22: Three Hacks that Solve Big School Problems
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
Jennifer Gonzalez
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2015
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When we try to solve school problems with committee meetings, district-wide initiatives and new policies, change can be slow as molasses. But we are lucky enough to live in a new era, a time when teachers no longer have to wait for top-down solutions--you can hack so many problems yourself, using the resources that are already available to you. In this episode, I share three hacks that can solve big school problems, straight from my brand-new book, Hacking Education.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 22 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | In this episode, I'm going to share three hacks that solve big school problems. |
| 0:20.5 | Hey, it is so great to be back. I took a little bit of time off this summer |
| 0:24.5 | just to kind of plan things and get some new episodes into the pipeline |
| 0:29.5 | and I'm back with what we're going to go ahead and call season two. |
| 0:33.5 | And so really happy to be here. I'll just give you a little bit of information |
| 0:38.5 | before I get started on today's topic. I have got some new icebreakers available for you. |
| 0:45.5 | If you're a teacher, especially if you're a 6-12 teacher, and you want to start the year off |
| 0:51.5 | with some great icebreakers to kind of get help the kids get to know each other. |
| 0:57.5 | I have created a set of three really good ones. I've got them on PowerPoint. |
| 1:03.5 | So all you do is you just load that PowerPoint up. You put it in slideshow mode. |
| 1:08.5 | And each one of these is just, it's like a conversation starter. |
| 1:13.5 | So one of them is called this or that where you basically put up a question |
| 1:17.5 | and if the student disagrees with the statement, they move all the way to one side of the room. |
| 1:21.5 | And if they agree with the statement, they move all the way to the other. |
| 1:24.5 | And they've got to kind of argue about what their opinion is on that. |
| 1:30.5 | There's another one where students have to sort of line up. |
| 1:34.5 | Like they'll have to line up in birthday order or they have to line up by order of their shoe size. |
| 1:38.5 | Or they'll have to gather up together with other students who share something in common with them. |
| 1:44.5 | Students who all have the same favorite season of the year or something like that. |
| 1:48.5 | And so what's nice about these games is that they don't really require the students to like embarrass themselves or do anything really corny. |
| 1:58.5 | They're just really genuine ways of getting students to discover things that they have in common. |
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