246: How to Keep Teaching Well When DEI is Under Attack
Release Date: 03/06/2025
267: How Inquiry-Based Freewriting Can Deepen Student Writing
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
Teaching students to write well has always been challenging, and newer developments have made it even more difficult: The internet offers unlimited text to plagiarize, standardized testing has pushed us to teach more formulaic writing, and AI constantly offers to do our writing for us. Frustrated with her students' lack of confidence and the robotic style of their writing, language arts teacher Nashwa Elkoshairi tried adding freewriting before and after her inquiry-based units. The results, she says, were dramatic: Students became more confident as writers and their writing developed far more...
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266: Six Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2026
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
We're kicking off the year like we always do, with a round-up of six educational tech tools we think are worth a look. On the list this year: a site that offers fantastic STEM interactives, an AI-powered collaborative writing platform, a free, web-based sound editor, a tool that can turn any text into an infographic, a library of beautifully produced documentaries on current events, and an incredible project that connects makers with people who need assistive devices. My lead technology specialist, Marnie Diem, joins me to talk about them. ___________________________ Thanks...
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265: Growth Discourse: A Framework for Discussing Hard Topics with Students
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
We're living in a time when having a difference of opinion is a potential minefield of hurt feelings, emotional outbursts, and severed relationships. If this has caused you to avoid certain topics in your classroom, the growth discourse framework used by the School of Ethics and Global Leadership (SEGL) may offer a way to re-engage in these conversations. In this episode, I talk with SEGL founder Noah Bopp about how the growth discourse model works and how teachers can get started using it. ___________________________ Thanks to and for sponsoring the episode. To read a full...
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264: How Schools Can Support Neurodivergent Teachers
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
Neurodivergent educators, like those with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other forms of cognitive diversity, are essential voices in our schools. They bring innovation, empathy, and authenticity. Yet they often work within systems that weren’t built with them in mind, and this can make the job of teaching especially challenging. In this episode, we'll learn about the strengths neurodivergent teachers bring to the classroom and strategies that help them thrive from Emily Kircher-Morris, who is a mental health professional, neurodiversity advocate, and host of . ___________________________...
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263: Five Skills that Get Students to Take Ownership of Their Learning
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
If we're doing our jobs right as educators, students will gradually become independent, self-directed learners capable of monitoring, directing, and actively participating in building their own learning. But what if that's not happening? What if students continue to lean heavily on their teachers for step-by-step instructions on every task, never really taking the learning process into their own hands, and as a result, limiting their growth to only what their teachers happen to spoon feed them? In this episode, author Zaretta Hammond offers five "learn-to-learn" strategies we can coach in our...
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262: Three Fresh Strategies That Get Students Engaged With Texts
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
If your teaching requires students to read or work with texts, and things have gotten a little stale in the engagement department, this episode will give you some great new strategies to try. High school English teachers Susan Barber and Brian Sztabnik once felt the same way, so they curated tons of fun, interactive, interesting text-based activities in their new book, 100% Engagement: 33 Lessons to Promote Participation, Beat Boredom, and Deepen Learning in the ELA Classroom. In this episode, they'll share three of their favorites. ...
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261: How and Why to Use Concept Maps
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
Concept maps are graphic organizers or visual representations of knowledge. They're simple, they're low-tech, and they're incredibly powerful tools for learning. In this episode, cognitive scientist Dr. Kripa Sundar explains why concept maps are so impactful, then shares a handful of specific practices that will help you make the best use of them. Also joining us is Dr. Pooja Agarwal, editor of the book Smart Teaching Stronger Learning, which includes a chapter on concept mapping along with nine other high-impact teaching strategies. ...
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260: Seven Teaching Practices that Nurture Student Voice
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
At a time when test-driven reform has quieted student voices and marginalized perspectives are being pushed aside, we need student voice and agency more than ever. In this episode, I'm joined by Shane Safir, Marlo Bagsik, Sawsan Jaber, and Crystal Watson, authors of the new book, Pedagogies of Voice: Street Data and the Path to Student Agency. The book offers a “seed store” of small, replicable classroom practices that help students reflect, speak, and act with purpose. Each of the four authors shares one or two of their favorite practices that teachers can use right away to help...
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259: Making Project-Based Learning Accessible for Everyone
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
Project-based learning can be a powerful instructional framework, but it is often structured in ways that exclude students who need a different approach. Too often, PBL becomes a space where accommodations and differentiation fall by the wayside. The good news is that we don’t have to abandon PBL or dramatically overhaul it to make it work for diverse learners. In this episode, author and educator John Spencer shares five small but thoughtful structural changes we can make that will allow every student to thrive in a project-based environment. ...
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EduTip 33: Answer more questions with questions.
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
Answering student questions is faster in the moment, but redirecting is better in the long run. The next time a student asks you a question, pause before answering and see if you can point them toward finding the answer themselves. ------------------- Thanks to for sponsoring this tip. You can find written and video versions of these at .
info_outlineRecent executive orders have launched an attack on teaching for diversity, equity, and inclusion. How do you teach at this precarious time in history when so much work has been done to weave these values into so many of our materials and practices? The more I think about it, the more I think you may not have to change as much as it might seem. When I look over the years of articles and podcast episodes I have done in the service of supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, so many of the practices I've had the privilege to share would never get flagged by these directives. I thought it might be helpful for me to curate some of the most important teaching recommendations that have come through my platform for addressing inequities in schools.
Thanks to Listenwise for sponsoring this episode.
For links to all the resources mentioned in this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/dei-under-attack.