In this episode, Priten speaks with Mary Shawn Newins, a computer science teacher in Greensboro, North Carolina, who arrived in the classroom at sixty with decades of corporate and sales experience but no coding background. Her unusual arc gives her permission to build AI literacy alongside her students rather than ahead of them. What emerges is a classroom culture where curiosity itself—not mastery or fear—becomes the pedagogical goal. She uses practical structures like a "quack" incentive and peer questioning to shift how students see AI: not as a shortcut to avoid, but as a tool that works best when you know what you actually want to learn.Key Takeaways:Curiosity as a pedagogical aim changes everything about how students use AI. When learning for its own sake is the standard—not grades or compliance—AI becomes a catalyst for deeper exploration rather than a means of dodging work. A student asking AI about birds of prey out of genuine interest learns far more than one copying homework.Making AI use visible and gamified shifts students from hiding it to owning it. Mary's "quack quack" jar and peer accountability turn using AI into something worth discussing openly. Social transparency works where rules do not.Three non-negotiable standards replace prohibition: name the tool, share the prompt, explain the output in your own words. This mirrors citation practices students already know. It's not about policing—it's about maintaining the chain between question, resource, and understanding.Strict phones, generous computers reflects a deeper principle about attention and agency. Banning personal devices while enabling desktop computers creates a bounded space for learning. The boundary isn't about rejecting technology; it's about who controls the environment.Late-career teachers bring a rare asset: they remember how knowledge worked before AI. Mary's corporate background means she can model learning alongside students without needing to be the expert first. That permission ripples through the classroom.Mary Shawn M. Newins is a Marketing and Computer Science educator at Southern Guilford High School in Greensboro, North Carolina. She has been a full-time faculty member since Spring 2023 and proudly serves as the school’s AI Champion, supporting innovative and responsible technology integration in the classroom. Mary holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from Bowling Green State University and is an Ambassador for the CodeMonkey High School curriculum, advocating for accessible and engaging computer science education for all students. Before transitioning into education, Mary spent 30 years in the business sector, working across business-to-business sales, retail, direct sales, and operations management. Outside the classroom, Mary is a wardrobe stylist at Chico’s Friendly Center, a denim upcycler, and a creative at heart who enjoys painting.

In this episode of The Principal’s Handbook, we tackle one of the most common and frustrating complaints principals hear: “Nothing happens to kids.” If you’ve heard this from your teachers, this episode will help you understand what’s really behind it and why it’s not about you being a bad leader or teachers being negative. We break down the five root causes of this belief. You’ll learn how these hidden issues create inconsistency, frustration, and a sense of overwhelm across your building.  More importantly, this episode gives you three practical ways to fix it.  If discipline is taking over your day or you’re hearing growing frustration from staff, this episode will help you identify exactly where the breakdown is and how to rebuild a system that actually works.Check out The Team Approach to Challenging Student Behaviors.Get the Principal's Discipline Toolkit. 

In this episode, host Erin Bailey sits down with Dr. Timothy Shanahan — professor emeritus, former president of the International Literacy Association, and Reading Hall of Fame inductee — to discuss his groundbreaking new book, Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives.Dr. Shanahan challenges one of education's most deeply held assumptions: that students should be matched to texts at their individual reading level. Drawing on decades of research, he explains why this practice may actually be holding kids back — and what teachers should be doing instead.About Dr. Tim Shanahan:Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chi­cago where he was Founding Di­rector of the UIC Center for Literacy. Previously, he was director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools. He is author/editor of more than 300 publications on literacy education. His research emphasizes the improvement of reading achievement, teaching reading with challenging text, reading-writing relationships, the and disciplinary literacy.Tim is past president of the International Literacy Association. He served as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Literacy under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and he helped lead the National Reading Panel, convened at the request of Congress to evaluate research on the teaching reading, a major influence on reading education. He chaired two other federal research review panels: the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, and the National Early Literacy Panel, and helped write the Common Core State Standards.He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007, and is a former first-grade teacher.Dr. Shanahan's Blog: Literacy Blogs | Shanahan on LiteracyLeveled Reading, Leveled Lives: Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, your hosts talk with Dr. Helaine Marshall — retired professor of education at Long Island University Hudson and creator of SOFLA, the Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach — about the pedagogy most online courses never get around to designing, and what it costs when they don't. Drawing on five years of development work, Community of Inquiry theory, and her own linguistics teaching, Helaine walks through an eight-step cycle that treats synchronous virtual instruction as its own medium rather than a degraded version of in-person teaching. The reframe at the center of the conversation: online learning isn't a tool problem, it's a design problem — and empowerment isn't something teachers do to students, it's what happens when the conditions are built for it.Together, the hosts and Helaine explore why most virtual classrooms default to lecture-over-Zoom, the eight-step SOFLA cycle that weaves asynchronous pre-work with structured synchronous sessions, the two steps that actually determine whether it succeeds (the SHAC share-out protocol and "preview and discovery"), the control issues that make teachers resist the model, and how SOFLA adapts across content areas — from linguistics to Boyle's Law — and age groups. They also work through Helaine's four E's framework — equity, enrichment, engagement, empowerment — and a single linguistic observation that reframes how to think about agency in virtual classrooms: empowerment is not a transitive verb.Key TopicsThe eight-step SOFLA cycle: pre-work, sign-in, whole group application, breakouts, share-out, preview and discovery, assignment instructions, reflectionWhy pedagogy outlasts tech tools — and why most online teaching skips pedagogy entirelyThe SHAC protocol for accountable, substantive peer feedback"Preview and discovery" as the motivational hinge between lessonsThe four E's: equity, enrichment, engagement, empowermentP-P-R-R (patience, persistence, reflection, renewal) for teachers new to the modelAdapting SOFLA across content areas, age groups, and even in-person classrooms4. Links & ResourcesSOFLA® (book, forthcoming May 2026) — Helaine W. Marshall and Ilka Kostka, University of Michigan Press, Brief Instructional Guide Series: https://press.umich.edu/Books/S/SOFLA-RHelaine's SOFLA hub — overview, training team, and resources: https://malpeducation.com/sofla/Helaine's bio and full publication list — https://malpeducation.com/our-experts/helaine-w-marshall/"Fostering Teaching Presence through the Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach" — Marshall & Kostka, TESL-EJ, Vol. 24 (open access): https://tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume24/ej94/ej94int/Breaking New Ground for SLIFE: The Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm, 2nd ed. (2023) — Helaine's other signature framework (MALP), University of Michigan PressMeeting the Needs of SLIFE: A Guide for Educators, 2nd ed. — Marshall, DeCapua, and Tang, University of Michigan PressPerusall — the social annotation platform Helaine uses for pre-work: https://www.perusall.com/Flipped Learning Network — founded by Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams, referenced as the origin of flipped learning: https://flippedlearning.org/Community of Inquiry framework — Garrison, Anderson & Archer, the theoretical grounding for teaching presence: https://coi.athabascau.ca/CILC — Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration: https://cilc.orgBanyan Global Learning — https://banyangloballearning.com/global-learning-live/Guest Bio: Dr. Helaine W. MarshallDr. Helaine W. Marshall is the creator of two instructional frameworks — SOFLA (Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach) and MALP (Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm) — and currently serves as president of MALP, LLC, where she trains educators on both models. Her work centers on culturally responsive-sustaining education and online flipped learning, particularly for teachers working with language learners and students whose prior schooling has been disrupted. She is retired Professor of Education and Director of Language Education Programs at Long Island University – Hudson, has published three books with University of Michigan Press, and received the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from New York State TESOL.About the Hosts: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Why Distance Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered distance learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell work with CILC, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, to help educators implement high-quality live virtual learning experiences across grade levels. Discover more at CILC.org.

In this episode of The Smarter Campus Podcast, Zach sits down with Matthew Ignash, science educator and department head at the American International School of Chennai, to explore a practical and grounded approach to integrating AI into teaching and school systems. Rather than focusing on expertise, Matthew emphasizes experimentation—showing how small, intentional projects can unlock meaningful change for educators and students alike.Drawing on his background in data and assessment, Matthew introduces the importance of systems thinking when working with AI. He explains how clear inputs, clean data, and thoughtful design can prevent the common trap of producing polished but unreliable outputs. The conversation highlights how educators can move beyond using AI for efficiency alone and begin to use it as a tool for deeper learning and problem-solving.The episode also showcases how students can become creators with AI, not just users. From building custom study tools to collaborating across generations, Matthew shares examples that point toward a more active, hands-on model of learning. For educators navigating where to start, this conversation offers a simple but powerful message: begin with curiosity, start with what matters to you, and build from there.