How should we approach making adjustments in the classroom to ensure we meet the needs of every learner? Dr. Ling Zhang joins us to discuss how US law and policy frame individualization and other requirements for tailoring instruction to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Focus on pacing toward common goals shows the most promise for legal compliance and learning gains. Later, we discuss an example course fully committed to student growth through interlocking systems of active, collaborative learning and minimizing grade-based motivation.

How do experienced teachers effectively monitor a classroom? We read an eye-tracking study comparing pre-service teachers with expert teachers that revealed more systematic patterns that were more resilient following disruptions. We discuss how teachers can make space to practice this element of classroom management. Later, we discuss how teacher encouragement shapes student motivation on major assessments. Our words of encouragement promote class engagement that itself boosts success.

Professional learning should be improving teaching, which ultimately should benefit students. We read a meta-analysis showing that effective teaching methods within professional development is far more likely to impact learning than the learning topic or time spent in the program. Later, we read a study of student perseverance that underscores the importance of establishing mastery goals with students, while avoiding extrinsic rewards, to increase their perseverance and improve academic performance.

A listener request led us to a paper on eye-tracking technology for emerging multilingual learners. However, our conversation will focus on problems related to AI use and disconnects between the use of technology in the classroom and the real needs of teachers. Later, we learn about how a person’s fear of evaluation influences their response - both positive and negative - to different kinds of feedback. We reflect on what this means for differentiation within feedback strategies and if our classroom culture can help move students away from fear of feedback.

In a neuroscience-focused episode, we start with a new model of how having agency influences how much our brains are learning from moment to moment. Building classroom routines that emphasize student choice, from tiny procedural choices to major learning decisions, can boost the positive impacts of dopamine on their brain’s learning pathways. Later, we read an experimental study of the impacts of emotional events on long-term memory. How can we leverage the benefits of positive emotional experiences in authentic, sustainable ways all year long?

Student collaboration is a powerful tool for learning in many contexts, and we read a meta-analysis that highlights the benefits to both the givers and receivers of help in peer tutoring situations. It seems to be almost categorically good… but the details of successful programs remain elusive. Later, we read about how group structure predicts student creativity. How do we teach processes that prepare students to be ready to be independent when creativity matters most?

Our season finale again reviews the most noteworthy papers from the past year. We reflect on hosting student data talks, the use of errors in the classroom, and more. We also spend time thinking about our goals for the types of papers we read and what kinds of “shoulds” (or “shouldn’ts”) we hope to get from them. Later, we share the results of a follow-up analysis of our past most noteworthy papers. Where are they now, and what do we hope to see from the papers we highlight each year in the field more broadly?

Education research, from technology to instruction to design, too often uses an instrumentalist approach that assumes the right tool or trick will simply solve a problem. Jason McDonald joins to talk about the need for entangled research that actually changes both the researcher and the system for the better. Later, we read The Opportunity Makers and reflect on how some important flaws put key findings at odds with most other educational research.

In this extra length episode, we talk with Dr. Imogen Herrick about her work developing Community Science Data Talks. These talks help students engage the local consequences of climate change to develop their STEM knowledge while navigating their emotional experiences with the data. Our ranging conversation touches on the need for local data sources, fostering student agency, and cultivating civic empathy and hope.

All professional learning occurs when teachers try things in their classroom and iterate to make it better. We reflect on the importance of articulating aspirational goals and supporting teachers as they iterate toward their goals as on-going professional development. Later, we grapple with how research on the impact of educational technology cannot exist outside of the instructional context. What problem does any given technology help teachers solve, and how effectively does it help teachers solve it?