*Note that these episodes are designed and written as podcast episodes and therefore created to be listened to, which I encourage you to do on your favorite podcast app or by clicking play above.

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**This post contains affiliate links, meaning if you purchase from some links in this post, I get a portion of the amount in order to keep the lights on at Teach On A Mission and to feed my family.  I appreciate your support, and want you to know that all of my recommendations are based on items I have used, loved, and have served my own sustainability as a working parent.

Just as it was true in my last episode, it’s true here too.  These 5 habits are not rocket science, not earth shattering, but they are slightly different from other tips I’ve seen because they aren’t just for teachers, and they also aren’t just...

*This post includes affiliate links that allow me to keep earn a small portion of the sale amount in order to keep the lights on at Teach On A Mission.  I appreciate your support!

This video’s sole purpose is to recommend some tools, gadgets, or resources that I know will help you better manage the insane pace of a teacher’s daily teaching life.  They are not top tech tools, they are not organization specific, they are simply things that allow me, and many other teachers I work with, to get a better grasp on life and managing all of the roles they play that are most important to them.

What roles do you play in life?  I guess the better question is, who are you?  You’re probably a teacher.  Are you also a mom or dad? Are you also a friend, a homeowner, a person who prioritizes health and taking care of your body?

Well this video will help you manage all aspects of who you are, not just who you are as a teacher.

Top 5 Tools for...

Have you ever Googled or looked up on YouTube the words “Why I Quit Teaching”?  Well, for research purposes for this podcast and my recently revamped YouTube channel, I have. And let me tell you, it is astounding the number of videos and posts out there that expound on this topic.

Begging for someone to listen - at social events, teachers find and talk to each other because they can relate. Everyone has had a teacher and been in school, therefore everyone can have an opinion on best teaching practices, yet no one wants to do the job.  Just look up the rates at which college students are getting degrees and certifications in education… it’s jaw dropping.

Keep fighting.  Gone are the days of the old condescending adage, those who can, do, those who can’t teach.  Guess what… it looks like almost no one can teach.  But you can teacher-friend.  You show up, and that’s better than most nowadays.  Take pride in...

Guess who’s back… back again?!? Ha - I bet every millennial listening to this right now is finishing that lyric, please know you are my people!

Hey all!  I am back after a much needed, but not anticipated hiatus from all things Sustainable Teacher Podcast, and in this episode I’m going to share what in the world has been going on here in our world that has kept me away, what I think about it, and what this space is going to look like moving forward. Because, you know, I’ve learned some things.

So if you are here for it and haven’t yet, please share the love by following my podcast, giving it a review telling me what you love about it, and that will help me know how to best serve you on this platform I love so much.

Alrighty, let’s get to it.

The Sustainable Teacher Podcast is Back!

1. How long it’s been - last episode was June 16th
2. What’s been going on
    
3. What I think about it
    
4. What’s the plan moving forward -...

Oh, the game of grades.  It’s the toxic consumption of our students' attention only on what grade they are paid with for every little move they make in your classroom rather than on the experience of learning that happens in their brain while a student of yours.

It’s as if you have to pay your students in the currency of grades for any “work” they do in your class, otherwise it won’t get done.  As if the work getting done is the goal - NO!  It’s not!  The learning that happens while doing the work is the goal, and yet our students can’t take their focus away from the work.

So how do overcome this game of grades?  How do we make the focus of our classroom on the learning that happens rather than the “work” that leads to grades?

I’ve actually addressed this topic already in episode 30 titled Overcoming the Game of Grades with Your Students.  So that episode is very much a precursor to this...

The most common question I get from teachers about making a more sustainable classroom or flipping their classroom is “Where do I start?”

You may be asking yourself this question before even considering if flipping your classroom is something you want to do, and I think you are absolutely justified in doing so because you want to know if it will be worth your time.

Well, when I answer this question, and what I’ll lay out for you in this episode is the fact that how you start your classroom is not just the answer to how you get started with step one, it’s also the exact thing you should be focusing on for each and every step you take and decision you make in your flipped classroom. 

What that means is that when you take this first step toward flipping your classroom, you’re also helping your future self by making each and every other step in the flipping process that much easier to take - saving you time and headache in the process.

After listening...

Welcome back to the Sustainable Teacher Podcast, or welcome for the first time if this is the first episode of the show that you’re listening to.  Either way, I’m so happy to have you listening in.  And I’m going to start off by saying that this episode will be a healthy dose of tough love.

I have all the love for my people - and my people are teachers.  They are educators through and through, and I love them.  But I also have tough love for you today. And I’ll say that a dose of tough love might not be exactly what you want today. Heck, it might not be what you need, because you really need an open ear to vent to.  And that’s healthy as well, but unfortunately, on this platform I can’t be that listening ear, so I encourage you to go and find it.  We have our Sustainable Teacher Podcast private community on Facebook that you are welcome to join and find a safe place to vent and express your concerns.  Be sure to...

Hey there teacher-friend and welcome back to the Sustainable Teacher Podcast, I’m so glad you’ve chosen to join us today, and man have you picked a good episode to land on.  I am so excited to have Trevor Muir on the podcast today.

Trevor’s roots are as a high school English teacher, and is now teacher, author, and speaker. He is the author of the books The Epic Classroom and The Collaborative Classroom. Trevor is a teacher at Grand Valley State University, was a national faculty member for the Buck Institute for Education, and is one of the Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation speakers. His work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Edutopia, EdWeek, and WeAreTeachers. He gave a TED Talk titled, "School Should Take Place in the Real World," at TEDxSanAntonio. Trevor’s Facebook page, The Epic Classroom, has inspiring videos that have been viewed over 30 million times. At the heart of Trevor’s work is the conviction that every student has the...

Here at Teach On A Mission and the Sustainable Teacher, we believe that building a sustainable classroom includes a very important player… which is, your students.  Empowering your students as learners is one of the most sustaining strategies you can implement in your classroom.

And that is what today’s episode is all about, empowering students in the reflection process, showing you exactly what student reflection can look like, giving you practical strategies to get your students doing some meaningful reflection tomorrow.

Because you know the value of hard work in the learning process, you understand the connection between effortful processing and performance on assessments, you understand the value in engaging in your classroom. 

Students don’t always see that, you know this.  You also know that telling them the value in all of these things isn’t going to do it for many of them.

Enter stage left, reflection that helps students make the...

In last week’s episode, episode 59 where I talked about streamlining your content in order to have the time to actually put relationships first, the main recommendation was to put your content delivery into video.  There are many reasons why, and if you haven’t yet, be sure to go back and listen to those suggestions, but this week’s episode on creating one space for your students is in the same vein as streamlining your content.

Are we going to talk about Binders, Interactive Notebooks, and Digital Notebooks, oh my?  You betcha.

But this episode is more about streamlining your classroom, especially the aspects of it that are student facing, so you can use more of your time focusing on what matters - connecting with your students.

So what we’re going to streamline today is what, rather where, exactly our students house all of their materials and necessities for our class, and go over the purposes of this one spot for your students.

As chaotic as...