#31 How to Amplify Your Students’ Voices — Katelynn Giordano (如何幫助學生找回學習自主權)

In this episode, it is all about amplifying your students’ voices.  We are really happy to have Katelynn Giordano joining us and sharing her teaching strategies of years. 

Katelynn Giordano is a Middle Level Language Arts Educator,  a blogger at Curriculum Coffee, a writer for the Teachers on Fire magazine, and a Director of Curriculum & Instruction for the Teach Better Team. 
She is a dynamic educator who is passionate about student voices, promoting equity, and valuing teachers as professionals.

Connect with Katelynn:
Website | Twitter | Instagram 

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Show Notes with Selected Links

• [01:30]  Not only Katelynn is a 6th grade teacher but also an instructor in Northwestern University Center for Talent Development and working for the Teach Better Team.  Except for being a 6th grade teacher, how did Katelynn decide if she wanted to take on these roles and thus actualize her beliefs in education ?
  • Rae Hughart
• [03:26] What did Katelynn want to do for a bigger reach in Education at the beginning?
• [05:05] The reason why Katelynn is passionate about advocating amplifying students’ voices.
• [07:14] From Katelynn’s personal take, what does it mean by giving your students’ voices.
• [09:30] How do students behave differently before and after having their own voices out?
• [12:30] Tips to give students more voices or choices in writing classes.
• [14:46] How did Katelynn help students to find their own passion for projects?
• [16:54] How long to do “soul searching”?
• [17:30] Tools Katelynn used for students’ feedback.
  • Feedback from Students
  • Adam Fletcher
• [22:38] How did Katelynn know that she addressed the feedback on point?
• [24:08] When and how did the students do the feedback form?
• [25:33] Books that influenced the core values or thinking of Katelynn.
  • Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities by John Warner
  • We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be by Cornelius Minor
• [28:46] If Katelynn has a superwoman power, what does she want to change the education system of the US?
• [30:04] Parting thoughts.

Transcript

Please go here

Reflections

• Can your curriculum help your students to see who they are ? Or is the curriculum written by the people from the homogenous or diverse background?

What can you do tomorrow

• Start from one writing assignment. Let your students write about their passion projects and see how that trigger their intrinsic motivations.

Song Tracks Credits

• Opening & Ending: Smiling at the Sun
• The breaks in the middle
  • Light Up the Stars by Gyom
  • Things That Are True by Young Presidents