Podcasts · Education

School of Practice

Edutopia

29 episodes

School of Practice, the first podcast from the team at Edutopia, brings you ready-to-use strategies to improve your teaching today. Join us for 15-minute episodes filled with smart, pedagogy-shifting advice—backed by research and test-driven by teachers just like you.

Episodes

  1. I Stopped Giving Tests. Here’s What I Do Instead

    · 22 min

    It started with a student writing a joke on a sticky note: “I hope we have no tests this year.” Five years later, high school teacher Jodie Deinhammer’s science classroom remains test-free—and her students are still…

  2. 9 Simple (But Transformative) Classroom Management Shifts

    · 24 min

    Have you ever had a lesson get derailed by a power struggle with a student? Or is there a student in your class who you got off on the wrong foot with, and you’re not sure of the best way to repair the relationship?…

  3. The Extraordinary Impact of Drawing to Learn

    · 22 min

    Did you know that drawing can be a learning superpower—even for students who claim they’re not good at it? Research shows that when kids attentively sketch something they’re learning about, they tap into the visual,…

  4. 5 Common Teacher Mistakes and How to Fix Them

    · 25 min

    Everyone makes mistakes—including teachers. While educators are quick to reframe student mistakes through a growth mindset lens, they’re less forgiving when it comes to their own slipups. But teacher errors often…

  5. How Nicholas Ferroni is Rewiring His Classroom for Human Connection

    · 23 min

    Like a lot of other educators, Nicholas Ferroni is trying to find his way back to a time before technology was the default classroom mode. He thinks he was a better teacher back then—and kids acted more like kids.…

  6. Research: 5 Principles of Superb Classroom Design

    · 28 min

    Before there’s curriculum or calendars or lesson plans, there’s the classroom space itself, stripped of last year’s posters and anchor charts. Where should teachers begin? We’ve got the answers. In this back-to-school…

  7. 3 Outstanding Community-Building Activities for Back to School

    · 23 min

    How do you lay the foundation for real community in your classroom? Teachers know (and the research supports this) that when kids feel safe and connected in school, they’re better equipped to focus on learning. The…

  8. How to Jumpstart Belonging in Your Classroom From Day One

    · 25 min

    Do you want to build a vibrant classroom community this year, but you’re not sure where to start? Research shows it’s well worth the effort—and the first week of school is the perfect time to lay that foundation. When…

  9. 11 Ways to Improve Teacher Well-Being

    · 24 min

    Teaching is hard (often draining) work, and educators’ instincts about what will bring relief are frequently wrong—just as they are for most people. That’s because our minds deceive us, says cognitive scientist and…

  10. Rethinking Zeros in the Grade Book

    · 24 min

    What’s your take on eliminating zeros from the grade book? Does your school have a no-zeros grading policy? Even if it doesn’t, you probably have opinions about it. Setting 50% as the minimum grading threshold is a…

  11. 14 Excellent Ways to End the School Year

    · 20 min

    The end of the school year can feel like the best––and worst––of times. On the one hand, it’s a great stretch because “the routines and procedures are set,” and the kids have their sights set on summer vacation, says…

  12. One Task, Many Doors: A More Effective Way to Differentiate

    · 21 min

    It’s a mistake to assume that good differentiation always means splitting students up into small groups, says Michael McDowell, an author, coach, and former teacher. A more effective approach, he says, is to design…

  13. Helping Students Overcome the Forgetting Curve

    · 22 min

    Have you ever delivered a lesson and felt your students were acing it, only to revisit the same information a week later and realize hardly any of the new content stuck? You just came up against the forgetting…

  14. How to Teach Students to Spot What’s Real, Fake—or Deepfake

    · 23 min

    Can your students spot what’s real and what’s AI-generated on TikTok and Instagram? How about when they’re researching topics for humanities classes, gathering sources in social studies, and preparing for math…

  15. How to Teach Deep Mathematical Thinking

    · 21 min

    Narrow, rigid math has “turned students off for generations,” says renowned researcher and Stanford mathematics professor Jo Boaler. Yet teachers often don’t have much choice when it comes to math curriculum—what’s…

  16. Smart Strategies to Improve Your Scaffolding

    · 22 min

    Getting scaffolding right—amid the messy reality of teaching 30+ students at different skill levels—is one of the toughest challenges in teaching. Done well, it looks like tactical magic: teachers seamlessly know how…

  17. Boosting Reading Comprehension for All Students

    · 19 min

    Maybe you’ve seen it in your classroom: Students who zip through chapters but then can’t tell you much about what they just read. To move those kids from fluency to sense-making, you’ve got to teach them the habits of…

  18. How to Use Formative Assessment Like an Expert Teacher

    · 21 min

    Have you ever been shocked when your students bomb a unit test after weeks of seemingly locked-in learning? Veteran educator Jay McTighe has the ultimate research-backed solution: formative assessment. In the…

  19. Handwriting Is Essential—Here’s How to Teach It

    · 21 min

    Did you know there’s a strong connection between the hand and the neural circuitry of the brain? As students learn to write letters by hand, they also learn to recognize them more fluently. This letter recognition…

  20. How to Talk About (and Normalize) Learning Accommodations

    · 22 min

    It’s a tricky (but very common) classroom dilemma: How do you talk about—and normalize—learning accommodations in class without singling anyone out in front of peers? Unfortunately, many teachers aren’t trained to…

  21. The Most Significant Education Research of 2025

    · 28 min

    Are you curious what the latest research reveals about everything from brain breaks to groundbreaking research on AI, cell phones, and handwriting in the classroom? Then you won’t want to miss this special year-end…

  22. How To Improve Student Note-Taking in 3 Smart Steps

    · 21 min

    When students take notes during a lesson, research shows they get just about 30 to 45 percent of the important information right on the first try. High school teacher Benjamin Barbour discovered this disturbing…

  23. Converting ‘Fast Finishers’ Into Self-Directed Learners

    · 20 min

    “I’m done, what’s next?” In every classroom, a handful of students will finish the work at warp speed. While the rest of the class is still mid-task, teachers must quickly pivot to keep the fast finishers busy, without…

  24. How to Teach Authentic Writing in the Age of AI

    · 22 min

    The idea that you’re not a writer unless you stare down a blank page and produce text—that’s about to change, says high school teacher Jen Roberts. In her classroom, AI is not the enemy. It’s a tool she uses to help…

  25. The Extraordinary Impact of Drawing to Learn

    · 21 min

    Did you know that drawing can be a learning superpower—even for students who claim they’re not good at it? When kids attentively sketch something they’re learning about, they tap into the visual, kinesthetic, and…

  26. How to Get Students to Ask for Help When They Need It

    · 17 min

    Humans are social creatures, hardwired to take cues from others. If students don’t see classmates asking for help, they assume they should avoid it too. But when help-seeking becomes visible in the classroom, it starts…

  27. A Flexible Seating Arrangement That Teachers Love

    · 18 min

    After trying numerous seating arrangements—including rows, blocks, and U shapes—educator Jay Schauer stumbled on a desk layout that outperformed them all. Edutopia’s community took notice. In this episode of School of…

  28. How to Use ‘The Look’ Like an Expert Teacher

    · 14 min

    It’s a powerful, non-verbal classroom management tool designed to curb off-task behavior without breaking the flow of learning. Here’s how to use it across grade levels. Crystal Frommert has been using “the look” in…

  29. Introducing Edutopia’s School of Practice

    · 1:13 · Trailer

    School of Practice, the first podcast from the team at Edutopia, brings you ready-to-use strategies to improve your teaching today. Join us for 15-minute episodes filled with smart, pedagogy-shifting advice—backed by…

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.