Advertise on podcast: Schoolutions: Teaching Strategies to Strengthen School Culture, Empower Educators, & Inspire Student Growth

Your core program already holds more than you could teach in a year. So where does a whole book go? In part two of my S6E6 Schoolutions conversation with Jennifer Serravallo, we get practical about Whole Book Comprehension, her new Heinemann resource launching in November 2026 for grades 1 through 6. Jen's answer to the time question is specific. If your core program has six modules, take one week between each module for a whole book intensive. You can also use a WIN block or independent reading time with book clubs. She walks through the same five steps she planned into every lesson: background knowledge, vocabulary, strategies and prompts, writing about reading, and conversation. I asked Jen what to do when half the class finishes chapter 4 before the other half starts it. She groups kids by pace, by support level, or by the strategy they need, so one group gets the read-aloud while another reads independently. Everyone stays in the same grade-level book and moves to the next lesson together. Then we get into why this can't wait. Jen shares a study by Westbrook and colleagues where students left a short-text core program for six weeks of novels read at a brisk pace. They made months of progress and came out believing in themselves as readers. She connects that to Maryanne Wolf's work on deep reading and Kelly Cartwright's research on executive function. Kids only build the attention and stamina for long texts by reading long texts. I also share what happened when my colleague and I brought Socratic circles and fishbowl conversations into middle and high school classrooms. Kids who avoided eye contact in the fall were prepping notes ahead of time by spring. The quietest students started tapping in. That's student participation and student engagement you can't get from a one-page passage. 💫Check out part one & more resources from Jen:  Links to Whole Book Comprehension: https://www.heinemann.com/programs/whole-book-comprehension/A few of Jen’s blogs for further reading: https://www.heinemann.com/blog/topic/whole-book-comprehensionWestbrook study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lit.12141Jen’s podcast with Dr. Maryanne Wolf: https://www.jenniferserravallo.com/blog/maryanne-wolfNext week: How will you grow the creative minds in your organization? That's the question my guest, Jason Blair, asks educators. You'll hear how to embrace your artist mindset so it turns into fresh perspectives, new routines, and real leadership moves. Jason is a creativity specialist, a practicing artist, and an elementary art teacher with more than twenty-four years of experience who helps schools grow imaginative, curious, and connected learners. Learn more about Jason at https://www.growcreativethinkers.com Chapters 0:00 Questions to consider before you listen 1:00 Welcome back, Jen 1:50 Where whole books fit in a full schedule 3:05 Read-aloud, shared reading, or independent reading 3:35 The five steps in every lesson 5:00 Coaching writing and talk, not just assigning prompts 5:55 When kids read at different paces 7:15 The research on why kids need whole books 9:30 Socratic circles, fishbowls, and the quietest students 11:15 Literacy is reading, writing, speaking, and listening 12:05 Jen's hope for the next three years: both/and 13:40 Takeaways and how to work with me 14:40 Next week: Jason Blair Does your literacy block run on short passages and leave no room for kids to talk? I coach teachers and leadership teams to change that. We sit down with your core program, mark the weeks where a whole book intensive fits, and protect time every day for writing about reading and real conversation. Then I help you build the grouping routines, discussion structures, and feedback loops that keep it going after I leave. Book a conversation at oliviawahl.com under Coaching & Consulting. Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book, Forever Getting Better: Five Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. I hope to have the book in your hands by June 2027. #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #JenniferSerravallo #WholeBookComprehension #ReadingComprehension #ReadingStamina #BookClubs #SocraticSeminar #LiteracyInstruction #ScienceOfReading #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherSupport #SchoolLeadership #EffectiveTeaching #StudentEngagement #ElementaryTeachers #TeachersOfInstagram #EducationPodcast  When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

Teachers keep telling me the same thing. Their students can't stay with a book. Jennifer Serravallo sees it in classrooms across the country and at her own kitchen table, where her daughters leave books untouched. Short passages are part of the reason. When kids read one-page texts every day, they never practice holding a detail from chapter two until it pays off in chapter nine. That's a skill, and skills can be rebuilt. Jen points to research where students read whole books at a brisk pace and made several months of reading progress in six weeks. So what stops teachers? A school culture where leaving the script feels risky. That's where school leadership and instructional leadership come in. Principals and school administrators can name whole-book reading as a priority and help teachers decide what to cut from a crowded core program. Watch part one with Jen. Part two drops Friday, October 23, on Schoolutions.  Subscribe so it lands in your feed. Want help finding room for whole books in your schedule? I work with schools and districts on exactly that through instructional coaching and professional development: oliviawahl.com/coaching-and-consulting Chapters: 0:00 Teachers sound the alarm on reading stamina 0:13 What kids lose with short texts only 0:22 Training our way back to whole books 0:32 The culture of fear around the script 0:42 Six weeks, several months of progress #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting  #JenniferSerravallo #WholeBookComprehension #ReadingStamina #StudentEngagement #SchoolLeadership #InstructionalLeadership #ReadingInstruction #ScienceOfReading #TeachersOfYouTube #LiteracyMatters #EducationPodcast When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

Try It Tuesday: Read the whole book before you teach it. That habit changed my lesson planning more than anything else I've tried. We hear "use data" and "plan with students in mind" all the time. You can't do either until you know where the text will trip kids up. Here's my process. I read the full picture book or chapter book first. I flag characters, plot structures, text features, vocabulary, and figurative language that could cause confusion. If I find eight to ten tricky words, I cut the list to two or three that every student will understand by the end of the chapter. You don't front-load all of it. You keep it on your radar so your instructional strategies are ready when kids hit the hard parts. My example is World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky. It's dense, it's heavy, and it's full of complex text features. Two parts of it do a lot of work in class: 1️⃣The graphic novel section at the end of each chapter. I ask students, "How does this story help you synthesize what you learned in the chapter?" It's active learning that boosts student engagement and student participation with tough nonfiction. 2️⃣Chapter Eleven. The book is a warning, not a guaranteed future, and Chapter Eleven lays out action steps. After hard content, kids go back to it and ask, "Okay, what can we do next?" Want a partner to consider text challenges with in your classroom or school? Learn more at oliviawahl.com under Coaching & Consulting. Chapters 0:00 Why I plan with text challenges first 0:30 Reading the whole book before teaching it 0:40 Mapping text features in World Without Fish 0:55 Narrowing vocabulary to two or three words 1:15 Using graphic novel sections to synthesize 1:35 Chapter Eleven and taking action #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #TryitTuesday #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #TeachingTips #TryItTuesday #LessonPlanning #TeachingTips #EffectiveTeaching #StudentEngagement #ActiveLearning #InstructionalStrategies #NewTeachers #InstructionalCoaching #ProfessionalDevelopment #ReadingInstruction #Homeschool #TeachersOfYouTube When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

When did your students last read a book from page one to the last page? Teachers keep telling me the same thing. Kids are struggling to stick with a book. Low engagement and short attention in class get blamed on phones, but in this S6E6 Schoolutions conversation, Jennifer Serravallo points to something else on the teacher's desk. Core programs built on one-page passages that look like the test. Jen and I talk about Whole Book Comprehension, her new Heinemann resource launching in November 2026 for grades 1 through 6. Each grade's kit holds four fiction and four nonfiction books by award-winning authors. Every chapter comes with four instructional strategies, vocabulary and knowledge building, writing about reading, structured book talk, and rubrics students can use themselves. Jen explains what a whole book asks of a reader that a short passage never will. A clue planted in chapter two that pays off in chapter nine. A flashback. A character who acts one way at home and another way at school. Ten nonfiction chapters that connect to one big idea. She also shares the biggest shift in her own lesson planning. She stopped starting with student data and started with the text challenges. Check out resources from Jen: Links to Whole Book Comprehension: https://www.heinemann.com/programs/whole-book-comprehension/A few of Jen’s blogs for further reading: https://www.heinemann.com/blog/topic/whole-book-comprehensionWestbrook study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lit.12141Jen’s podcast with Dr. Maryanne Wolf: https://www.jenniferserravallo.com/blog/maryanne-wolfPart two drops Friday. Jen and I get into the nuts and bolts. Where do whole books fit into a schedule that's already full? What does every lesson look like? What do you do when half your class finishes chapter 4 before the other half starts it? Chapters 0:00 Questions to consider before you listen 1:00 Meet Jennifer Serravallo and Whole Book Comprehension 1:30 Short passages, stamina, and the "post-literate" headlines 2:45 How my son Henry got back to reading whole books 3:45 What changes when a text gets longer 6:00 Inside the Whole Book Comprehension kits 8:15 Time to draw, write, and talk about reading 9:00 How this differs from Complete Comprehension 10:30 Lightning round: choosing books for whole book reading 12:15 What keeps Jen going outside of work 13:15 What Jen would change about national reading tests 15:30 How leaders can make room for whole books 17:00 Let the text drive the planning 20:20 Coming in Part 2 and how to work with me Is your team staring at a packed pacing guide and wondering where whole books could fit? That's the work I do with schools and districts. I sit down with your leadership team and your core program, and we decide together what comes off the plate. Then I help you build the time and routines for daily whole book reading, so teachers feel confident making the change instead of nervous about it. Book a conversation at oliviawahl.com under Coaching and Consulting. Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book, Forever Getting Better: Five Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. I hope to have the book in your hands by June 2027. #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #JenniferSerravallo #WholeBookComprehension #ReadingComprehension #ReadingStamina #LiteracyInstruction #ScienceOfReading #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherSupport #SchoolLeadership #EffectiveTeaching #StudentEngagement #ElementaryTeachers #TeachersOfInstagram #EducationPodcast When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

If most of your reading assessments ask for a claim plus three pieces of evidence, some of your readers may never show up in the grade book. In part two of our S6E5 Schoolutions conversation, Angela Lathem-Ballard returns to show why. She teaches fifth- and sixth-grade humanities at the Center for Teaching and Learning in rural Maine, and she explains inductive and deductive reasoning the way she does with her students. Start with the evidence and build toward an idea. Or start with the idea and hunt for evidence that supports or complicates it. Good readers and writers switch between both all day. Angela refuses to label kids as one kind of thinker. She asks a student who notices patterns, "What are you noticing across these moments?" She asks a student who opens with a polished claim, "What in the text led you there?" Teachers, instructional leaders, and education coaches will leave with assessment questions that support inclusive teaching and equity in any reading block. She also walks through a simple system for student engagement in writing workshop. Every student keeps a writing-in-process folder. The left pocket holds brainstorms, heart maps, and drafts set aside to rest. The right pocket holds pieces worth revising. At the start of class, each writer decides which pocket to pull from based on their energy that day. One folder gives kids a daily decision about their own process, and it pulls in students who usually tune out. This one works for new teachers, mentor teachers, and homeschoolers writing with kids at the kitchen table. 💫Check out part one where Angela shares her four roles, her daily schedule, and the story of the grieving fifth grader whose poem won a national contest. Three questions to carry with you: 1. If most of your assessments ask for a claim plus three pieces of evidence, which student's understanding never shows up in the grade book? 2. Do your students hear "What are you noticing across these moments?" or "What in the text led you there?" more often, and who gets left out? 3. How many decisions about their own writing process do your students make in a week? Coming Next Week: Jennifer Serravallo returns for a two-part conversation about her new Heinemann resource, Whole Book Comprehension, launching in November 2026 for grades 1 through 6. Jen shows how to close the gap between short, testable reading passages and understanding an entire book, with a research-backed approach you can use in your classroom the next morning. Picture the student who spots three small details in a novel, connects them, and still freezes when the prompt says "state your claim." I partner with teachers and leadership teams to write assessments that catch that student. Together we design two or three ways for kids to show what they understand, then plan lessons that teach the reasoning moves they're missing. Start at oliviawahl.com under the Coaching and Consulting tab. Chapters: 0:00 Three questions to carry with you 1:10 Welcome back, Angela 2:00 Inductive and deductive reasoning, in kid language 3:15 Why readers switch between both 4:00 Don't turn "inductive thinker" into a label 4:50 Writing isn't a straight line to publishing 6:00 Two folders and the left-pocket "safe" 7:00 Picking a pocket at the start of class 8:00 Why kids tune out when work feels fake 8:40 What claim-plus-three-evidence misses 9:15 Questions that reveal pattern-noticing readers 10:00 "I can't explain it this way" vs. "I don't understand" 10:45 Teenagers learning to switch reasoning modes 11:40 Thank you, Angela 12:30 Next week: Jennifer Serravallo and Whole Book Comprehension Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027.  #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #InductiveReasoning #DeductiveReasoning #WritingWorkshop #ReadingWorkshop #LiteraryAnalysis #StudentAgency #StudentChoice #InclusiveTeaching #TeacherCoaching #InstructionalCoaching #MiddleSchoolELA #WholeBookComprehension #JenniferSerravallo #teacherpodcast  When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

A student quietly running the lights from the booth becomes a confident, creative leader on stage. In this short clip, educator Angela Lathem-Ballard shares teaching tips on how seeing students in a different light can change classroom belonging, student engagement, and student success. Angela reminds teachers, education coaches, and instructional leaders that we aren't experts in someone else's life. Effective teaching starts with listening before deciding what a child needs. She also offers a powerful teaching tip: When a student says "I can't explain my thinking this way," it doesn't always mean "I don't understand." Some kids reason backward, and inclusive teaching gives them room to support their thinking without boxing them in as "one kind of thinker." Watch part one with Angela Lathem-Ballard for more on inspired teaching, equity in education, and the teacher impact that leads to real school change. Part two drops Friday, October 16, on Schoolutions. Subscribe so it lands in your feed. Chapters 0:00 Seeing a student in a different light 0:18 Helping kids be better humans (and becoming better ourselves) 0:26 Listen before you decide what someone needs 0:38 "I can't explain it" doesn't mean "I don't understand" 0:50 Don't box kids in as one kind of thinker 0:58 Welcome Angela Lathem-Ballard Is your school culture missing the kids who don't fit the mold? I coach educators and leadership teams to look beyond labels and unlock real student engagement. Let's talk about what's possible for your school 👉 Reach out here. #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #ProKidMindset #WholeChild #ClassroomBelonging #StudentEngagement #InclusiveTeaching #TeachingTips #EquityInEducation #CulturallyResponsiveTeaching #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherImpact #EducationPodcast #shorts  When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

✏️ Try It Tuesday: Writing Folders, Writer's Notebooks & Doing Your Own Assignment Writing doesn't happen in a straight line. Angela Lathem-Ballard and I talked about that on the podcast this week, and it reminded me of the folders and notebooks I bring into every writing conference and mini-lesson I teach. Here's what's inside them. In this reel: ✅ My K-2 writing folder. One side says "Still Working" with a green dot. The other says "Done for Now" with a yellow dot. It used to be red, until I noticed kids read red as "finished forever." ✅ The sheet protector hack. I slide my "done for now" pieces into clear sleeves so I can mark them up with a dry-erase marker during a conference, then wipe them clean. I never have to write on a student's paper. ✅ My double writer's notebook for grades 3-12. A student told me she loved fiction while we were studying informational writing. So we glued two notebooks together. One holds the genre we're studying in workshop. The other is for anything she wants to write. ✅ Why this works. Cognitive Task Analysis, or doing your own assignment, has an Effect Size of 1.09 in John Hattie's research. Anything above 0.40 counts as a year's growth. Giving kids a "write whatever you want" notebook builds student motivation and classroom belonging. They see their own interests have a place in school. Modeling with your own drafts raises student engagement and student participation during conferences, because kids watch you revise in real time. These are teaching tips you can use in lesson planning tomorrow. If you're coaching, invite teachers to build their own writing folder or notebook before their next writing unit. It's a concrete professional learning move for mentor teachers, education coaches, teacher mentors, and instructional leaders. Want help setting up writing systems like these in your classroom or school? I coach teachers and leadership teams. Learn more at oliviawahl.com under Coaching & Consulting. Keep your notebooks. I still pull pieces from mine that I wrote years ago. Chapters: 0:00 Try It Tuesday: Writing Isn't Linear 0:20 K-2 Writing Folder: "Still Working" vs. "Done for Now" 0:55 Sheet Protector Hack for Writing Conferences 1:20 The Double Writer's Notebook for Grades 3-12 1:55 Writing Beyond the Classroom 2:10 Do Your Own Assignment (Hattie Effect Size 1.09) #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #TryitTuesday #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #TeachingTips #TryItTuesday #WritersWorkshop #TeachingWriting #WritersNotebook #TeachingTips #StudentEngagement #InstructionalCoaching #EffectiveTeaching #InstructionalStrategies #VisibleLearning #CognitiveTaskAnalysis #LiteracyInstruction #NewTeachers #InspiredTeaching #Teachers #Homeschool When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

Angela Lathem-Ballard holds four roles at one small school in rural Maine. She teaches fifth- and sixth-grade humanities, teaches art from pre-K through eighth grade, directs the middle school play, and supervises visiting teachers from other states and countries who fly in to watch her in action. In part one of our S6E5 Schoolutions conversation, I ask how Angela balances all four roles. Angela walks through her real schedule: three 90-minute blocks, a family-style lunch with her class, and a staff meeting every day during recess. She explains how a school-wide Bill of Rights builds classroom belonging and school culture without anyone reteaching the rules each September. Angela also tells two stories that stick. In one, a student who clashed with his PE teacher spends a Saturday on stage calling lighting cues and training younger kids, a clear case of student participation and student engagement growing out of real responsibility. In the other, a fifth grader grieving a family trauma writes a funny poem called "Sled" that goes on to win a national contest. He taught her to stop softening lessons for a child who never asked for protection. Angela also shares what volunteering in five countries taught her about culturally responsive teaching, why she stays at the porch every day at dismissal for parent communication and a stronger home-school connection, and which researchers she returns to: Nancie Atwell, Zaretta Hammond, Dr. Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad, and Felicia Rose Chavez. In part two, Angela explains why she refuses to label kids as inductive or deductive thinkers, and she describes the two-pocket writing folder that lets students choose each day whether to start a new piece or rework an old draft. Three questions to carry with you: 1. Which of your classroom norms could follow kids from room to room so no teacher rebuilds them every September? 2. Where in your planning are you deciding what a student needs before you've asked them? 3. When have you pulled a text or softened a lesson to protect a student who never asked for protection? Did Angela's schedule make you look hard at your own? I coach teachers and school teams to build the same structures Angela described: protected planning time, a daily conversation among colleagues, and shared norms that save weeks of reteaching every fall. Book a conversation at oliviawahl.com under Coaching and Consulting. Chapters: 0:00 Three questions to anchor you 1:00 Meet Angela Lathem-Ballard 2:40 Four roles at one small school 5:45 A bill of rights that follows kids grade to grade 6:20 Three 90-minute blocks and a first-period prep 8:20 A staff meeting every day at recess 10:50 Arrival, dismissal, and porch time with families 12:40 Why she says yes to boards and committees 15:00 A partner who asks, "Was anybody else there that late?" 16:45 Volunteering in five countries 19:50 Kids who design the lights, sound, and costumes 22:50 Lightning round: more than one way to see a story 23:50 What refuels her: theater, sketching, belly laughs 25:45 The grieving fifth grader and the "Sled" poem 29:10 Teaching kids to build on each other's ideas 30:40 Atwell, Hammond, Muhammad, and Chavez 33:30 Coming in part two Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027.  #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting  #TeacherCoaching #InstructionalCoaching #ReadingWorkshop #WritingWorkshop #StudentAgency #StudentChoice #ClassroomBelonging #SchoolCulture #CulturallyResponsiveTeaching #WholeChild #ProKidMindset #MiddleSchoolTeacher #TeacherPodcast  When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

Here's a test for tomorrow's lesson. Could you hit play, walk out of the room, and have it run exactly the same without you? If so, Katie Lewis White says you're presenting, not facilitating. In part two of Schoolutions S6E4, Katie and I discuss what separates the two. Presenting is a one-way message. Facilitation is a conversation. It means watching who's leaning in and who's zoned out, treating silence as a sign something isn't clear, and backing up to try another way. Katie also shows how learning debt makes this harder. Every "ignore this slide" or "this handout is a little outdated" pulls attention in class away from the learning. I share how Trevor Muir charts three desk setups with his students so the room can shift in seconds depending on the task. We talk about why a silent classroom is a signal and what student participation sounds like when the teacher works among the kids instead of at the front. Katie also opens up about leaving the classroom after ten years. After COVID she felt spent and knew her students deserved more energy than she had left. In corporate learning and development, she found names for the things she'd been doing as a middle and high school teacher all along. If you have strong lessons but a quiet classroom, I can help. My coaching cycles happen inside classrooms, alongside teachers, with real kids in the room. We plan together, watch who's engaged and who's zoned out, and adjust in the moment. Reach out at oliviawahl.com/coaching-consulting to bring that work to your school. Next week, Angela Lathem-Ballard joins me to talk about balancing the many roles teachers juggle while supporting students as inductive and deductive thinkers. 💫Check out part one & Katie's Infographics: The Warning Signs of Learning DebtYou're Presenting If You... / You're Facilitating If You...Chapters: 0:00 The hit-play test 0:35 Three questions to think about as you listen 1:00 Welcome back, Katie 1:20 Presenting vs facilitating learning 2:00 How learning debt makes facilitation harder 3:15 The one-question test for your lesson 3:55 What to watch for when you facilitate 5:45 Trevor Muir's three desk setups 6:25 Why a silent classroom is a signal 7:05 Katie's move from the classroom to corporate learning 8:50 Giving teachers words for what they already do 10:10 Takeaways and coaching Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027.  #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #FacilitateLearning #StudentEngagement #ActiveLearning #InstructionalCoaching #TeachingTips #LearningDebt #TeacherPodcast #Schoolutions When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

Could your lesson run the same way if you walked out of the room? My guest Katie Lewis White says if the answer is yes, you're presenting, not facilitating learning. In the full episode, Katie shares what to watch for when you shift from presenting to facilitating, why a silent classroom tells you something, and how outdated slides and handouts make facilitation harder. She also opens up about a career change that gave her words for things great teachers already do. Try the test on tomorrow's lesson before you listen. Then tell me in the comments what you found. Part two of my conversation with Katie Lewis White drops Friday, October 9, on Schoolutions. Subscribe so it lands in your feed. If you or teachers you work with want help moving from presenting to facilitating, I'd love to partner with your school. My coaching cycles happen inside classrooms, alongside teachers, with kids in the room. Reach out at oliviawahl.com/coaching-consulting. 🎧 Hear more from Katie Lewis White in the part one podcast episode!  #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #FacilitateLearning #StudentEngagement #ActiveLearning #TeachingTips #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherReflection  When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

Ever rebuilt a Google Doc you knew you'd already made? My Schoolutions  podcast guest, Katie Lewis White, taught me there's a name for that. It's called learning debt, and once I heard it, I saw it everywhere. My Try It Tuesday tip: build one master hub doc for each unit you teach. Put every link inside it. Videos, graphic organizers, slide decks, readings. When it's time to teach, you open one file and everything is there. No digging through folders while thirty kids wait and attention in class slips away. It also gives you your Sunday night back. Watch a show. Watch the game. Walk into Monday without that two-hour search hanging over you. This is one of my favorite teaching tips for lesson planning because it works for new teachers setting up their first units and for veteran teachers clearing out years of duplicate files. Mentor teachers can share one link with a new colleague instead of six folders. Homeschoolers can use it to keep a full unit in one place too. Want to hear where this idea came from? Listen to my full conversation with Katie Lewis White on Schoolutions, Season 6, Episode 4. https://youtu.be/6R17J1PsCXc If your school wants help clearing out learning debt across a whole team, I partner with teachers, education coaches, instructional leaders, and school administrators to map what's on teachers' plates and decide what to keep, fix, and retire. Reach out at my Coaching & Consulting tab. Chapters 0:00 What learning debt is 0:15 Build a master hub doc for each unit 0:35 Get your Sunday night back #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #TryitTuesday #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #TeachingTips #TryItTuesday #TeacherHacks #LessonPlanning #GoogleForEducation #LearningDebt #TeacherTips When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

It's 9:45 on a Sunday night. You're digging through a shared Google Drive for a document you made last year. You can't find it, so you rebuild it. Two hours gone. Katie Lewis White calls this learning debt, and in this S6E4 Schoolutions conversation, she shows me how much it costs teachers and schools. Katie spent eight years teaching Spanish in a K-12 school and has over a decade of experience in instructional design and global curriculum development. She explains learning debt as the work nobody puts on a job description: outdated curriculum maps, redundant materials, and new programs piled on top of old ones that never get retired. Her old textbook still taught vocabulary for VCRs and floppy disks. We talk about what school administrators and instructional leaders can do about it. Katie's starting point is a list of every program, field trip, and event teachers are asked to cover, and one question: are we managing our teachers' time well? I share what I see on teachers' calendars when they're pulled out for training once a week, and why new teachers who say yes to everything need school leadership to protect their time. You'll also hear Katie's unit-by-unit review cycle for lesson planning, the notes she kept after every class, and the one word she uses for a shared drive with no system. If your district wants to start paying down its learning debt, I'd love to help. We map what's on teachers' plates, from initiatives to coaching cycles to calendar overlap, and decide what stays. Find me at oliviawahl.com under Coaching and Consulting.  Katie's Infographics: The Warning Signs of Learning DebtYou're Presenting If You... / You're Facilitating If You...Part two drops Friday. Katie shares a one-question test that tells you whether you're presenting or facilitating learning. Chapters 0:00 A Sunday night search through Google Drive 0:30 Three questions to think about as you listen 1:00 Meet Katie Lewis White 2:25 What learning debt means 3:40 Teacher overwhelm and programs that never retire 5:50 Rushing to plan and rebuying what you already have 6:40 What administrators need to know about learning debt 9:50 Shared calendars and training overlap 11:20 Lightning round: the VCR curriculum map 12:30 What Katie does outside of work 13:05 The ideal review cycle for a curriculum map 14:40 One word for an unmanaged shared drive 15:00 Where a school district should start 15:55 Why new teachers say yes to everything 16:55 Takeaways and paying down learning debt Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027.  #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #LearningDebt #TeacherSupport #InstructionalLeadership #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherWorkload #CurriculumPlanning #NewTeachers  When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

October on Schoolutions is all about depth over delivery. I edited every episode this month and noticed one question running through all four conversations: how do we ask kids to make meaning and wonder more, so learning sticks? Here's who joins me. Katie Lewis White explains learning debt. I didn't know it had a name until she told me. It affects every teacher and every school. She also breaks down the difference between presenting a lesson and facilitating learning, which changes how you think about student engagement, active learning, and student participation. Angela Lathem-Ballard talks about the many roles teachers carry inside school systems. She shows how we can support inductive and deductive reasoners with instructional strategies that fit how each kid actually thinks. This is effective teaching and inclusive teaching in practice. Jennifer Serravallo is back with her newest resource on whole book comprehension. Kids read short, testable passages in school no matter what. She shows how to balance that with whole book reading so comprehension goes deeper. Great for lesson planning, teaching tips, and education strategies you can use Monday. I close the month with Jason Blair, an artist and art teacher whose LinkedIn posts make me stop scrolling every time. We ask one question. What if we all had an artist mindset? He connects it to routines, school culture, instructional leadership, and education leadership. We also get into how AI is changing the art world and art classrooms. Come join the conversations. I can't wait to have you with us this October. Chapters: 0:00 October theme: depth over delivery 0:14 Katie Lewis White on learning debt and facilitating vs. presenting 0:30 Angela Lathem-Ballard on teacher roles and inductive and deductive reasoners 0:44 Jennifer Serravallo on whole book comprehension 1:03 Jason Blair on the artist mindset, leadership, and AI in art education #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #StudentEngagement #EffectiveTeaching #InstructionalCoaching #ReadingComprehension #ArtistMindset #TeacherPodcast #ProfessionalDevelopment #EducationLeadership When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

Jennifer Orr felt she had to prove herself to new colleagues in her 28th year of teaching. In part two of our S6E3 Schoolutions conversation, she explains why that feeling has nothing to do with being new and everything to do with being human. We take apart the myth of the Pinterest-perfect classroom and discuss why bare walls invite students to co-create the space and build a sense of belonging in the classroom. Jennifer shows how sentence starters, vocabulary lists, and partner talk are inclusive teaching and instructional strategies that boost student participation for English learners and anxious kids alike. She shares quick checks, like a fist of five and whiteboards, as active learning tools that give you real data without another formal test. Then we turn to relationships. Jennifer shares how to open parent communication with curiosity, why family partnerships work like a triangle between school, home, and child, and how to hear feedback from your principal without getting defensive. We close on what school leadership and instructional leadership teams can do right now: take things off new teachers' plates and map professional development across the first five years. In this episode: ➡️What still makes year one magical ➡️Why Pinterest classrooms work against student engagement ➡️Invitational small groups that build student motivation ➡️Parent involvement and the home-school connection with skeptical families ➡️Principal strategies and school improvement that protect new teachers 💫Check out part one & Jennifer’s most recent book:  📘 Letters to a New Teacher: Real Advice and Practical Strategies for Getting Started in Elementary Teaching. Chapters: 0:00 Welcome back 0:50 What's still magical about year one 2:30 The myth of the Pinterest-perfect classroom 5:30 Data, differentiation, and teacher jargon 8:00 Fist of five, whiteboards, and quick checks 9:10 Invitational small groups 11:10 Proving yourself to experienced colleagues 13:20 Building trust with skeptical families 16:10 Taking feedback from your principal 18:10 Patterns in mentoring new teachers 20:30 Take things off new teachers' plates 22:20 Tiered professional development for new hires Next week: Katherine Lewis White on learning debt and the difference between presenting and facilitating learning. Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027. If this is the kind of support you are looking for — someone to partner with you to think closely about your routines, your room setup, and the one student who keeps you up at night — let's get in touch.  You can find me on my website. Click the Coaching & Consulting tab to begin our thought partnership. #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #NewTeachers #TeacherSupport #ParentCommunication #SchoolLeadership #FamilyPartnerships #InclusiveTeaching #ProfessionalLearning When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

Nervous about meeting skeptical parents at the start of the school year? You're not alone. 💛 In this reel, educator Jennifer Orr shares how she built trust with families as a 25-year-old first-year teacher, and the two mindset shifts that make parent communication feel less intimidating and far more powerful. TIP #1: LEAD WITH CURIOSITY Instead of trying to prove yourself, invite caregivers to talk about their child. Ask questions like: • What does your child love to do outside of school? • What are they really good at? • How do they handle challenges when things get hard? Genuine curiosity shows families how much you care about their child, and it can help you understand where their skepticism comes from. TIP #2: REMEMBER YOU'RE A TEAM Jennifer describes the school, the family, and the child as a triangle, the strongest shape architects use to build bridges. Even when teachers and families don't see eye to eye, keeping that connection at the center of every conversation builds a stronger home-school connection and supports student success. 🎧 Hear more from Jennifer Orr in the part one of our conversation!  💬 What's your go-to question to ask families at the start of the year? Share it in the comments! Chapters: 0:00 How do you handle skeptical families? 0:08 Jennifer's first year as a 25-year-old teacher 0:25 Tip 1: Go in with genuine curiosity 0:32 Questions to ask caregivers about their child 0:58 Why curiosity builds trust 1:10 Tip 2: The school-family-child triangle 1:25 Working together, even when it's hard #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting  #ParentCommunication #TeachingTips #NewTeachers #FamilyPartnerships #HomeSchoolConnection #FirstYearTeacher #ProKidMindset #WholeChild #TeacherLife #BackToSchool #Shorts When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.