Removing the Work Around the Work
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
What happens when the invisible work built into the structure of schooling becomes so great that its consequences eventually show up in learners? In this episode of The Learning Counsel Report, LeiLani Cauthen talks with Sherri Wilson, Ed.D., principal of William Dandy Middle School in Broward County Public Schools, whose career has moved between classroom, school and district leadership, including service as Director of Innovative Learning. That macro-to-micro perspective gives Sherri Wilson an unusually clear view of the distance between what institutions decide and what educators must...
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From Pop-Culture to Classrooms: Driving Student Engagement Through Stories
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
With the release of Supergirl creating a flashpoint in pop culture, this episode explores how Warner Bros. Discovery, DC, and Discovery Education are turning superhero storytelling into powerful learning experiences for students. LeiLani Cauthen speaks with Euan Lampitt, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility at Warner Bros. Discovery, about the impact of the DC Superpowered Storytellers initiative and the partnership with Discovery Education. Together, the organizations have reached students through more than 3,200 schools and youth organizations, helping make creative,...
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Absent But Not Unwilling
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
Hear from guest Molly Hebert Loyd, CEO of Concentric Education Solutions about how her organization is leading the charge to solve an intractable problem in schools, chronic absenteeism, with a human solution.
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The Importance of Coherence in Classrooms
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
This podcast episode focused on the importance of coherence in classrooms and the integration of AI tools in education, featuring Sari Factor, Vice Chair and Chief Strategy Officer of Imagine Learning, and Jason Fournier, Senior Vice President of Product Design and AI. The discussion explored how curriculum-informed AI can support teachers by providing targeted resources and feedback while maintaining educational coherence, rather than relying on generic LLMs.
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The Importance of Coherence in Classrooms
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
This podcast episode focused on the importance of coherence in classrooms and the integration of AI tools in education, featuring Sari Factor, Vice Chair and Chief Strategy Officer of Imagine Learning, and Jason Fournier, Senior Vice President of Product Design and AI. The discussion explored how curriculum-informed AI can support teachers by providing targeted resources and feedback while maintaining educational coherence, rather than relying on generic LLMs.
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The Multi-Faceted Role for AI in School Choice Expansion
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
Listen in as LeiLani and Shaka Mitchell, Nashville-based lawyer, facilitator and national leader in education reform policy discuss the school choice expansion and the many different roles that AI is playing in the expansion.
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The Key to a School’s Competitive Relevancy
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
Schools must be in sync with Millennial parents and their Alpha Generation children with mobile communications that drive a sense of community spirit while increasing student recruitment and retention. The landscape of schooling has scattered into a multitude of options, especially with 29 States and Washington D.C. having at least one type of school choice program that includes vouchers. Find out how the right tech reduces everyone’s frustration and establishes a digital home, so your school is the choice made.
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AI vs Instructional Excellence: Crafting High-Quality Learning Experiences
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
AI is advancing rapidly, but not all applications lead to better learning. There’s a big difference between flashy, generative AI and the kind of AI that fuels real learning, especially in math. In this episode, Dan Tracy of MIND Education unpacks how thoughtfully designed, neuroscience-based programs can use AI to enhance, not replace, great instruction. Learn why effective AI in math education isn’t about automation, it’s about understanding how students learn. Learning becomes personal when students are actively thinking, visualizing, and problem-solving and that’s what great...
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Giving Teachers Time to Teach With Virtual Tutoring
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
With an epic teacher shortage, schools are turning to tutoring to solve for the 40% mixed ability teaching currently burdening teachers. What are the logistics of adding tutoring, how does it work? What subjects can be covered? Are tutors qualified and how does feedback work? Listen in as LeiLani and Connie Warren, M.Ed. , Senior Marketing Manager, BookNook discuss this important topic as schools prepare for even more losses of teachers going into the 2025-26 school year. High-impact tutoring has the potential to solve major problems schools have with both staffing and driving achievement for...
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7 Keys to High-Quality Math Instruction
Learning Counsel Report Podcast
In this episode, we welcome Dan Tracy, a leading expert in mathematics education at MIND Education. Dan shares his insights on one of the biggest challenges in achieving high-quality math instruction: shifting from a procedural approach to conceptual understanding that fosters deep mathematical thinking. Dan and LeiLani, explore how to create a math class full of discussion, experimentation, and trial and error, with teachers facilitating learning and challenging students with thought provoking questions. Whether you're working with individual students, leading professional...
info_outlineWhat happens when the invisible work built into the structure of schooling becomes so great that its consequences eventually show up in learners? In this episode of The Learning Counsel Report, LeiLani Cauthen talks with Sherri Wilson, Ed.D., principal of William Dandy Middle School in Broward County Public Schools, whose career has moved between classroom, school and district leadership, including service as Director of Innovative Learning. That macro-to-micro perspective gives Sherri Wilson an unusually clear view of the distance between what institutions decide and what educators must actually do to make those decisions work.
The conversation begins with the mounting “work around the work”: the materials, digital systems, adaptations, instructional assembly and implementation labor surrounding teaching itself. Sherri Wilson describes digital fatigue, the need to streamline resources for effectiveness and a persistent gap between policy and daily practice. She also makes the case that leaders cannot merely hand teachers another strategy and expect it to scale. Leaders have to remove the barriers that keep the intended work from actually happening.
Then the conversation reaches the consequence. Sherri Wilson describes what her school calls an “academic ER”, an intensive response in which student data drives modified scheduling and more targeted instructional groupings. She argues more broadly for decentralizing the traditional master schedule so resources and practitioners can move more responsively to learner needs.
The larger question is uncomfortable: Are schools continually asking exceptional people to compensate for structures that create too much work in the first place, perhaps by buying curriculum that doesn’t try to reduce workload? AI creates an opportunity to rethink that equation, not merely by helping educators do more, but by removing unnecessary work and giving more human capacity back to the actual work of teaching and learning.