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Episode 279 - Finding Our Giant Baby (S08E04) Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! John is back from his sick week (the doctor’s note is still pending), and this one is for Crosby, a listener who wrote in asking for beginner friendly board games for two players and for bigger groups. Fabian brings Sky Team, where a pilot and co-pilot land a plane without talking, and Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth. Jamie covers Tiny Towns and Pandemic, John picks Horrified and Carcassonne, and Fabian closes with Magical Athlete, a racing game where a giant baby blocks the track. He also shares how he used Pandemic: Fall of Rome in a classroom. Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social. Chapters: 00:00 Crosby's Board Game Question 02:36 Sky Team for Two 08:17 Tiny Towns 11:19 Co-op and Strategy Picks 27:57 Magical Athlete Things mentioned on the show: Sky Team The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth Tiny Towns Pandemic Pandemic: Fall of Rome Horrified: Universal Monsters Carcassonne Ticket to Ride Magical Athlete (CMYK)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! John's out this week, so Fabian and Jamie catch up with returning guest Educator Andrea (Andrea Forcum). She's now prepping high school teachers at Indiana State, wrote a first-year survival guide called They Never Taught Us That (including a chapter that gives you permission to walk away), and shares the advice she gives student teachers, from skipping power struggles to staying off dating apps during field placements. Then it gets into stand-up: a sold-out Indianapolis show, a Chicago crowd that sounded like crickets, and a set at an administrator meeting in a steakhouse. She also tells us about the Teacher Talk Sycamore Summit, coming July 2027, and her dream of a rage room full of copy machines. Fabian closes with Cozy Stickerville for "Whatcha been playin'...?" Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social. Things mentioned on the show: They Never Taught Us That by Andrea Forcum Educator Andrea (also her podcast, How to Survive the Classroom) Teacher Talk Sycamore Summit, July 2027 (details at educatorandrea.com) Cozy Stickerville (Unexpected Games)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! Jamie's fighting her way through a brand new spiraling math curriculum that has her feeling like a first year teacher again, and the crew talks vulnerability, burnout, and the never ending cell phone and AI debate. John reviews Plunder: A Pirate's Life (gorgeous pieces, not much strategy) and Fabian picks the guitar back up after years away.  Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social. Things mentioned on the show: Plunder: A Pirate's Life Survive the Island The Quiet Year

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week: Fabian survives his first Hawaii hurricane, John opens the school year by blowing out his car's axle at 4:40am, and Jamie's district ditches the old textbooks for a new Thinking Classrooms curriculum. Fabian goes all-in on teaching through board games this year (Salem 1692, We're Doomed, Grudge Ball, Hot Streak), and the crew gets into a full-blown fight over dnup. Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!  Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social. Things mentioned on the show: Salem 1692 We're Doomed! Hot Streak dnup The Quiet Year Jaws (Ravensburger)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week we have an absolute treat: Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games joins us to talk about what happens when great game design and great teaching collide. We get into how Wingspan almost went in a completely different direction, why Scythe is basically a global politics class in a box, how the best games and the best lessons both start with a feeling rather than a mechanic, and what it looks like to spend three years falling in love with something you're building. Fabian shares how he used Scythe with his IB Global Politics seniors to teach power, sovereignty, and the very real cost of war. John goes full fanboy on the entire Span universe and asks the hard questions. And Jamey reveals his guilty pleasure game(s). If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts -- it helps more teachers find the show! Join our Discord community at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and TikTok @rebelteacheralliance. You can also find Fabian @hofmannedu.bsky.social and John @meehanedu.bsky.social on BlueSky. Things mentioned on the show: Stonemaier Games -- stonemaiergames.com Jamey's game design YouTube channel (via stonemaiergames.com) Wingspan Wyrmspan Finspan (including Sharks and Reefs expansion) Scythe Viticulture Slay the Spire (Jamey's guilty pleasure) Toy Battle Jakub Rozalski (Scythe artist)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! End of year energy is high and we are feeling all the feelings. This week Fabian finally got to play Salem 1692 with his students -- and used NotebookLM to build a rule explainer slide deck straight from the rulebook PDF, which worked beautifully. Jamie's district is adopting a Building Thinking Classrooms-based math curriculum next year and she is already throwing her old Houghton Mifflin materials into the sun. John drops the fishbowl method for introducing games to students, which is genuinely one of the better classroom moves we've talked about in a while. We also get into the emotional wreckage of sending seniors off to their IB exams, caps and gowns, old desks, and why the last week of school turns every teacher into a complete puddle of goo. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts -- it helps more teachers find the show! Join our Discord community at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and TikTok @rebelteacheralliance. You can also find Fabian @hofmannedu.bsky.social, Jamie @jedijamie.bsky.social, and John @meehanedu.bsky.social on BlueSky. Things mentioned on the show: NotebookLM (used to generate rule explainer slide deck from rulebook PDF) Make It Stick (book recommended by John) Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth (Fabian)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week we are sitting down with Travis Hancock, founder of Facade Games -- the company behind Salem 1692, Tortuga 1667, Deadwood 1876, Bristol 1350, and the newly Kickstarted Roma XLI. Travis talks about how a slow college summer tweaking Mafia rules turned into a full-blown game company, why social deduction games pull emotions out of people in ways other games can't, and what 70+ iterations of a rulebook actually looks like. We also get into why teachers keep using his games in history classrooms, the magic of giving students a hidden identity to inhabit, and the two very different themes he's considering for his next strategic game. He also shared a game in our ever popular segment “What’cha been playin’...?”! Follow Travis on the socials! Check for @facadegames and will surely find them! (tiktok, IG, Youtube) If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts -- it helps more teachers find the show! Join our Discord community at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and TikTok @rebelteacheralliance. You can also find Fabian @hofmannedu.bsky.social, Jamie @jedijamie.bsky.social, and John @meehanedu.bsky.social on BlueSky. Things mentioned on the show: Facade Games -- facadegames.com Salem 1692 Ticket to Ride Legacy Pandemic Legacy Season 1 & 2 Flip Seven

Welcome back to Rebel Teacher Alliance -- just Fabian and John this time, Jamie had somewhere else to be. Fabian's turn-in rate was 23.5% and he is not okay. What followed was one of the more honest conversations on the pod -- about grade-less classrooms, students triaging their workload like professionals, and what it looks like to slow down and have the hard talk instead of reading kids the riot act. John brings his own version from the other end, scaling Microlab protocol down from 60 seconds to 30 because his seventh graders simply cannot do 60 yet, and that is fine. We also get into Portal Kombat -- Fabian's Civil War summative where students research historical figures and battles, claim their fighter in a draft system, and then argue why their fighter mattered more than their opponent's. Fabian also built a custom app to run it, which is either brilliant or over-engineered, possibly both. In our ever popular segment “What’cha been playin’...?” we close with Fire Tower, a two-player tug-of-war card game that John loved, bought the deluxe upgrade for, and now cannot bring himself to play because it has too many mechanics. There is a lesson in there somewhere. If you love what we're doing, subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts -- even a single emoji counts, we promise. Join the conversation on our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on the socials below. Instagram: @rebelteacheralliance BlueSky: @rtalliance.bsky.social TikTok: @rebelteacheralliance Fabian: @hofmannedu.bsky.social Jamie: @jedijamie.bsky.social John: @meehanedu.bsky.social Things mentioned on the episode: EMC2 Learning -- https://emc2learning.com Portal Kombat (EMC2) --https://emc2learning.com/portal-combat/ Fire Tower board game -- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WDNFQ8G

Welcome back to Rebel Teacher Alliance. Fabian is back from scuba diving with students -- five sea turtles, one octopus, one Insta360 camera, zero regrets. Jamie's class has hit their magical end-of-year stride. John is three days into teaching seventh graders for the first time and already knows every kid's name. Then Fabian asks Claude for assessment ideas and gets two words back: "Fabian. Stop." -- which leads into a full breakdown with John on how EMC2 Learning actually designs classroom games, from a quick Target shelf port all the way up to a 40-hour press-your-luck build. We close with a pile of unplayed games everyone swears they'll get to this summer. If you love what we're doing, subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts -- even a single emoji counts, we promise. Join the conversation on our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on the socials below. Instagram: @rebelteacheralliance BlueSky: @rtalliance.bsky.social TikTok: @rebelteacheralliance Fabian: @hofmannedu.bsky.social Jamie: @jedijamie.bsky.social John: @meehanedu.bsky.social Things mentioned on the episode: EMC2 Learning Portal Combat (EMC2) (subscription needed) Contraband Content (EMC2)  TextQuest (EMC2) Sheriff of Nottingham Disney Robin Hood Edition Castle Combo Terraforming Mars Seven Wonders Duel Everdell Root Flamecraft Poetry for Neanderthals Ulysses Article we talked about

Welcome back to Rebel Teacher Alliance -- all three of us this time. We open with updates: Hawaii is slowly drying out, the California teacher strikes have resolved,  and John survived a travel nightmare involving a five-hour airport delay, a missing rental car, and someone else's 5:30am alarm. Then John drops his big news -- he's back in a school building full time as a staff development teacher, working with seventh graders for the first time, and he is all in. Fabian talks about making the switch to Claude, including a newsletter automation he built for his Global Politics class that crawls the web and outputs a ready-to-send HTML email every week. And we dig into what makes a good PLC versus the cast of characters you actually find in most of them. We close with John pitching Castle Combo, a compact tableau-building card game that plays in 25 minutes and has him very, very excited. If you love what we're doing, subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts -- even a single emoji counts, we promise. Join the conversation on our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on the socials below. Instagram: @rebelteacheralliance BlueSky: @rtalliance.bsky.social TikTok: @rebelteacheralliance Fabian: @hofmannedu.bsky.social Jamie: @jedijamie.bsky.social John: @meehanedu.bsky.social Things mentioned on the episode: Innovative Schools Summit (ISS) Claude AI Castle Combo (board game)

Welcome back to Rebel Teacher Alliance -- just Fabian and Jamie this time, John's off traveling. Fabian opens with Hawaii survival mode: the Kona Low brought flooding, snapped coconut trees, and a power outage he fixed with a tarp and a pizza. Jamie brings the California teacher strike saga -- 800 kids in her husband’s district without a permanent teacher, superintendent salaries pushing $700K combined, and the unhinged tale of Porta Potty Gate. Then Fabian unpacks his big takeaway from the Learning and the Brain Conference. We close with Fabian assigning John Meehan to build a full Goonies-themed classroom around the dungeon crawler board game he's been playing with his six-year-old in our ever popular segment “What’cha been playin’...?”.. Never say die! If you love what we're doing, subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts -- even a single emoji counts, we promise. Join the conversation on our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on the socials below. Instagram: @rebelteacheralliance BlueSky: @rtalliance.bsky.social TikTok: @rebelteacheralliance Fabian: @hofmannedu.bsky.social Jamie: @jedijamie.bsky.social John: @meehanedu.bsky.social Things mentioned on the episode: Professor Talithia Williams (mathematician and statistician) -- https://talithiawilliams.com Dr. Adam Gazzaley (UCSF neuroscientist; FDA-approved ADHD video game) -- https://gazzaleylab.ucsf.edu EndeavorRx (FDA-approved ADHD game) -- https://www.endeavorrx.com Dr. Jean Twenge, San Diego State University -- https://www.jeantwenge.com George Couros, Innovator's Mindset -- https://georgecouros.ca Goonies Never Say Die board game -- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1JBQZK

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week we sit down with Dr. John Spencer, fresh off his keynote at the Learning and the Brain Conference in San Francisco. We talk about why slowing down is actually the move in a world that keeps telling us to go faster, how to use AI as a study tool without letting it do all the thinking, and what it even means to teach for depth when your students can generate a five-paragraph essay in 30 seconds. Also: Dr. Spencer once modified a game of Pit to teach how markets work and used a version of Risk to walk students through the whole lead-up to World War One, so you already know the Whatcha Been Playin' segment is going to go places. If you want to keep the conversation going, subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts -- it genuinely helps people find us. Come hang out in our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com. You can also find us on Instagram, BlueSky, and TikTok all at @rebelteacheralliance. Find Fabian at @hofmannedu.bsky.social, Jamie at @jedijamie.bsky.social, and John at @meehanedu.bsky.social. Things mentioned on the show: The Depth Advantage by Dr. John Spencer spencereducation.com Learning and the Brain Conference Pit card game Oregon Trail card game

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week we sit down with Jenny Chan, founder of Pacific Atrocities Education, to talk about the history most Western classrooms still barely touch: World War II in Asia and the Pacific. Jenny shares how her grandma’s reaction to Japanese anime led her into archives, denialist comment sections, and a mission to make “never again” mean something when the first time was never taught. We get into yellow journalism and media literacy, how Japan, Korea, and China remember the war differently, and the challenge of teaching atrocities without turning it into shock value. Jenny also breaks down how she builds lesson plans teachers can actually use (without five extra hours of prep). And in our ever popular segment “Whatcha been playin’…?”, Jenny isn’t gaming, she’s pickling vegetables like the apocalypse is scheduled for next Thursday. Join @hofmannedu.bsky.social, @jedijamie.bsky.social and @meehanedu.bsky.social by subscribing to our podcast and rating and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts! Join our Discord on rebelteacheralliance.com or here. Find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, on BluSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and on TikTok @rebelteacheralliance.

Welcome back to Rebel Teacher Alliance! Today we pick up where the last episode left off, then get practical. We revisit key takeaways from our conversation with Sheri Schmidt, then jump into Fabian’s Articles of Confederation lesson flow: AI-made explainer with NotebookLM, image generation in Gemini’s Nano Banana, and a simple prompt-tracking organizer students actually complete. From there we build a no-nonsense rubric for meaningful PD, call out time-wasting icebreakers, and sketch what good conferences and staff days should look like: choice, niche tracks, protected passing time, and trust. Join @hofmannedu.bsky.social, @jedijamie.bsky.social, and @meehanedu.bsky.social by subscribing and leaving a rating on Apple Podcasts. Hop into the Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com to drop your PD must-haves, and find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, on BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and on TikTok @rebelteacheralliance. Things mentioned on the show: - CoraQuest

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week we get practical about teaching in the age of online radicalization. With guest educator Dr. Sheri Schmidt, we unpack how memes become on-ramps, the “entertain, envelop, escalate” pipeline, why curiosity beats zero-tolerance, and how to build school and home guardrails that actually work. We talk gaming platforms, algorithm rabbit holes, student vulnerability, and student-led countermeasures. We also hit the manosphere surge, board meeting pressure campaigns, and what media literacy looks like when you teach it early and often. In “Whatcha been playin’…?” we spotlight Votes for Women and how it doubles as a civics lesson. Join @hofmannedu.bsky.social, @jedijamie.bsky.social and @meehanedu.bsky.social by subscribing to our podcast and rating and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts. Join our Discord on rebelteacheralliance.com or here. Find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, on BluSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and on TikTok @rebelteacheralliance. Things mentioned on the show: - Resources for Social Justice Work mentioned by Sheri on the show - Western States Center - Votes for Women Boardgame