The Guerrilla PD podcast: Recent Episodes
Stefan Troutman
The Guerrilla PD Podcast is about creating and harnessing the power of personalized professional development. Interviews with teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and students provides insight into transformative pedagogical practices that prepare our students for their future.
In the first episode back after who knows how long, I recorded my thoughts on how and why we need to think differently about the way we offer professional learning for teachers.
Working to train our new puppy over the last several months has given me a fresh perspective on how to instill intrinsic motivation in the classroom. I took 15 minutes to record some thoughts on the subject!
On a daily basis I feel like I am muttering to myself "ah man... I am really not qualified to have an opinion on this". When that happens, I reach out to people who have more experience and expertise than I do... it's a deep pool!
This particular instance was about how to transition math instruction into a blended learning environment. I sat down with Chris Kalmbach to pick his brain, and true to the name of this podcast, decided in the moment to record our conversation and make a podcast out of it. I learned a lot and hopefully it will help as we think about how we need to transform our instruction in order to be successful while teaching in 2020.
Pablo H. and Kristi C. describe their distance learning classrooms at the beginning of the 2020 school year. These two teachers are in pretty unique situations and that required them to radically rethink the way they delivered the learning experience in order to be successful. Listening to them was fun, energizing and inspiring! This is the type of thinking and work it takes to not only survive, but thrive in public education 2020!
In this episode, I talk to Steve Murphy and Jen Longmire from the Enumclaw School District about the differences in asynchronous and synchronous teaching and how those two concepts relate to learning loops.
As MLSD kicks off the 2020 school year, teachers are struggling to transform years of honed instructional practice into activities that can maximize relationships with students in the first weeks of remote learning. It is truly inspiring to watch a whole group of teachers work to innovate and forge new territory together.
The only problem is, with a staff this large, conversations happen in silos. Teachers are doing great things, connecting with students and developing "learning loops" to support their students, but they are only talking about it with a few other teachers. These next few episodes are a concerted effort to get those stories out to a wider audience.
Tricia Albright and Jennifer Hammer sat with me for close to an hour to reflect on their first week, and it was incredible!
In episode four, we start to scratch the surface of the beast that is grading. You will hear the second half of my conversation with Kelli Yager, Triscia Hochstatter, and Chris Kalmbach. MLSD has been on a journey for a few years to transition to standards based grading at the elementary level, and Kelli and Chris have been instrumental in that shift/support. As we move into the 2020 school year, rethinking grading is a top priority because of the uncertainty, but also to level the playing field for all learners. These three had a lot of great insight!
These first four episodes are best consumed in conjunction with Modules 1-4 of the Flexible Learning Bootcamp being delivered to MLSD in the Fall of 2020. Each episode has a companion blog, which can be found at guerrillapd.blogspot.com.
Tyler Rablin’s Webinar: https://youtu.be/K6ho7eNKUQo
Grading For Equity: https://gradingforequity.org/
Stefan’s YouTube channel, which has a much higher subscriber count than Monica McAtee’s, can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8rRcq2eb52i1YLuVKx9tA?view_as=subscriber
Music from The Mini Vandals: “Kick the Can”
In episode three, Learning Pathways: Differentiation is not “Dumbing Down”, Kristy Karman, Kathleen Collins, and Jennifer Hammer talked intentionally about Universal Design for Learning and differentiation. While this episode only briefly discusses learning pathways directly, the true power of creating a structured pathway for your students is differentiation, choice, and student agency.
Kristy Karman and Kathleen Collins are the MLSD Special Education coaches, secondary and elementary respectively. Jennifer Hammer is the former EL coach for MLSD and is entering her second year back in the classroom where she works to support emerging ELs and Long Term English Learners.
These first four episodes are best consumed in conjunction with Module 1 of the Flexible Learning Bootcamp being delivered to MLSD in the Fall of 2020. Each episode has a companion blog, which can be found at guerrillapd.blogspot.com.
Stefan’s YouTube channel, which has a much higher subscriber count than Monica McAtee’s, can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8rRcq2eb52i1YLuVKx9tA?view_as=subscriber
Music from The Mini Vandals: “Kick the Can”
In episode two, Kelli Yager, Triscia Hochstatter, and Chris Kalmbach talk about the intersection of standards and assessment. Starting with these fundamentals is crucial when kicking off the school year with distance learning, or any kind of modified work environment. These three are well-versed in these topics, which is apparent after listening to them talk, and they were fully immersed in this work before remote learning.
I only have permission from Chris to provide his contact information at this point:
Email: ckalmbach@mlsd161.org
Twitter: @ChrisKalmbach
These first four episodes are best consumed in conjunction with Module 1 of the Flexible Learning Bootcamp being delivered to MLSD in the Fall of 2020. Each episode has a companion blog, which can be found at guerrillapd.blogspot.com.
Stefan’s YouTube channel, which has a much higher subscriber count than Monica’s, can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8rRcq2eb52i1YLuVKx9tA?view_as=subscriber
Music from The Mini Vandals: “Kick the Can”
In the inaugural episode of the Guerrilla PD Podcast, Monica McAtee and Stefan Troutman discuss some foundational strategies and tools required to be successful in a flexible and seamless learning environment.
Monica is the K-8 Instructional Technology Coach for Moses Lake School District, and is a born and bred Moses Lake resident. Her YouTube channel, which has a significantly lower number of subscribers than Stefan’s can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOwGVqsAgETXM2MhHh6-YUg
Monica and Stefan discuss the importance of relationships when starting off the school year (especially in distance learning), a “Core 4” suite of tools, and the importance of parent communication.
These first four episodes are best consumed in conjunction with Module 1 of the Flexible Learning Bootcamp being delivered to MLSD in the Fall of 2020. Each episode has a companion blog, which can be found at guerrillapd.blogspot.com.
Stefan’s YouTube channel, which has a much higher subscriber count than Monica’s, can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8rRcq2eb52i1YLuVKx9tA?view_as=subscriber