Pedagogy Non-Grata

Pedagogy Non-Grata sets out to connect what the scientific literature says with what teachers actually do in classrooms. It uses two formats to do it. One is the interview, in which a single guest talks through their work with the host. The other is the roundtable: a panel of specialists, introduced by their credentials, who take questions in turn and can weigh in on each other's points. The host has made the case for that second format plainly, arguing that education science is better presented as degrees of probability than as a list of facts to memorize. The roundtables show how wide the subject range runs. The panel on Fluency Round Table includes a professor of literacy education at Kent State University, and the episode weighs whether repeated reading carries over to texts a student has not seen before, grounding text reading fluency in automaticity in word reading. The Science of Writing Round Table asks about the current state of writing instruction in schools and gets a blunt answer: all of it needs improving. A Round Table on the Science of Math, made in collaboration with Dr. Zach Groeschel of the Progressively Incorrect podcast, asks whether math teaching can borrow from literacy instruction. It also airs the argument that anything which can be operationalized can be taught, mathematical thinking included. That panel ends on the duty to change a practice when it is not working, which the host singles out as a fitting close. The interviews go further into the weeds. Dylan Wiliam returns for a second time after getting in touch about an article the host wrote, and the talk turns to effect sizes and why Cohen's guidance was meant for power calculations rather than for interpreting results. One thread reframes a small growth mindset effect as a meaningful gain in the rate of learning for older students. The host calls it the nerdiest podcast they have ever done, and perhaps the most enjoyable. Anna Greiger, billed in the episode title as The Measured Mom, tells a teacher's change-of-mind story: years in balanced literacy, then an attempt to refute a critique of three-cueing that sent her into the research instead. Her book, Reach All Readers, is the occasion for the interview. Dr. Catherine Garforth, whom the host names as the show's number one repeat guest, turns to psych ed reports. These documents can run to twenty pages of jargon and statistics, yet they could do much more to inform teaching and the IEP process. The register throughout is earnest and warm. The host openly defers to the expertise in the room, and even admits relief when a panel needed no editing, since editing is not a skill the host says they have. For a starting point, the Garforth interview covers the special education side, the Wiliam conversation is the one for the statistics, and any roundtable gives a spread of expert views on one subject.