James Sturtevant Hacking Engagement

When I retired from teaching high school last year, I worried about losing all of the social interaction that I got from teaching 150 students daily. So, I secured an adjunct position teaching aspiring educators at Muskingum University. I also teach refugees how to speak English. These teaching gigs have been a joy, but it’s a different life because I’m only teaching 3 days a week–which is also a joy. My new-found freedom affords me the opportunity to explore, grow, and take risks. I also want to keep expanding my human capital. Relationships make life worth living and I love forging new ones. One area of growth that I’ve been exploring this year is fitness. I have so much more time to workout now and I love it. I researched ways that I could challenge myself physically and grow myself socially. At the end of my exploration, I concluded that I should join a Crossfit gym. Crossfit significantly challenges you physically and promotes community. Crossfit gyms are highly social places. That was exactly what I was looking for. I found an excellent local gym–Crossfit Polaris . Kristi Eramo is the owner and a prominent games athlete. I love her teaching style and was excited to learn from her and the other coaches at Polaris. Unfortunately, the Covid 19 Pandemic short-circuited my plans. After just 3 introductory classes, the gym was forced to close. I was left high and dry. So, I got busy coaching myself. I pulled the workout of the day (WOD) off the Crossfit site and started doing them. I watched training videos and listened to podcasts hoping to improve my olympic lifting form. Lifting is a key part to Crossfit. I decided that I was going to take one of the most challenging olympic lifts–the snatch, and learn how to do it. Here’s a description of a snatch:The snatch can be described as jumping a barbell through a range of motion and receiving it into an overhead squat. And here’s a brief video if you’d like to see a young woman perform one expertly. You have to be strong, mobile, explosive, coordinated, and courageous to perform this lift. I’m starting from ground zero, but I’m determined to learn this lift. When I searched for Olympic lifting techniques on Google, YouTube, and podcasts, one name kept materializing–Mike Burgener. Now all of you who’re inclined to exit this podcast because you’re not interested in learning about performing an olympic snatch, stop yourself. This program is not about lifting, it’s about teaching. And Mike Burgener is one of this nation’s premier educators. Here’s a bit about Coach Burgener:He has a BA from Notre Dame and played on their 1966 National Championship Football Team.He has an MS from the University of Kentucky in Exercise Physiology, where he was also the strength coach.He was a captain in the Marine Corps.He’s a Senior International Weightlifting Coach for the United States.He’s considered the Godfather of Olympic Lifting for Crossfit.And for decades, Coach Burgener was a proud public educator–teaching high school physical education in California.I got to know Coach Burgener because I sent him an email asking a question. The next thing I knew, I was in his Level 1 weightlifting class. This is a special man and he’s going to talk about his mentors and challenge you to not only listen to the ones you already have but to be open to new ones.

I just checked the human toll of Coronavirus before I wrote this sentence. The US is on the verge of 20,000 deaths and the world has surpassed 100,000. It’s been awful to watch these numbers climb. And I, like hopefully you, remain isolated in my home reading way too many news stories about what’s going on in largely isolated cities and towns and overcrowded hospitals. The whole thing is sad, weird, and unsettling. I will say, however that during this dark time, I’ve gotten myself into a routine with some positives. I’m getting more sleep because I don’t have to set an alarm. I’m eating healthy because my wife and I prepare every meal, with the exception of our once a week pizza night. I workout for 90 minutes most days. And my wife and I enjoy sitting down and watching a program together each night before bed.But those are the only positives I can muster. Man do I miss interacting with people. I get really sick of interacting on my computer or phone and also sitting at my desk. I’m seriously thinking about purchasing a standing desk just to keep moving. Now if you’re getting sick of social distancing–think how sick your students are of navigating online lessons. Sadly, they have a ways to go till school is out. This situation reminds me of a January in the late 1970s. I was in high school and the Midwest got clobbered by a catastrophic blizzard. We were out of school for a month. There was no interaction between the school and students at home. There was no internet and no social media. My friends were able to walk to one another’s houses. There was no social distancing, but the snowy environment did lead to a lot of cabin fever. My friends and I treated the entire time like summer vacation. We played in the snow for a month and forgot about school work. We desperately missed seeing our friends and going to basketball games and school dances, but otherwise we just rolled with it. Please remember that although your students are probably bored, given the option between watching Netflix or doing school work, for many, would be an easy choice. When crafting lessons, starting from that understanding will help. I recently participated in a Times 10 Roundtable Webinar offering ideas for teachers on how they could instruct their students remotely during this bizarre time. I was joined on the panel by Joe Sanfelippo a superintendent from Wisconsin and Chrissy Romano-Arrabito an elementary teacher from New Jersey. The panel was moderated by Mark Barnes who’s the founder of Times 10 Publications. The discussion was well balanced because we got a broad perspective from Joe, and a younger student and economically disadvantaged perspective from Chrissy. I focused on specific ways you could stay connected with students. I’ll expand on those ideas in this episode. I’ll focus on 3 tools that can maintain and perhaps facilitate deeper relationships with your kids during this challenge. These platforms will also help you teach your classes. I’ll offer these tools as suggestions, if you have something you’ve utilized that works better for you, go for it. I’m more interested in ends and not means.

Well, for at least the next 2 weeks, I’m forced to teach my class in a virtual fashion. All teachers in the great state of Ohio are in the same boat. A few years back, Columbus State Community College commissioned me to create an online version of one of their history classes. It was a tremendous learning experience. When I embarked on that journey, I kept reciting a mantra, Make lessons impactful and engaging. I was able to achieve this throughout the creation process and it’s guiding my efforts over the next few weeks. I learned last week that Muskingum, like all higher ed institutions in Ohio, would be closed until the end of March. My experience creating online content gave me a dose of confidence that I could weather this storm. In this episode, I’ll share my template. This template is grounded in Bloom’s Taxonomy and you can use it every week until the crisis eases and we get back to normal.

I always referred to February as the Dog Days of Education. The weather, at least for those of us who reside in the northeastern quadrant of these here United States, is pretty bleak. Any newness of the second semester is long gone. As the weather warms, at least just a bit, your opportunities for snow days diminishes and even if it’s still frigid and snowy, perhaps you’ve already used your allotted quota. Spring break, that magical academic elixir, is still a ways off. Students, teachers, and even administrators are starting to get, as my mom used to say, a bit bucky. All of these factors make the topic of this episode a perfect antidote for the February blahs.About a month ago, my publisher Mark Barnes tasked me to evaluate some of x10 Publishing’s books. One of my assignments was to assess Quit Point. As part of the review process, I first checked out the Amazon author’s page. I was floored to learn that Adam Chamberlin and Svetoslav Metijic live only 20 miles from me. My old school competes against theirs in sports frequently. Because of our proximity, I was immediately intrigued by these guys. I was further intrigued as I reviewed their book. Quit Point is all about how teachers can spot when students are about to give up and then what teachers can do about it. I cannot imagine any educator who possesses an ounce of empathy not being fascinated with this topic. And isn’t mid February a perfect time to take action when the symptoms of apathy are often acute? If you feel that way...and hopefully you do, please give this episode a try and then check out these guy’s book. As you listen to them articulate their ideas, I’m certain you’ll find them engaging, funny, and totally on point.

The State of Ohio, where I’ve taught my entire career, is not unique. Students in certain classes that the state considers essential are subject to end of course exams. Student performance on these standardized assessments are a key ingredient in their instructor’s evaluation. If you teach one of those classes, you’re hopefully all about progress monitoring. The last thing you want is to get a terrible surprise when your student’s performances materialize. Throughout the semester, you want to make darned sure your kids are on track. I was one of those teachers, however, that did not have a state-mandated end of course exam. I taught electives. In Ohio, the alternative for teachers who teach electives is for them to complete an SLO–which stands for Student Learning Objective. You were asked to demonstrate with data that your students grew during your class. Sadly, and I feel badly confessing this, this requirement was a bit of a joke. All you had to do was to give a really hard preassessment. The students would struggle on this benchmark and then do much better on their finals. It was therefore easy to demonstrate with data student growth. As a consequence, and once again I’m not proud to admit this, I didn’t do much progress monitoring in my elective classes. I felt really guilty about my past efforts when I began teaching assessment to college students. I was upfront about my slacker efforts in the past and I then became passionate about encouraging my future educators to frequently monitor student progress regardless of their curriculum. To help in this endeavor, I brought in a guru. Ryan McLane was a high school social studies teacher, the principal at a middle school, the principal of an intermediate building, and now he’s an elementary principal and the district director of special education. He’s also the author of Your School Rocks. He’s observed, managed, and conducted progress monitoring at various levels and in diverse subjects. He also does a magnificent PD on progress monitoring. My students loved his presentation, but more importantly, they felt empowered. They’re now anxious to answer the following questions in their upcoming job interviews: How do you know if students are learning?What are you going to do for those who struggle?These are important questions for any teacher–particularly if you teach an elective. Ryan will talk in this episode about how elective teachers can become progress monitoring officinados. And before you start wondering, This is a podcast on engagement. What does progress monitoring have to do with that? Stay tuned. Ryan is all about engagement. He’s going to explain how you can take a concept that seems dry and clinical–progress monitoring, and make it engaging and empowering for students and teachers.

When I was in my early 30's, I got the 7-year-itch. NO, NO, NO...not to split from the lovely Mrs. Sturtevant, far from it. I was questioning my commitment to education. I was an ambitious competitive young guy. My college peers were climbing corporate ladders. They were wearing suits to work and bringing in some serious bank. They seemed so much more adult.I've always been goal-oriented, which was fine for the first few years in teaching when I was still figuring out the job. But my early 30's I found myself wondering, Can I be satisfied doing this till my mid-50's?I've always been a person of action and so I determined it was time to take some. I left Education to become a salesperson in the private sector. I reasoned that I possessed a good skill set for sales. I was right, but guess what? I was miserable in my new role. On my hasty exit from my classroom, I totally failed to inventory the wondrous positives of being teacher. I was a popular guy in my school and I loved my students. The first 5 minutes of every class was always devoted to bonding. I would describe what was going on in my life and the students would share about their existences. I totally took this magnificent bond with my students for granted. In the private sector, no one cared what I was reading, what workout I was doing, or what I made Mrs. Sturtevant for dinner the previous night. Instead my interactions were highly transactional. After a 1-year sales gig, I hightailed it back to the classroom. It was so good to be home. It was a magnificent learning experience that I still value and it helped me become a much better and more content educator. But my early frustrations with teaching were certainly not unique. Let's face it, teaching doesn't possess many extrinsic motivators. I don't know that that is necessarily a bad thing. Merit pay has never really delivered on its mythical promises. But there are darned few career advancement opportunities. You could become an administrator, a head coach, a department head, or a guidance counselor. If you're ambitious, you must content yourself with creating the best classroom experience for your students. That's wonderful objective, but perhaps, we need some more options. And this dear listener is where my buddy Michael Brilla walks on the Hacking Engagement stage. Michael is a passionate social studies teacher who's been on this program before. He starred on Episode 105 promoting StoryMaps as a marvelous platform. I loved his energy and I utilize StoryMaps every semester, even with my college students. Michael is creative and ultra-approachable. His students just love him. So why in the world would he leave his magical classroom and assume a new role? Please stay put dear listener and learn the what, the why, and the how. Who knows you might come up with an idea to explore this new year.

I once had a veteran colleague lament about the state of teaching. He meditated, WIth all the that they're making us do, if I was in college today, there's no way I'd major in Education. Apparently, he's not alone in this sentiment. If one searches "Decline in Education Majors", one will find plenty of evidence that many undergrads feel exactly as my colleague expressed. Here's a link to 2019 Forbes article which relies heavily on data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Over the past decade, Education has suffered the largest exodus compared with other majors–a decline of 19%. While I'm sad that declining numbers of young Americans consider teaching a wonderful career path, this phenomenon does create wonderful opportunities for potential teachers. In the future, jobs may be easier to secure. Teacher pay may have to increase because of supply. This episode will feature one of these aspiring teachers–Joce McBurney-Buell.Last summer, I traveled to Muskingum University to meet with the my dear friend the outgoing Department Chair Rae White. In the midst of our day, she invited me to lunch in the gymnasium which was hosting freshmen students who were also being oriented to campus. Rae and I plopped down at a table full of young people to break bread. Seated beside me was a young woman who seemed to know a lot more about Muskingum than an incoming freshman. As you probably guessed, Joce was my table neighbor and was about to embark on her junior year. She was on campus that day to help ease freshmen with their significant transition from home and high school. As we interacted, I was thrilled to learn that Joce is an Education major. As I observed her and interacted with her, it became quickly apparent that this young women had it going on. I just knew–and it's been confirmed by future interactions, that she was destined to present to my Intro to Education students, which she did last week, and appear on my podcast, which is this episode.We'll discuss her goals and motivations, but what really excites me is what Joce represents. Students such as her point to a bright future in American education. The young people that I interact with in the Education major are excited, driven, and passionate about the calling. Don't get too discouraged about the Forbes article. There are some magnificent young teachers on the horizon.

2 years ago, I was teaching high school and our building principal setup the Remind App for our staff. I must confess that at first I found the app annoying. The flurry of messages I was receiving from our fearless leader was invasive. Granted, many of the messages were germain to being a teacher at our school and some of them were essential such as, We're on a 2-hour delay and Don't forget, I'm observing you tomorrow. Grudgingly, I began to acknowledge the value of this new mode of communication and collaboration.This fall, I embarked on a new education journey as an adjunct at Muskingum University. I decided to give Remind a try with my students. I quite simply embraced the old cliché, When in Rome, do like the Romans. Over the past decade, I'd experienced the frustration of unrequited emails sent to students. Young folks aren't big fans of emails, but they text the hell out of one another. Remind embraces this proclivity. The messages come through the recipient's device as a text and the receiver can then respond. But Remind isn't just a group thing. Teachers can message students or parents individually and then carry on conversations just with them.On its surface, Remind may seem like it's ripe for inappropriate communication between students and teachers. If those anxieties are stirring in you, please visit this page to read what Remind has to say about its commitment to security and protecting students.To help describe how this app works from the student perspective, I conscripted some of my current primary sources. Taylor Clemons, Rader Felumlee, and Macy McAdams are my current students. These magnificent future teachers will also speculate on how they'll utilize this app in their eventual classrooms.

Last year, I was teaching high school and our administration assigned a book study to the staff. We read and collaborated on 15 Fixes for Broken Grades by Ken O'Connor. This iconic book is an interesting and provocative read. It challenges standard operating procedure in terms of the way students are assessed. The fix that stirred the pot the most amongst our faculty was Fix #2:Don't reduce marks on work that is submitted lateIn the program, I mistakenly refer to Fix #2 as Fix #4. On its face, Fix #2 makes sense. You don't want to punish a behavior academically. But, wouldn't Fix #2 encourage procrastination and irresponsibility?Interestingly enough, during my first day this past week with my college students, i challenged them to collaborate in groups on the creation of class norms. One topic that all struggled with was how to deal with late work. To a group, students were in favor of score reduction. I found this fascinating and so we embarked on a magnificent tangential conversation on should an instructor, which they all hope to be one day, punish a behavior academically? The ensuing conversation caused a titanic paradigm shift in many of my students. This episode might be similar to the discussion in my class last week in the sense that you might think about this issue differently.I'll discuss this fascinating idea thoroughly this week with Josh Frame. Josh is a middle school principal and he embraces the idea that students should not suffer academically for behaviors.We'll talk about how he sold this idea to his staff, how he managed the pushback, and how he's adapted his school's response to students who are not appropriately pursuing learning.

I wanted to produce an episode before school started and I wasn’t sure if it was going to materialize. Starting next week, I’ll be teaching all new classes, at a new school, and at the college level. It’s been a busy summer, but I’m excited to embark on my next teaching journey. This episode is short and simple, but it has tremendous potential to positively impact the way your class operates and student learning. 10 years ago, my room was cluttered. My wife has a label for people like I was...He’s a piler. That label was true. I did have a lot of piles of paper stacked in chaotic places around my room. I wasn’t proud of this, but when all of my students filed into my class each morning and the day just erupted into frenzied activity, my energies turned towards engaging them and not organizing the flurry of papers that I distributed and then collected.This unsatisfactory situation changed when my school started using Google Drive. The piles of paper disappeared, my drive was organized and easily accessed, and my uncluttered room took on a Feng Shui-like character. I was transformed into such a paperless fan that I decided to create a Landing Pad for many assignments. This virtual collaboration igniter is what I’ll highlight in this episode. It’s not revolutionary, but it’s powerful. I thought it would be useful to share a great and simple idea on the last week of summer vacation.

There's a significant potential that 2 things may happen when you return to school in a couple of weeks:1. Your classroom may be more diverse2. Donald Trump's Send her back tweet may just come up in class discussionIn terms of diversity, the demographic trends towards a browner America are indisputable. Sadly, many American schools both urban, suburban, and rural are defying this trend and remaining largely monochrome. If you teach in such a school, you do your students no favors by ignoring America's increasingly diverse trajectory. Your students will most likely work in highly diverse environments in the future. And if you teach in such a school, you also have a moral obligation to make certain that students whom are different are not marginalized.Fatima Dahir certainly felt different when she entered her largely, white and conservative public middle school classroom in suburban Columbus wearing her hijab. Today, she's thriving as a student leader at Ohio State University, but middle school was brutal. In this episode, she'll talk about her significant struggles, along with her social and academic metamorphosis. She'll discuss how teachers can embrace ostracized students. She'll also provide interesting perspective on the controversial statements by Donald Trump and how an educator might cope with classroom debate inspired by this issue. Please listen. This is an important show!

Even though it's only June, start thinking about specific ways to create an outstanding school year next fall. That's what I've done throughout my career. Summer gives you breathing room. It allows you to reflect, adjust, and then speculate and plan.One thing that I'm passionate about is teacher well-being. Aside from job satisfaction being a wonderful thing in its own right, happy teachers are better for kids. But acquiring profound job satisfaction may indeed take some planning, adjusting, and paradigm shifting on your part.In pursuit of helping my dear listener obtain that noble goal, I recorded this program. It includes 4 learning targets that will lead to greater teacher fulfillment. Each target will be accompanied by suggestions on how to manifest the target into your professional life. While some of my suggestions may not move you and many you probably do already, it's my belief that you'll be exposed to at least a few ideas that you'll love and want to implement. By doing so, you may just transform next fall. I hope you enjoy the program. It's good to be back behind the mic!Teacher Well-Being Learning Targets:I’m a positive citizen of my schoolI embrace delayed gratification.I prioritize my well-beingI’m grateful to be a teacher

In the late summer of 1985, I experienced my first day of teaching at Mount Vernon High School in North Central Ohio. That steamy summer day was the inaugural faculty meeting. You know...the one where all the veteran teachers stare at the newbies as they're introduced. Before my principal, Mr. George Perry began the unveiling process, he paid homage to a retiring teacher. Up stepped a nondescript middle-aged man named Art Cassell. Mr. Perry began, "When Art started teaching in the fall of 1955..." Those were the last words I heard. I panicked! 1955...1955...I wasn't alive in 1955. How in the hell does anyone teach high school for 30 years, I thought. Then, I started to project into the future, "Will that be me in 2015? Will I be the old guy waddling up there to get my official pat on the back? I'll be like a museum exhibit." I quickly learned, however, that teaching is a wonderful adventure. I couldn't get over how much I loved the work. I couldn't fathom in 1985 that I'd still be teaching high school in 2019, but here I am, at least, for a few more days. At the end of this week, I'll no longer teach high school.This episode will explain exactly why at this juncture in the spacetime continuum I'm transitioning into a new role. Rest assured, this podcast will continue. In fact, in my new role preparing tomorrow's educators at the college level, I'll be inspired to dive even deeper into what creates engaging instruction. And, I'm thrilled that I'm simply migrating to a new classroom. I'll still be in front of students teaching. Rest assured, this podcast will also continue.Thanks for listening so far and there's more to come!

I remember late April of my rookie year as a teacher. I was toast! All my great teaching strategies were worn out. I was scrambling trying to find innovative and engaging ways to present lessons. It was a loooooong 6-weeks till summer vacation.In early June when I did my post-mortem on the year, I vowed to always keep some ideas in the vault for that last 6-weeks home stretch. In fact, I’ve always encouraged rookie teachers to do the same.I have 5 weeks left of school. The weather is warming up here in the Buckeye state. The springtime panorama, which is the window of my classroom, is getting darned inviting. Conversely, reliable teaching strategies are becoming a bit stale. They’ve worked brilliantly all year, but now with the end in sight, I have to change things up in order to maintain that crucial student engagement.This episode will focus on using Plickers as a classroom discussion tool. I first learned of this rather amazing platform while I was conducting PD 2 years ago. I was helping teachers individually when one of the attendees asked, Jim...have you ever used Plickers? I responded, No. I listened to her describe the platform and thought, That sounds fascinating and easy. I want to give it a try. I finally got around to it. The last 9-weeks of the year I love experimenting with new platforms. It was high time for my Plickers' maiden voyage.

118-Keeping it Fresh with Talking Sticks