue, not a monologue
• What observers look for, including student ownership as the distinguished north star
• How to prepare by reflecting first and naming what did and did not go as planned
• Why knowing the framework language strengthens your side of the conversation
• How one observation is just one pixel in a much larger summative picture
• Treating the whole evaluation cycle as a partnership built on trust

As Amy puts it, no teacher navigates this process alone, and the common denominator for both teacher and evaluator is always student achievement.

If this episode gave you a new way to walk into your next evaluation, or there is a topic you want us to cover next, leave us a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes future episodes.

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New Teacher Talk welcomes Dr. Virginia (Ginny) Shank, an assistant professor of reading and former elementary classroom teacher and reading specialist, for a conversation about one of the most overlooked drivers of student learning: background knowledge. Hosted by Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran, this episode connects the research to three concrete strategies you can use across grade levels and subjects. Dr. Shank grounds the discussion in Scarborough's Reading Rope, where background knowledge is the very first strand of language comprehension and, in her view, one of the most frequently skipped. Using schema theory and a memorable closet-hanger analogy, she explains why new information sticks when students can attach it to something they already know, and why working memory gets overwhelmed when it cannot. Her example of third graders who could decode a text about mailboxes but had never seen a roadside mailbox with a flag makes the stakes clear: sometimes what looks like a reading problem is really a knowledge gap, and we have to be careful not to accidentally assess background knowledge instead of the skill we are actually teaching. From there she offers three practical strategies. Create an experience, from a science demonstration to cooling water to North Atlantic temperatures so students can feel what the Titanic's passengers faced. Access prior knowledge and peer learning through class discussion, KWL charts, anticipation guides, and quick writes. And pre-teach with visuals, virtual field trips, curated text sets from your librarian, interactive read-alouds, and vocabulary moves like possible sentences and story impressions. She closes on equity: building background knowledge is not just support for struggling students, it is what gives every learner, including a student newly arrived from Morocco, a genuine way into new content. What you will take away: Why background knowledge is the foundation of comprehension, not an optional add-on How to spot a knowledge gap masquerading as a reading skill problem Three strategies you can adapt from early elementary through high school Why building background knowledge is fundamentally an equity practice Resources mentioned: Newsela, How To Build Background Knowledge: 10 Strategies To Try: https://newsela.com/blog/read/build-background-knowledge Reading Rockets, Building Background Knowledge: https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/background-knowledge/articles/building-background-knowledge If this episode gave you something to try, or there is a topic you want us to cover next, leave us a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes future episodes. #NewTeacherTalk #NewTeachers #TeacherPodcast #FirstYearTeacher #BackgroundKnowledge #ReadingComprehension #ScienceOfReading #SchemaTheory #Literacy #EquityInEducation #TeacherTips #ProfessionalDevelopment #ELL #ReadingRope

New Teacher Talk takes on a mindset that quietly wears teachers down: the belief that you have to support every struggling student entirely on your own. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran are joined by Amie Livengood, a high school family and consumer science teacher and former instructional coach, and Dr. Kelli Hamilton, a high school instructional coach, to offer a repeatable plan for activating the village, the network of people already surrounding each student.

Amie and Kelli name a pattern they saw again and again while coaching: new teachers internalize every success and every failure, convinced they must solve everything alone. This episode is the corrective. They walk through a clear, four-step process for identifying the students who need support and systematically engaging the adults and peers in their lives, from parents and counselors to coaches, previous teachers, and the student themselves. Along the way they share the kinds of stories that make the framework stick, like a student who did better on hard days after shooting hoops with a trusted security guard, and a volleyball coach whose honest conversation changed a student-athlete's whole trajectory.

The four steps:

• Identify roughly five students of greatest concern in the first weeks, and write them down
• Map each student's village broadly, and remember the student is part of it too
• Decide what to ask of each person, seeking insight from some and specific action from others
• Give it time, follow up, and keep records that carry forward to the next teacher

One reframe to carry with you: asking a parent for insight, rather than reporting a problem, invites partnership instead of defensiveness. And as Kelli puts it, once they're our student, they're always our student.

If this episode lightened the load a little, or there is a topic you want us to cover next, leave us a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes future episodes.

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New Teacher Talk takes on a worry almost every new teacher voices: the feeling that you have to choose between following the pacing guide and teaching a lesson students actually care about. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran make the case that this is a false dichotomy, and they offer small, low-effort moves that work inside your curriculum rather than against it.

The hosts start by naming the guilt behind the phrase boring but necessary, then push back on it. As Dr. Anna puts it, the curriculum tells you what to teach, but it rarely dictates how to make students care. The content is fixed; the on-ramp into it is still yours. From there they walk through practical strategies you can use in lessons you are already required to teach, without touching the content or the timeline: change the entry point with a question or real-world hook, offer a small choice, spend 30 seconds on why a skill matters, and build in low-stakes student voice through turn-and-talks and quick exit tickets.

Just as important, they are honest about sustainability. You cannot do this every lesson every day, especially in year one, so they show you how to pick your moments and build a small toolbox of go-to moves you reuse. And for teachers in tightly scripted programs, they get specific: look for the seams in warmups, closings, and transitions, and remember that even when everything else is scripted, as Dr. Beth says, your face and your voice are not part of the pacing guide.

What you will take away:

• Why engagement and pacing are not opposites, and where the real tension comes from
• Four modifications that change the experience of a lesson, not the content: entry point, choice, relevance framing, and student voice
• How to apply these strategies selectively so they stay sustainable
• Where to find latitude in highly scripted programs, and when to raise a lack of flexibility with a mentor or department chair

If this episode gave you a little breathing room, or there is a topic you want us to cover next, leave us a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes future episodes.

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The Science of Learning series continues on New Teacher Talk, with hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcoming back Dr. Ken King of Aurora University. This time the focus is retrieval practice, one of the most powerful and most underused strategies in learning science, and Dr. King makes it practical enough to try this week.

He starts by dismantling a common belief: that studying means putting information into your brain again and again through rereading, highlighting, and reviewing slides. Familiarity is not the same as memory. Students can feel fluent with material during review and still be unable to recall it days later. Retrieval practice flips the process, asking students to pull knowledge out of memory before they look at the answer. Dr. King reframes the central question of learning from how many times students have seen something to how many times they have successfully retrieved it. Along the way he explains the cognitive science that makes it work, why the effort can feel uncomfortable for students, and why that discomfort is a sign of learning rather than failure.

What you will take away:

• Why familiarity fools us, and what the illusion of mastery looks like in your room
• The testing effect: how a quiz can teach, not just grade
• Why a little forgetting before retrieval makes memory stronger
• Four low-burden strategies: frequent low-stakes quizzes, brain dumps, delayed recall, and oral retrieval with a partner
• Grade-level examples across science, math, English, history, and government

Resources for Retrieval Practices

Agarwal, P. K., &  Bain, P. M. (2019). Powerful teaching: Unleash the science of learning. Jossey-Bass.

Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., III, & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Harvard University Press.

Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966–968. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1152408

Roediger, H. L., III, & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(1), 20–27. 

Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.

If this episode gave you something to try, or there is a learning-science topic you want us to cover next, leave us a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes the series.

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New Teacher Talk welcomes Christine Beardslee, a reading specialist and veteran educator with 26 years of experience in New Jersey, to walk you through one of the most practical safeguards you can build: a substitute teacher folder. Hosted by Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran, this episode turns a task that is easy to put off into a clear, doable checklist.

Christine starts from the substitute's point of view, walking into an unfamiliar room with almost no preparation, and makes the case that a well-organized binder gives everyone stability. It keeps students in familiar routines, helps the sub feel confident, and protects the learning environment when you cannot be there. From a brightly colored binder that is easy to spot to the specific contents that make a day run smoothly, she covers what to include and why each piece matters, drawing on systems she has refined over decades in the classroom.

What to put in your folder:

• A warm welcome letter with your contact info, plus a grade-level colleague and the nurse
• A class roster with attendance procedures, reliable student helpers, and pairings to keep apart
• Clearly documented dismissal procedures, because student safety comes first
• Relevant student health information, from allergies to conditions needing closer monitoring
• A building map and steps for fire drills, lockdowns, and shelter-in-place
• Your daily schedule and routines, including attention-getters, specials, transitions, lunch, and bathroom procedures
• Step-by-step lesson plans, pre-organized materials, and extra activities for early finishers
• A sub feedback form so you learn how the day actually went

Resources Christine recommends: Teachers Pay Teachers and Etsy for customizable templates, and The First Days of School by Harry Wong for classroom routines.

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New Teacher Talk brings two generations of teaching into one conversation. Todd Leban, a 23-year veteran middle school educator in Oak Park, Illinois, joins his niece Abbey Leban, a first-year special education teacher serving kindergarten through fifth grade in Naperville, for a candid exchange on classroom management. Hosted by Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran, the episode pairs seasoned perspective with a real-time account of navigating year one, so you get both the long view and the view from right where you are standing.

Todd's central lesson after more than two decades might surprise you: if it ain't broke, don't fix it can itself be the problem. The students in front of you are always different, so effective management asks for constant observation and a willingness to adjust. Abbey brings that idea to life from a first-year special education role, where she had to build her schedule around other teachers' timetables, hold multiple individualized approaches at once, and lean on routines as her steadiest tool. Together they land on the same truths from opposite ends of a career: consistency matters, flexibility matters, relationships carry you through the disruptions, and protecting your own wellbeing is not optional.

What you will take away:

• Why what worked last year, or last semester, may not work now
• Building individualized approaches alongside group systems like a simple star chart
• How clear, predictable routines anchor students who need structure most
• Communicating schedule changes in advance to keep student trust intact
• Why relationships are the real foundation of classroom management
• Pacing yourself instead of trying to over-impress, and leaving work at school

Todd closes with a line worth keeping nearby, attributed to Salvador Dalí: have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.

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