EP310 Unlocking the secrets of effective lesson design (with Gretchen Bridgers)
Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers
Angela Watson
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2024
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ever feel like you're spinning your wheels trying to improve your teaching, but not seeing the results you want?
In this episode, we delve into the transformative power of sequential lesson design with Gretchen Bridgers of Always a Lesson.
Gretchen is a teacher coach and trainer who has spent more than 2 decades mentoring and coaching educators, and leading professional development. has a fantastic podcast called Always a Lesson's Empowering Educators podcast which I often recommend to Truth for Teachers listeners, as there's a lot of overlap between Gretchen's mindset and areas of interest and my own. Her advice is really practical and spot-on. And, she recently published her third book, called, Always a Lesson: Teacher Essentials for Classroom and Career Success.
In our conversation you'll hear today, Gretchen breaks down some key ideas from that book. She counters the common narrative that classroom management is the first and most important thing to nail down, and reveals why lesson design is actually the secret sauce to transforming your classroom.
Join us as we explore:
The pitfalls of improving instructional skills in isolation
The "Teacher Success Pathway" and its four foundational bricks: lesson design, classroom management, student engagement, and student choice
Why a well-thought-out lesson plan can prevent classroom disruptions before they start
The importance of creating strong habits to free up cognitive load for both teachers and students
Learn how to identify and fill gaps in your current instructional strategies, avoid common pitfalls that even veteran teachers fall into, and use simple ideas like video self-reflection to revolutionize your teaching. Gretchen's fresh take on reusing what works (instead of constantly reinventing the wheel) is a total game-changer for busy teachers.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Episode 310 of Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers. I'm your host, Angela Watson, |
| 0:08.3 | and I'm here to speak encouragement into the hearts of educators and get you informed and energized for the week ahead. |
| 0:15.4 | Today I'm talking with Gretchen Bridgers of Always a Lesson, about how to unlock the secrets of effective lesson design. |
| 0:22.9 | Visit truthforteachers.com for an easy-to-read, easy-to-share version of this podcast episode. |
| 0:34.9 | This episode is brought to you in part by a really important podcast that I hope you'll check out. |
| 0:40.4 | It's called Opportunity Gap, How to Support Kids of Color Who Learned differently. |
| 0:45.9 | It's hosted by Julian Savedra, an assistant principal in Philadelphia who spent nearly 20 years working in public schools. |
| 0:53.3 | You'll hear Julian talk with parents and experts |
| 0:55.6 | to offer tools that will help you support your students. You can even share this free podcast |
| 1:00.7 | with kids' families, as it's also a wonderful resource for parents. To listen to Opportunity Gap, |
| 1:07.8 | just search for Opportunity Gap, how to support kids of color who learn differently, |
| 1:12.7 | in your podcast app. |
| 1:14.9 | That's opportunity gap, how to support kids of color who learn differently. |
| 1:21.1 | If you use Google Chrome, you need to know about my favorite free Chrome extension for teachers. |
| 1:28.9 | It's called brisk teaching, and it can instantly trim hours off the time it takes to write high quality |
| 1:33.9 | personalized feedback on student work. And that feedback tool is just one of 30 plus tools that |
| 1:40.1 | Brisk offers, including creating Google slides and Google forum quizzes. Add Brisk to Chrome for |
| 1:46.5 | free by heading to briskteaching.com. Today's episode is for the folks who feel like you're spinning |
| 1:56.2 | your wheels trying to improve your teaching, but you're not seeing the results you want. We're going to be |
| 2:02.7 | delving into the transformative power of sequential lesson design with Gretchen Bridgers of always a |
| 2:08.9 | lesson. Gretchen is a friend of mine who is a teacher coach and a trainer, and she spent more than |
| 2:15.5 | two decades mentoring and coaching educators, as well as |
... |
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