Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown

Jana Schmidt

What's Inside: In this episode, we chat with Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown and Jana Schmidt about their work as leaders in the field of literacy. Together Dr. Jill Brown and Jana Schmidt wrote Matching Reading Data to Interventions: A Simple Tool for Elementary Educators to serve as an accessible guide for teachers so they can better determine their student's instructional needs.

Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown has worked in the education field for 20 years as a teacher, literacy coach and Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education in a school district of 19,000 students. She is currently an Educational Consultant with Brown & Schmidt Consulting providing literacy training and support to teachers, leaders and school systems. Jana Schmidt has worked as an associate director in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis Department at the University of Missouri-Columbia and as an educational consultant. Jana served as a language arts coordinator for kindergarten through eighth grade in a school district with approximately 19,000 students.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Science of Reading

• The Simple View of Reading

• Scarborough's Reading Rope

• National Reading Report

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness

What’s Inside: In this episode, we chat with three dynamic educators working to change the way teachers collaborate, teach and learn in New Orleans: Nan Sterling, Dr. Jawan Brown-Alexander, and Adrienne Dowden.

Nan Sterling serves as the Executive Director of Instructional Quality with New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) where she provides opportunities to support charter schools with professional learning and curriculum implementation. Dr. Jawan Brown - Alexander is Chief of Schools at NSNO and Adrienne Dowden is an educational consultant and owner of ASD Educational Consulting Group, LLC. ASD a consulting company that specializes in providing on-going job embedded professional development who works with NSNO on their school-based initiatives.

Jawan, Nan and Adrienne share their experiences navigating the challenge of providing consistent, high-quality research -based professional development in a district made up of several different Charter management Organizations (CMO) while also providing the time and space for teachers to collaborate and learn across CMOs.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The New Teachers Project

• ASD Educational Consulting

• NSNO

• Isabel Beck

• Tim Shanahan

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

In this episode, we chat with Nita Cherise, state-level trainer and podcast producer at Glean Education about her experience as a school leader, trainer, and coach about what teachers need to know about literacy instruction.

Nita explores her experience rising through the ranks from teacher to coach to school leader. She talks about how she supported her students with high quality literacy instruction and the importance of bringing your whole self to the classroom.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• August, The Short Movie (Featuring Nita Cherise): http://caitlyngreene.com/august

• Debbie Diller: https://www.debbiediller.com/

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

What’s inside: Palo Alto Unified is widely recognized as the one of best school districts in California, but a dive into district literacy data reveals a different story.

In this episode we chat with Todd Collins, school board member at Palo Alto Unified School District, about his journey investigating how his district was supporting their “most challenged and least resourced students”.

His exploration led to an understanding of how all districts should look at their district data with an eye to equity and how doing so can reveal important opportunities for school improvement. Todd’s data dive also prompted him not only to learn more about literacy instruction best practices to help guide decisions he may make in Palo Alto related to his board duties, but also motivated him to create the California Reading Coalition, an initiative founded with the vision of bringing reading experts and change makers together to collaborate on issues regarding literacy improvement and equity specifically related to California.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• Palo Alto Unified: https://www.pausd.org/

• California Reading Coalition: https://www.careads.org/

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

What’s inside: In this episode, Andratesha Fritzgerald, Director of Teaching & Learning at the East Cleveland City School District and founder of  Education Consulting firm Building Blocks of Brilliance, joins us to talk about her life-changing, impactful work in and outside of the classroom as an instructor and fierce advocate of UDL (Universal Design for Learning). 

Andratesha shares her experiences building capacity in her students to affect social change as well as supporting and leading Teachers in implementing Anti-racist practices in instruction. 

In her latest book, Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success, Andratesha shares how implementing UDL can help teachers uncover the genius within each and every student. Through this book and her work in the field, Andratesha helps teachers create classroom environments that set students up for success by meeting their individual needs.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• Book: Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Pathways to Success: http://castpublishing.org/books-media/antiracism-universal-design-learning/

• Andratesha Fritzgerald’s Professional Development Organization: Building Blocks of Brilliance: https://www.buildingblocksofbrilliance.com/ 

• Universal Design for Learning: CAST: https://www.cast.org/