Growing Leaders (00:14.51)
Hi, everyone. My name is Gina Watts, and here with me co-hosting is the one, the only. He tolerates me and adds value to me. Those are my two greatest skills. Andrew McPeak. If you believe that schools should be more than just essays and GPAs, if you believe that EQs are as important as IQs, if you expect amazing things from the next generation, then you are in the right place, because we believe that too.

I love that, man. We are so blessed to get to do this. And I hope our listeners feel that too, right? These amazing people are out there doing amazing work. And I think we all need to recognize that from time to time. Yes, we are so fortunate. And today is no exception. But before we get started on our topic, let's do our opening question. Sounds good. So, Andrew, what's something that you rely on now but didn't even know it existed five years ago? Well...

There's a lot of things that could fit in this category because our world's changing so fast. But obviously your mind goes right to technologies and things that you use, AI and all those things. But you know, one of the services, one of the things that I use pretty much daily that I did not know existed five years ago were apps that can help kind of capture quotes from books and articles and things that you read and kind of like categorize them. So there's one app that I use called Readwise, which if you're not using it, it's brilliant. I mean like

As you're reading your Kindle, if you highlight something, it automatically shares it with ReadWise, and then it automatically organizes it where you can go find it later. And if you're a writer like I am, or speaker or whatever, if you want to use these things, then to have them in a database that's searchable is amazing. ReadWise. ReadWise, you got to check it out. I know. You gave them commercial and everything. evangelist for ReadWise. are. gotten so many people on it. I think I might.

All right. What's your answer, Gina? Okay, so my answer is I went back and forth because it says rely, because our question says rely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I try not to rely on anything. Good for you. But the Lord. Anyway, so my answer though was AI. Like I use it more than, and I didn't really know. I think I knew maybe in the back of my mind it existed for people who have access, money, wealth, like, you know, like in certain spaces it's probably been used for like...

Growing Leaders (02:34.414)
100 years. But for it to be so accessible now, and I wouldn't say I rely on it, but it does help when my brain is little tired. And it's so laced between things now too, even just spell check is kind of a form of artificial intelligence when you think about it. Yeah, but we don't rely, friends. We utilize the tool to help us. Thank you. Do the things that we're supposed to do. Okay, we won't teach on that. But anywho, it's so weird to think about what

didn't exist five years ago. It's like some things become so normal to our everyday lives. It's just hard to even stop and think. What was something that didn't exist five years ago? And that is actually even true for the classroom. Our guest today speaks perfectly into this. Corey Hafer is an engineering teacher at Middletown High School, and he is literally changing the way that we think about flipped classrooms. Yeah. Corey is an amazing leader, and he was...

so cool to be able to speak to us and really give us a new perspective on the role that the teacher plays and the role that a student plays. It's really, it's in a way we wouldn't have thought possible maybe even five years ago. completely agree. So let's hear more about Corey and how he became interested in making changes to a more traditional approach to education. Yeah, well thank you so much for having me. This is the 13th year that I've been in education and honestly I didn't

see myself going into education. That was not something that was on my radar or life map. I was really passionate about biology and majored in cellular and molecular biology in college. And then I went and worked in research and was pretty sure that I wanted to go be a doctor. And when I was in the research lab, I started to realize that I enjoyed teaching. And so when my boss was talking about what my route was going to be, he encouraged me to actually go check out what public school education would be like. So I did a

volunteer, volunteered in a public school in New York City. We set up this lab connection where we could bring students into the lab and show them around. And I went into the classroom and brought Petri dishes and we grew bacteria and just something about seeing those students eyes light up and just their excitement about seeing microscopes in the lab and all of that was, was really exciting. And so I, that was when I kind of decided I wanted to go be a teacher. I think with that background in research, it's kind of changed how I've shaped how I approached education.

Growing Leaders (05:01.44)
I knew that I didn't want to do labs that were just cookie cutter, follow the steps, we get some results that we expected. You know, my training as a teacher was always very much about, you know, creating wonder and creating messy results and then trying to figure out what to make of that and we will learn by those mistakes along the way, just like real science. So yeah, so as a first year teacher, I did kind of get into that mindset of, I need to cover the curriculum, I need to get my students to pass the state test.

I was teaching in New York City at that time. And so the Regents exam, you know, getting good results there was a big deal. But I quickly realized that kids weren't engaged in that. You know, some kids wanted to do well and just getting a good test score would drive their learning. But a lot of students just didn't care or didn't seem to care. And when you started to ask them questions and let them ask questions, you realize that they were still curious and they wanted to learn about the world. They just...

didn't quite see the relevance. And so that really made me think about how I could change education or the way that I was approaching education with students. know, Cory's journey into education is such a testament to how sometimes the unexpected path can really end up becoming something that's super fulfilling. Like we sort of trip our way into our purpose, right? So from researching in a lab to inspiring students in a classroom, it's really all about sparking that curiosity from the very beginning for him, right?

I love how Corey tapped into that wonder element. It's not just about hitting the curriculum marks, but about creating those moments where students' eyes light up, where learning feels real and tangible. And let's be honest, that's where really the magic happens in education. Yeah, that's totally true. And also, the other thing he said that I love so much was that idea of messy results, right? So much of the time.

we are looking for polished and predictable. But when everything's too polished and too predictable, students almost come to expect it. And they can miss out on the deeper learning experiences that come from making mistakes or finding yourself in an unexpected outcome and having to go, how did this happen? Why did this happen? And sort of unpack that. Well, our mentor and friend says it best. John Maxwell says, you you've got to learn to fail forward. Yes.

Growing Leaders (07:16.726)
Unfortunately, our students don't often have the opportunity to do that. Whether it's because of the way we now parent or the way that classrooms are structured. But it's in those messy results where we find the engagement factor, where we can be excited, where students can be excited. It's the real world learning at its best, where kids get to question, to explore, to figure it out. What works, what doesn't work. But they have to not be afraid to fail. Absolutely.

What's cool is is how Corey uses these messy moments to create opportunities for true learning to begin. Yeah, I think sometimes like so I start all lessons or try to start lessons in units with some sort of phenomenon which is right the next-generation science standards want teachers to engage kids in some sort of really cool thing like you have a clear liquid and you add a drop of clear liquid and it turns pink in chemistry and it's like wow what like what happened right now the kids are like they're hooked so I think that like

that initial spark of curiosity is what needs to be there for kids to wanna learn. And I think if you have this nice scripted path of we're gonna go along and do this lesson and this lesson and this lesson and just wait, we're getting towards this really cool thing, but you just have to learn the basics first. There's really not a lot of engagement in wanting to do those basics, because we don't see the big picture. But if you start with that big picture and it's like, wait, this is really hard and really messy, I don't know, how do we approach this problem?

Now we have this reason to want to learn content and want to learn skills. So I think that's a really big piece of what I've learned and I keep kind of reminding myself of how important that is. You get used to teaching, you kind of get comfortable and you sort of are like, well, this is the way it is. I'm going to roll out these lessons. But honestly, my best lessons are when I bring in something fresh and new and hard and that's way above the student's level. And then we scaffold it as we go.

I love how Corey really dives into the idea of sparking curiosity right from the start. know, one of my favorite TV shows, Ted Lasso. You can't not mention it. I can't. I can't help it. It's one of my favorites. But you know, Ted's posture in life is about being curious and teaching kids the value of curiosity is critical. That whole wow moment is important. It's getting students to wonder about something and then guiding them through the learning process. It makes everything feel more real.

Growing Leaders (09:29.408)
and engaging. And here's the thing, if you teach young people about curiosity, and specifically at certain moments in life, it also helps shape them as a whole human to be more curious about people instead of like Tila So says, They're practicing curiosity, which will then be played out in all their spaces. Yep. Starting with that big attention grabbing phenomenon like he talks about, it also flips, if you think about it, the traditional way of teaching.

traditional teaching method on its head, right? Instead of saving the exciting aha moment for the end, it becomes the hook, right? Pulling the students in, making them want to learn the basics in order to solve that mystery, right? So rather than teaching the basics and then showing them how to use it, we give them the problem we're trying to solve and they'll learn the basics along the way, right? It's solving a mystery, so to speak, as we said.

And it's such a smart way to shift the focus from just checking off lessons to truly engaging students in the learning process. So speaking of flipping things around, Corey's also embraced an innovative approach to the flipped classroom model. I'm curious how technology plays a role in all of that and how it's transformed his instruction. Yeah, in fact, this was the reason we wanted to talk to Corey, right? He's using a strategy that's now about 30 years old, this idea of flipping the classroom, but he's putting a new innovative spin on it.

by using technology that we could only have dreamed about 30 years ago when the flipped classroom was first invented. Yeah, so I guess it's interesting because the flipped classroom, I loved the idea when I heard about it because I, you know, it's like, OK, well, let's use class time for labs and activities and getting students to talk. But I realized in my first few years teaching that not a lot of my students were doing homework. And so if I truly just said, hey, here's here's all the content you need and you can learn that at home and then you can bring questions in. Well, not all the students were doing that. And so.

we then had to figure out how to catch that up. And when you start talking to students, there's all kinds of reasons why they're not doing homework. Sometimes they just simply don't know how to get started. Sometimes they lack the motivation, and that's frustrating, but also that's real, and we have to meet them where they are. And then obviously some students have different backgrounds. And so I started viewing that idea of a flipped classroom as not really being feasible with all of my students, especially with large classes. So in my mind, it's kind of like flipping the classroom is like, let's use

Growing Leaders (11:47.03)
It's almost like starting at the end, like with that phenomenon. That's kind of how I'm flipping it is we're flipping the order that we're teaching stuff in. So you engage them in that problem. As we start to learn skills and figure out where we want to go, not all students are going to need the same things. Like let's take computer aided design as an example. So I am teaching students how to 3D model and some students, you can give them the software and show them like a couple of things and then they can kind of run with it. And then actually they're teaching me.

by day two. Hey, Mr. Aver, look at what I just found. And then you have other students who have a really hard time getting started. So if I were to teach computer aided design or CAD by just saying, hey, all class sit down and watch me do this thing, right? Some of them are going to miss the clicks. They're not going to be paying attention. Some of them might not need to see it. So for me, if I record a quick screencast of here's some basics, here's how you sketch, here's how you extrude, now students can watch those or they cannot watch them if they don't want to.

They can kind of learn at their own pace. And now it frees me up to go around and find that student who's struggling and give them the little push or see a student who's doing really well and have that student go connect with one who's struggling. So now I actually have multiple teachers in the room and we can learn more efficiently. And then I can go find that student who has their head down and they're not willing to engage. And I can start to build that connection and help that student realize, Hey, what we're learning could probably help you, you know, so let's talk about where you want to go.

Like I have student right now who really is interested in business and wants to own a business, but he won't engage in my class. And when we started thinking about what are the skills you need to be in a business and operate your own business, the Google Sheet skills that we're learning, the CAD, like maybe he's not going to 3D model for his life, but the computational thinking is going to be key, right? And so to me, that flipped classroom becomes powerful of there's so many good resources out there and videos. We can make our own screencasts. The power of the teacher, I think, is building that connection and

elevating each student to where they need to be. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's interesting because those words informer and commander, they kind of are like, know, it's that you have this authority as the teacher. And so you all need to do what I say because and there's a lot of extrinsic motivation that we've built into our education system, right? And like this is might go on a tangent that we don't want to go on. But you know, grades are a perfect example of that extrinsic motivation. You need to do this because you want to get an A and you want to get an A because you want to go to college and colleges want that A and

Growing Leaders (14:06.466)
So we've built in that carrot and we've forgotten about it. We don't even give kids the opportunity to think about why are we actually here? We're not here for a grade. We're here to learn. We're here to explore that curiosity. And so if you're an interpreter or a consultant, it kind of shifts that power. The students are the ones doing the thinking. They're the ones who are driving their learning. And we're there to kind of help maybe nudge them a little bit as we need to. So I do think that's really important.

I just love how Corey's reimagining the flip classroom model. It's less about flipping the when of learning and more about flipping the approach entirely. It's all about meeting students where they are and giving them the tools to explore on their own while we as educators focus on those individual connections to push them forward. Absolutely. That idea of using technology to free up the teacher's role for more personalized support instead of just delivering the content.

That is a game changer and incredibly powerful. It's like giving the students ownership while still being there to guide as the students need it. And that is a powerful combination. Well, it also, I mean, it moves a teacher from just teaching content to being like a mentor and building that relationship. I love it. That ownership makes all the difference in their engagement. Speaking of engagement, Cory also uses some pretty advanced tools in his classroom. We asked him how access to this kind of technology.

has changed the way his students interact with the complex concepts and skills he is trying to teach them. And I've actually, so I've been experimenting with pulling back grades and I currently actually am running a grades-free classroom in all four levels of my engineering this semester. And there's a lot that I need to figure out still.

And that like ungrading concept sort of is scary to people. And I think it's misunderstood. It's there's a lot of feedback that you're giving students, but nothing that they do gets a grade attached until the very end. So there's self-reflection and there's peer feedback and there's feedback from the teacher. But the whole time we can just kind of make mistakes and you know, maybe you're not quite done with this one skill and we need to move on and we can always circle back if we need. Maybe you're not interested in this thing. It gives a lot more flexibility.

Growing Leaders (16:18.102)
So that's something that if any listeners are interested in, Ungrading is a phenomenal book by Susan Bloom, and that's helped kind of transform where I'm going. Yeah, computer aided design, think, animated, yeah. Yeah, so it's really, especially within the engineering classroom, it's shaped how we can tackle different design problems. As students learn how to 3D model, know, sketching is really cool because you've got these ideas out, you can be creative, but that three-dimensional piece, you can start to...

Imagine, you know, let's say that we're building, we do this automata project in our engineering class where we build a box and it has a shaft that goes through and as you rotate that shaft, different cams kind of displace these followers. I'm using too many technical terms here, but basically you're creating this like animated box where things are going up and down. You're rotating this, this drive shaft and they have to figure out the shapes and sizes of all the pieces. They have to figure out the gear ratio and they might have a gear.

they want a certain speed and so they have to have a specific gear but we don't have that gear. And so they can kind of come up with, use a math to figure out the size of the gear, 3D model it in CAD and then we can laser cut or 3D print it and make our own custom parts. And so it changes, we might have done this experiment in the past or this solved a problem in the past and we have this vision but we don't have the parts and so like this is a cool idea but we can't bring it to life. And I think some of that technology allows us to really bring it to life.

And it's engaging, because you have an idea in your head. now you can actually, in 30 to 40 minutes, or with the laser cutter, seconds later, you can actually see what was in your head. You can start to go interview pre-K kids. Like we have a pre-K in our building. And so our sophomores go interview the pre-K students, figure out their interests, design charms for them, and then they cut those charms on the laser cutter. And so now we have these pre-K students who are...

They have this customized charm that a high schooler built for them and they get to watch it being created with a laser cutter. And it's just this really exciting thing to have. It also requires a lot of skill development, right? Like if you're going to be able to use a laser cutter, you're going to have to have this really complex algorithm that you've established and sort of you have to figure out how to write technically. So I think learning that the technology is engaging, but then the skills that it requires you to develop are very powerful and transferable to a lot of different disciplines.

Growing Leaders (18:37.74)
Right, yeah, and that's the other thing too is like we want students to leave with good skills and we them to be college and career ready. And when we have our seniors work with engineers for their capstone projects, and a couple years ago this group was working with a civil engineering firm in Delaware, Landmark Engineering, and they were needed to create a two-dimensional map of a parking lot and they needed to learn AutoCAD. And the engineers were kind of like, well, AutoCAD is pretty advanced. don't know if, I was like, they know how to use Fusion 360. It's in the same genre.

So I showed it to my students. I was teaching a bunch of other stuff, so I couldn't really help them. And I said, hey, you're kind of on your own, but if you want to learn how to use this, this would be a cool tool. Kids figured out how to use it. They brought their plans to the engineers and engineers were like, are you like, how did you do this? And so, yeah, the stuff that we're teaching kids and that thinking does transfer really well into resumes, you know, possible internships. And that's exciting. And I think that helps again with the engagement. If kids see that what they're doing is used in the real world and they can envision that, then why not?

put everything you have into it. You know, hearing Corey talk about how students can bring their creative ideas to life through 3D modeling and laser cutting really makes me think about the power of hands-on learning. There's something incredible about seeing an idea go from a sketch to a tangible object. And it's amazing how that kind of engagement boosts both learning and excitement in the classroom. Absolutely. It's like the difference between just learning a theory versus actually applying that theory, right?

when you can physically create some, see it work, like those custom charms for those pre-K kids that they made. It not only makes the learning real, but it also opens up this whole world of possibilities for students. And they start to see how their skills apply beyond the classroom. And of course, they're naturally going to take what they're doing in the classroom and apply it to their life as well. speaking of impact on students, Corey has learned a lot from his students and it has really impacted his journey, especially in how he measures the effectiveness of learning.

in the

Growing Leaders (21:02.082)
Hmm, that's a good question. You know, and so like, those are the kinds of things that like that one in particular really pushed me down this path of exploration made me realize that there's a lot of stuff we think we know, or, you know, we just sort of assume is best practice. Like I'd never experienced an ungraded classroom before, so I was never going to do that. But listening to the students and those questions, drives my kind of learning and my desire to ask, well, how can we do this? Maybe better or better represent what students need.

So that was a really, really fun one. I get so many questions from students every day that it helped me learn. And I think the most exciting thing, an example of recently, five years ago, I switched to engineering. Prior to that, I taught biology, chemistry, forensics, but I never taught engineering. And so I didn't know how to code. I didn't even know what coding was. You know, I'd heard it, it sounded fancy, didn't have any concept of what that was. I didn't know what computer aided design was. And so like, I'm not an expert coder.

I'm a very, very novice coder, but I can teach students how the basics and then they, again, a couple of days later, some of them are like way more advanced than me. And so that's really exciting is like teaching has helped me remember that I am a continual learner. And so I'll sit down and learn stuff from my students and collaborate with them. And I really, like, if you walk into my class, you're going to sort of, besides the fact that I have a beard, you're not going to really know where I am because I'm going to be at a table with students, probably learning from students, which is interesting to think about teaching.

Teaching is the best learning, so if I want my students to learn, I need them to teach. That's been a big thing that, a big way that I've shifted my thinking. Thinking about CAD and laser cutting and 3D printing and all of this advanced stuff that we're teaching kids, I can't really teach, and I guess the flipped classroom is like, can't teach 28 students these skills. I really need some of those 28 students to start teaching each other. And so one thing that has made me see things differently is again, engaging those students as teachers.

and encouraging that collaborative environment has allowed me to really transform the room. The other day I had, I was three minutes late to class. I was in my office working and planning for the day and the bell rang and I was like, all right, I'll wait for announcements. And then the announcements didn't come on. And I was like, all right, need to go next door. So I went into my classroom and my students were already leading class. And so yeah, that was a really cool moment to just realize like when you can get those kids to have that intrinsic motivation, they do wanna keep learning.

Growing Leaders (23:21.612)
I just love how that one student's question impacted Corey's journey. It really shows how much we can learn from students and how their curiosity can push us to rethink traditional structures in education. Yeah, absolutely. It's that openness, man. Openness to a student's input that can really transform the classroom environment. And it's amazing, Corey not only listens, but also adapts and grows from these experiences. He's asking questions of himself.

challenging his own assumptions and keep in mind, he's the expert in the room, right? It just makes me wonder with all these diverse students in the classroom, all the different perspectives that they're bringing, how Corey encourages all those different perspectives and how does he create a space where students feel comfortable asking questions and exploring new ideas? So I have to first say that it is really hard and

Yeah, you have to just keep trying. That's like honestly the number one thing is you have to keep trying and if you show the students that you care and you're persistent then eventually it will probably work. You also have to show them that you believe in it. you know I have a freshman class this year and it's been, so we're six weeks into the semester and I think finally they're starting to buy in. So I've been like working really hard for five weeks.

feeling like an absolute failure. Like I try, I do restorative practices in my classroom and it's like, to me that's a philosophy that underpins everything we want to do as leaders. Like all of the stuff about giving up power and working with the students, that's restorative practices. But I start off with the circle, you know? So day one, we'll start in a circle. The circle's a perfect example of giving up my power. I'm not in front of the class, I'm part of the circle. And I tell them that on day one, this is our classroom. I'm here to help you learn. Your learning is super important.

Learning is fun, it's hard, it's challenging, it's full of mistakes. Let's embrace that and let's work together to help each other. So like setting that tone on day one, but then, you know, we'll go around and like share something in circle. And that first day was so painful because most of the freshmen were kind of like laughing and, you know, turning their backs and some of them not even in circle and...

Growing Leaders (25:25.454)
Some of them are talking and one of them picks up a cell phone and there's all kinds of like behavioral things that they sort of need to, they have to buy into wanting to be there. And again, that idea of commander, you know, whatever, I can't just command a freshmen to join our circle and be comfortable. I'm going have to be patient. It's taken about five weeks to do that. Every time that they're not meeting that expectation, I'd remind them of, Hey, we're missing out on an opportunity to learn. Like I'm talking up here and you're over there kind of shouting and, or like, I'm asking you to do this and you're not doing that. And.

You know, like, what's going on? do you agree that this vision makes sense, right? Like, I want all of you to be able to learn and be curious and explore your passions and get to a meaningful life someday. Does that sound good? And they're like, well, yeah, that sounds good. And it's like, well, okay, well, what can I do to help you make that real? Because right now you're actively working against that. And they're like, yeah, you're right. It takes time. It takes vulnerability. I'm very honest with them. When I'm disappointed, I tell them, look, I'm so frustrated right now because I'm working hard and you're...

I feel like you're working against me and we can change our vision if we need, right? Like that's kind of the way that I approach it, but it is so ridiculously hard. It's easy to let those things slide and you know, just sort of be like, well, you know, I tried and I'm going go back to the way it was. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it just, you know, that's the thing that's crazy. 13 years of teaching, you'd think like, all right, I've got to figure it out. I know how to do this, right? But every group of kids is a little different and you know, you've got different personalities and some students who just don't want to work with others. So like what I did the other day was just on the, on the spot pivoted. was like, wow.

you know, this lesson is not working. I asked them to do this warm up thinking question and like half the class wasn't doing it. So I was like, all right, anyone who's done like come with me next door and we're going to go have a little conversation and you all, guess, keep working. So I had a quick debrief with them and I was like, can you all lead yourselves and kind of, I want you to come to consensus on your, on your answer and I'll call you back in a couple of minutes. And then I went next door with the other students who weren't doing what I wanted and I called them up and we had a little mini circle in that smaller group. All of a sudden they were a little bit more focused and I was able to like,

You know, I realized also I didn't know each other's names five weeks in. so like how, a veteran teacher, how did I not let my students know each other's names? You just get so bogged down with everything else. But, so we went around and we did like a quick name game again and just had some fun. And then we brought back other, it was just little things like that. That just, you have to be really intentional. You have to care. You have to remember that it's not the content. It really is. I mean, the content's important, right? And the content has to drive our learning. But I think we often forget about the connection piece because we're so worried about let's.

Growing Leaders (27:51.682)
get them ready for this test, but you can achieve a lot more when they do buy into that class. know, Cory's approach to fostering patience and persistence in his classroom, it's really inspiring to me. I think for a lot of teachers, and even for myself, it's easy to get frustrated when things don't work right away, especially when the students aren't immediately engaged, but he has such patience when he approaches this challenge and goes, we're gonna get there, we're gonna get there, we're gonna get there.

Exactly. It's a reminder that education, especially when you're trying new methods like a flipped classroom, is all about the long game. Yes. I wonder how much of us, like we really probably all need to think about our patience factor. Yes. Like maybe we need to build that, build a little bit more resilience with patience, because that's probably one of his superpowers. You you have to build that trust and engagement over time. And speaking of flipped classrooms, Corey has embraced this model in a new way.

He has some advice for how school leaders and educators like those of you listening, looking to encourage more student-led learning can get started. So I think I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this. And I think the most important thing, honestly, would be exploring kind of this idea of restorative practices. If that's something that is not kind of something, it's not comfortable and familiar with certain, with teachers, I would say that would be an area to look into is how do we build that really cohesive collaborative culture? Because the reality is you can't

I haven't been able to do the flipped classroom or like what I've been doing with my students. I haven't been able to do that with my freshman class the way that I want to yet because I'm dealing with some of those behavioral issues and still building that culture. My sophomores are getting there, my juniors and seniors, like it's exactly where I want it and it's incredible and super inspiring. So I think you've got to spend that time on building a collaborative culture where risk taking is okay, where students, any student in the class can go to another student and ask for help.

because without that it's not going to work. So that would be my first thing. And then the other piece of that is there's this concept that I heard a podcast on a couple years ago, unconditional positive regard. And it's this idea that every student matters no matter what. A lot of us, and I find myself falling into this hole as well.

Growing Leaders (29:59.052)
Okay, you matter to me as a student, if you're not doing what I want you to, okay, well, you just don't want to, and so like I tried, right? But if you have that unconditional positive regard, it's like, well, you're not doing what I want you to, and you still matter, and I'm going to be here for you no matter what. I think that really, those pieces lay that foundation. From there, I would say write really clear learning targets. It used to drive me crazy as a new teacher. Why do we have to unpack standards? Why can't I just teach the standards? But if you're thinking about what you're teaching,

There's so much stuff wrapped up into a standard. And so if you pull out all of those things that, you what are the skills and the knowledge and what's really important today, when you leave my class, what do I want you to know? If you can pull those learning targets out, it then makes it really clear of like, where do we need to go? And now there's a million paths to get there. If you even give that list of learning targets to each student.

Like you could print it out or have it in, like I put it in a portfolio on Google sites. Now every student knows like, all right, need to do this, this, this, and this. And they can kind of help manage that. And now you can start to flip it and be like, well, let's go, you go watch the screencast if you're ready for this. Go watch this other screencast. If you need help with this learning target and I'm busy, go talk to a student. But without the collaborative culture and without those clear learning targets, everything else is kind of.

gonna fail. So those would be the first two areas I would start with. And then just look for ways you can give up power or get your students to, you know, ask your students, what do you want to learn about? What's working? What's not? You know, students have helped me come up with a lot of strategies and a lot of ways to move forward. Andrew, we would be remiss if we didn't share the final wise piece of advice Corey gave to all of us before we ended our interview.

Absolutely. Yeah. And this is where, you know, a lot of you said like not all teachers and I think so often in public education, we kind of get the misconception that there are like a lot of bad teachers out there, a lot of teachers that don't care. Right. And that's just not true. When you really start to talk to teachers and you find a teacher who maybe you're not inspired by or they seem burned out. There's a reason why that teacher is burned out. And

Growing Leaders (31:52.364)
And I think a lot of the times is we don't want to be wrong. It's scary to be wrong and it's scary to give up our power. And everything I've been talking about and where I've kind of learned is that as a teacher, the more power you give up, the more power you actually have over your class, which is weird and doesn't make sense except when you start to do it, you realize it's true, right? If I go in and I'm like, hey, y'all, don't know how to code very well, right? I don't know the answer to the question you're going to ask, but I can help you learn it and find it. You shift that power to them.

and it's okay to not know. I think to all of you listening, especially maybe newer teachers, you do not have to have the answer to every question. And I think that's a really powerful thing to remember. Wow. This was such an incredible conversation. I feel like his approach to teaching really embodies what it means to make education a dynamic and engaging experience. Yeah, there is so much we can learn from teachers like Corey.

who are pushing boundaries and really making an impact in their classrooms. I know there are teachers like him all over the place doing flipped classrooms and project-based learning and all the things that he's doing, but it's just inspiring every time I meet one of them. And it reminds me, it reminds all of us that education is about evolving, it's about experimenting, and it's about finding what works best for the sake of students. I feel like we got a lot.

of information today. So much information. information overload. Yeah, we got a lot of information. We need a little bit of DMI time. DMI, friends, of course, stands for Don't Miss It. Andrew and I will both highlight the one thing from today that we don't think you should miss.

Growing Leaders (33:35.318)
Okay, so Gina, what's the one thing you would say our listeners don't need to miss from today's conversation? Well, I think it was said in multiple ways, but for me, it's the whole idea of Cory's superpower is patience. Yeah. It's literally patience. think in a culture where, I mean, especially with us talking about technology this season, I think in a culture where we emphasize, like, quick.

efficiency, like getting things done, moving forward, responding rapidly. Cory is like, no, we need to figure it out. We need to problem solve. We need to be responsive in creative ways. It needs to be messy sometimes. And he gives young people space to explore and learn. And so I think if we could build up our superpower of patience, like Cory.

That would be one of my main takeaways for today. How about you? Yeah, you saw the way, by the way, just to comment on what you said. You saw the way he thinks about it. I'm working on my freshmen, my sophomores are getting there, my juniors and seniors are where I want them to be. He's literally got a four-year approach to the development of his students. I just think the amount of patience he has is so great. The other thing I thought of, my DMI, is really his openness. In fact, I believe this is on the...

the big five personality test openness to experience is one of the aspects of personality. And I would say his is probably very high, right? The ability to have a student challenge him like that student did so many years ago and say, you gave me a bad grade, but you know I know this. So maybe the grade isn't doing what you want it to do. And for Corey, instead of being

frustrated and how dare you instead he is going you know what what assumptions am I making yeah yep about what learning is actually taking place what assumptions am I making about how grades should be given out right and so he starts to explore all these ideas simply because one student in a classroom asked him a question he didn't have an answer to yeah and that

Growing Leaders (35:39.84)
curiosity that he's modeling so well, the openness to being wrong, the openness to making mistakes, the openness to admitting when I need to make a change and learn and then begin to make adjustments to how do grades work, how does classroom structure work, all of that. To me, I think he is modeling this transition that

all of us as educators have to make in the 21st century, which is, I'm not gonna be in control of all of this, I can't. Instead, I wanna switch my role to consultant and he's doing that so beautifully. So that was definitely my takeaway. I feel like we're so always in tune, because what I was gonna say was along those same lines where you ended, which is, it's almost as if he's fully embraced.

taking ownership of his classroom. You can't control everything. You can't control the outside factors. You can't control the standards that the state's gonna give you or change. You can't control the expectations of your administration, but what you can influence is the way that learning happens in the classroom with your students. so just an encouragement for our educators listening, take control of what you can. I love it. This was a good episode. It was. was really If we say so ourselves. If we say so. Yeah. But...

You guys could also tell us that. We're so excited each and every time to spend time with you. So thank you for joining us today on this episode of the School on a Mission podcast. But before you go...

Before you hit skip onto your next podcast, we've got a little challenge for you. We want you to grab a pen, a notebook, a sticky note, or even the back of your hand and write down one action that you're going to take this week. Maybe it's something you're going to do, something you're going to investigate, something to read more about, a person you might want to meet with. You got it? Perfect. Now DM us with your action step. Let us know what you're going to do.

Growing Leaders (37:30.412)
this week to take action. We can't wait to see what awesome things that you're up to. Until next time, stay curious, stay bold, and keep leading your school on a mission. The School on a Mission podcast is produced by Growing Leaders, powered by Maxwell Leadership Foundation. You can find out more about Growing Leaders at growingleaders.com. We want to especially thank Corey Afer for joining us as a guest in today's episode.

This podcast was co-produced by Angelica Oliver and Kara Mallory. To find out more about the School on a Mission podcast, head over to schoolonamissionpodcast.com.

you