41 episodes listed below
Conversations on literacy in every K-12 subject, from Alberta
Produced by the Alberta Professional Learning Consortium, APLC Change Maker Conversations in Education hands the microphone to authors and educators to talk about literacy in every K-12 subject. The recent conversations cover reading comprehension, classroom assessment, storytelling, self-publishing and reconciliation.
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APLC Change Maker Conversations in Education is produced by the Alberta Professional Learning Consortium, and inside the episodes it goes by a longer name: the Literacy Across the Curriculum series. That subtitle is the organizing idea. Reading and writing are treated as the business of every teacher in every subject. Each episode begins with the same welcome, framing the show as a source of information, books and resources for K-12 educators, gathered through conversations with educators, authors and librarians. Then a guest takes over. The conversation with Dr. Julia Lindsey is a good place to start, and Angela joins it as co-host. It works through how a familiar science topic such as animal habitats can become the ground where comprehension strategies are practised, so that skills serve the building of knowledge instead of being targeted one at a time. Assessment gets its own hearing in 'Myron Dueck - An Assessment Conversation'. There the talk compares a coach reviewing game tape, noting where points were lost and adjusting for next week, with how classrooms have handled learning, and puts part of the lag down to a system inherited from the industrial age. Storytelling is another thread. The episode 'Katie Garner: The Secret Stories of the letters we read' describes a story as a delivery system: too many twists and the point gets lost, while the stories that land connect to something a child already knows. Reconciliation comes up more than once in the recent run. David Robertson talks about how performative social media can be, weighs that against the value of motivating others to act, and separates appropriation from appreciation. The episode with Kim Barker Kay and Jason Bigcharles turns to land acknowledgements, arguing for real research into the Indigenous communities around a town, and to the practice of asking permission before bringing teachings into another nation's territory. Not every conversation is weighty. The episode titled 'Susan Carter - Teacher, Comedian & Author' includes a story about untangling a book by sorting its chapters into the months of the school year, some advice for surviving Christmas concert season, and a turn toward self-publishing and getting books onto Amazon. The register throughout is warm and grateful, with guests thanked at length and their books treated as resources worth collecting. One guest calls the podcast honest and vulnerable. One episode points to a companion blog post on the APLC website with covers of the books mentioned, and the show invites suggestions for future guests. Every conversation in the recent run closes with the same send-off: stay awesome.
Made for: Suits a K-12 teacher, librarian or school leader who wants practical ideas on reading, assessment and reconciliation, drawn from conversations with authors and educators about their books and classrooms.
What sets it apart: It treats literacy as every teacher's business, so a reading-comprehension conversation sits beside ones on coaching-style assessment, storytelling and land acknowledgements, all under the banner of an Alberta professional learning consortium.
The Alberta Professional Learning Consortium (The Consortium) is pooling its resources across the province of Alberta to host this series of conversations with education-related presenters from in and outside of Alberta, as well as educators and leaders inside Alberta. Together, we will explore a myriad of ways by which we can improve upon the great work done in K-12 classrooms in Alberta and education around the world with a focus on Literacy support in all subject areas.
A 77% gets less mysterious when you hear Rick Gilson and Myron Dueck talk assessment.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A retired educator, writer, and comedian reflects on injury, saved notes, and the self-publishing path behind a later creative life.
Susan's story treats retirement less as an ending than as a second working life, shaped by old papers, classroom notes, half-kept ideas, and the question of what deserves to survive the shredder.
A grounded case for teaching reading skills in service of knowledge, not as boxes to check.
Reading instruction is treated here as shared curricular work, with Julia keeping the focus on comprehension as something larger than a stack of isolated skills.
A coaching-minded conversation about assessment as a way to reveal learning, not just record a score.
This PlayNext episode frames assessment less as a finish line than as a check on readiness, feedback, and actual understanding. In conversation with Myron, an educational consultant, author, instructor, and athletic coach, it links classroom practice with coaching habits:…
David Robertson makes reconciliation concrete by asking why cultural images are shared and what care surrounds them.
David Robertson's conversation about 52 Ways to Reconcile frames reconciliation as a way of seeing and acting, especially in the choices people make about what they share.
Katie Garner argues for stories that make letter learning feel connected and purposeful.
Katie Garner frames early literacy around a simple but useful premise: stories give children a way to connect letters, content, and the world they already understand.
Behavior-analysis research, argued out loud.
Range trade talk for firearm instructors.
Clinical CE for busy veterinary teams.
["Susan Carter says The Science of Making Friends breaks social skills, teasing, and cyberbullying into parent and child sections she can use with teachers.", "She connects comedy to classroom practice by arguing that girls are often taught to consume boys' humor instead of making their own, then uses humor lessons to help junior high students tell better stories.", "Carter also points to The Gap in the Game as a way to show students how far they have come instead of measuring them only against an ideal.", "Her publishing path runs from an art book written after a 2009 kneecap break in Nova Scotia to The Thing No One Told You About Teaching and I'm Fine, A Bathroom Book for Seniors, with Pagemaster handling the latest layout work."]
On APLC's Changemaker Conversations in Education, Dr.
Myron Dueck tells Rick Gilson that he is driving through rural Georgia for a workshop called Presenting with Purpose while recording APLC's Changemaker Conversations in Education.
APLC's Changemaker Conversations in Education speaks with David Robertson about 52 Ways to Reconcile, which goes live May 13.
Katie Garner ties Secret Stories to Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow and to her father's two brain bleeds.
Kim Barker-Kay and Jason Bigcharles describe an APLC website that organizes Indigenous culture-based learning through four foundations, stories, seasonal practices, and curriculum-linked videos.
Julie Stern explains how conceptual teaching helps students transfer ideas such as knowledge, trade, ways of life, emotion, and tone across subjects and contemporary contexts.
David Robertson discusses more than 20 books, including The Sleeping Giant, All the Little Monsters, The Reckoner, When We Were Alone, On the Trap Line, Sugar Falls, and Seven Generations.
Matt Johnson, a Michigan high school English teacher and author, discusses Flash Feedback and his forthcoming book Good Grammar with hosts Rick Gilson and Charlie Craig.
Michelle Bence and Dr.
An educational podcast series where hosts discuss books and resources to support literacy across all subject areas for K-12 educators.
A podcast series focused on literacy support across subject areas, featuring conversations with educators and experts to improve K-12 teaching in Alberta.
This episode is a book talk series discussing literacy support across subjects, featuring a math consultant exploring the intersection of math and literacy.
A podcast series for educators discussing literacy support across subjects, featuring interviews with experts and practitioners.
A conversation with Rachel French about concept-based inquiry in education, recorded at a professional development event for educators in Alberta.