 Welcome to the Learning Loop Podcast, your best source for educational insights and trends. I'm Chris, your host. Today's special guest is Rachel. Rachel is a fourth grade teacher in Texas. Rachel is a superstar teacher who is a pro at bringing powerful learning to all her students. In our talk today, Rachel will tell us how she overcomes barriers, how she strategizes her classes, and how she can be more efficient and effective as a teacher. Rachel, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Of course, we are so excited to hear all your amazing answers as we jump right in. Can you start by just sharing a time when CSOL made a positive difference in your students' learning or engagement? Oh, definitely. There's so many stories. That's what I love about CSOL. Number one for me is the creativity side, and that's why there's so many stories like that, is that my students have the opportunity to share the way they need to and really make those connections. And so when parents and I are all in that loop, as we say now, we're seeing beautiful things and seeing the connections that the students are making that maybe we wouldn't have caught otherwise. So we're just so stuck in algorithms a lot of the times and the explanation part, the recording part or drawing a picture or just having the option for those things sometimes can make such a difference for a student and really bring those aha moments to families and then teachers too to help struggling students or even extend activities for students as well. So I just, that's it. I mean, one specific time. Do you want one specific time? You can be welcome to continue to elaborate if you want. Okay, so I do have one story and this was an ESL student and I was actually teaching in like a very, very, very tiny town very north of Texas. And so very limited English. And so I guess I should say E-O-L. But the student was like learning to use the record button and was trying to read a passage. And just it was able to feel confident on C-Cell versus reading aloud to me and where some teachers might take offense to that. It gave him like the outlet he needed and the platform he needed to express and make mistakes and learn from them. And I just saw so much growth in that and parents saw it too and heard it. And we were like, oh my gosh, look at all this evidence we have too. And it was just, I was able to get running records from it. So I said, I don't care if you're like, that this is the way that we are getting our data. I'm happy and we got to praise. And eventually he was able to read to me too. So it was just beautiful, awesome. Yay. Wow, that's so amazing. And I think you were speaking to, starting to personalize that learning and differentiate that a little bit. And I just love how you found success in really providing your students with what they need and allowing them to use tools that are flexible for them to showcase their understanding in a way that really fits them. I think that's amazing that you found that perfect balance there. CESAW does a good job of allowing that. So I think. Yeah, for sure. Backing up the lens potentially beyond CESAW, what are some of like your go-to instructional strategies that you have found just are really, really successful when you use CESAW and you implement it? What are some of those bigger picture things that you have found to just really combo well with CESAW in your classroom? That's awesome. I'm glad you asked that. I am a project-based learning classroom. So I'm finding CESAW, everything, every glit grade I've taught really has changed. And I'm like, oh no, CESAW still works. Oh, great, like perfect because I'm just seeing the need for that creative side and the freedom for the choice part. And so project-based learning is a lot about the real world environment and bringing all of students real problems and how we can maybe solve them. So like currently our playground is a little rough in the field, our actual playground, beautiful. I mean, incredible, probably one of the best playgrounds in our area. The field, on the other hand, goat heads, like we gotta fix it, right? So including CESAW in the, can we go take pictures of our field? Can we get close-ups? Can we measure? Can we draw on top of it and put our area perimeter? So because I'm doing math, I'm trying to include as many math computations as possible in this. We're writing word problems. We're gonna do some community work eventually. So we're getting to that part, probably in the second semester, but it's gonna be a project that hopefully is being presented to the correct people in our community in a way for a possible solution for our field. Whether it gets solved or not, I think that it's meaningful learning. CESAW always lends the friendly hand that I need to, oh, I need photos. Perfect, CESAW, you know. I need them to annotate and draw real quick. Oh, CESAW, okay. So just that continually, that freedom, the presenting, students are able to talk over their drawings. And so we're gonna get to the presentation part of their projects as well. And I always do presentations on CESAW. The kids love it. They take it as their own little video star. So I love their favorite thing. Click like and subscribe at the end. Of course I can't. So, you know, that's how I'm continually using CESAW. It just lends itself so kind to every grade level that I've taught. Kinder pre-day, first, second, and now I'm in fourth. So. That's so awesome. I think, you know, you having, sharing a little bit about that PBL is making my teacher heart sing. You know, I was at a PBL school and I love seeing those things come to life. And, you know, I think of what kids are really yearning for is that real world connection to understanding and learning that's there. And you're finding that perfect balance and using CESAW to also, you know, help that to move forward versus just kind of capturing pictures or capturing moments. You're using that to really enhance that learning that's happening. So, that's so awesome to hear. And I selfishly kind of wish that I was a student in your classroom sometimes as you told that because it just sounds so fun. That's awesome. Come on anytime. You can come help us. Absolutely. You spoke earlier about, you know, having students with diverse needs in your classroom. We know almost every classroom in the world has students who have different needs, diverse needs. How are you using CESAW to really make sure that you're addressing those needs appropriately? And what are some things that maybe you could share with the audience of like, here are some of my go-to things that I think about to make sure that I'm addressing all those diverse needs in my classroom. I love that. I love that. I'm definitely on the teaching the whole student side of things as well. Minds and all the way to their hearts and their skills and their social, emotional needs. And so a lot of the times, you know, they're like, it's math class. And I'm like, and we're going to work on how we are communicating with each other. And we're going to work on how teamwork and collaboration is much more important right now than this, that we were continuing learning. So a lot of the times in CESAW, I can record myself reading a book and I am part of an organization here locally. Actually, it's nationally. It's called the Leaders Readers Network, but they're diverse books and I'm constantly bringing those into CESAW videos and reading them and we're doing lessons. And if it connects to math, I'm doing math lessons as well into CESAW as well. So I'm just, I don't know, I'm really trying to get those reflection questions in there to students, to have them monitoring themselves more. So I want them to be thinking about, am I just a calculator? Am I doing this for a purpose and a goal for myself, you know, to be successful person later on? And to be that, do I need some other skills on getting along with others? Do I need to collaborate well with others? Does kindness, does that need to be included? Does in getting along with others and the diversity that we're seeing in our classroom and the needs of others, are we still focused on the unfairness? Are we accepting that others need things and that's okay? So we do slow down a lot of our learning for that and I'm okay with it. There's a lot of gaps to be filled and our world, I think, strongly needs that. And so I try to do that as much as possible. And CESAW has some really good stuff out there already. And so a lot of the times I'm just heartin', pushing the heart button, editing and put my voice instructions over, maybe adding a few things and I love it. So good, so good. I think you two, you were talking about when you were pulling in books that connect with your students and really show that too, you're just trying to, and you spoke to this earlier in PBL, you're really trying to get to that deeper level of connection. You know, it's more than just learning about math, like you were saying, it's more than just science. We're here to grow as a whole person and we're here to grow, you know, our academics in our head, but also ourselves as a person and as a contributor into the society. So I think that, you know, your mindset on that and developing the whole child, like you said, is so positive for everybody who comes in and can just use that as a boost into their next grade as they keep going. I hope so, yeah. We're gonna jump, we have three more questions left. We're gonna jump to our loopy question, which is a fun question designed to just get a unique response from you. It's time for dessert. Everybody loves dessert in the whole world. If you had to choose just one dessert that you were going to eat for every meal or only one dessert that you could only eat, what would that one dessert be? You can't have other desserts. Keep in mind, this is the one dessert that you're gonna have for the rest of your life. What would you choose? Forever. And it has to be one flavor. Pie. No, it doesn't have to be. We'll say it that way. Pie. Pie. Yes. Why? That's good. Like homemade even, authentic. Doesn't even matter, but I like pies. I was gonna say ice cream, but lately ice cream hasn't been my friend. So pies have been my friend for a long time. Love it. Love it. Your answer though, I have to know. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with a really good pie that's been made with love and care and is warm and coming straight out of the oven. That sounds pretty good to me. Yeah. Yeah, it's just comforting, right? It's so comforting, especially now that we're thinking about the holidays coming up. I know. I think that's why I answered that, maybe. What's your answer though? My answer, one dessert, I would have to say I'm a big fan of cookies, maybe like chocolate chip cookies if I had to be really specific, but you get some salty, you get some sweet, you get some chocolate, and so they're also pretty portable. You could throw it in a lunchbox or in a little baggie for something. So. Gotta find the mini pies. Yeah, you could throw those back. You could. You could make mini pies. Yeah, mini pies. Well, two more quick questions, and then we'll kind of close up. You're a very experienced teacher. You've taught many different grades. So when you think about how you balance the curriculum and or the academic standards that you have to deliver on, but also engagement for students and technology integration, what kind of things do you think about to make sure that you're balancing that as best as possible so that people listening can start to think about that the same way that you are? Great question. I'm a blended learner, certified educator as well. So I believe in that choice as well. I always tell them to, I said, see-saw's super fun. I love touching the screen. We have Chromebooks in our classroom. Before Chromebooks, we had iPads. You could touch those too. And I said, see-saw's so fun. You can touch the screen. You don't have to. You can use your mouse. I said, but if you're just more of a paper person, guess what? You got that option. So kind of just bring it in that you can choose. But guess what? You're gonna take a picture on see-saw so I can see that proof. They love that. So to me, it's less about what I prefer and more about what makes them comfortable. But I do want that balance. I want them to know that sometimes we are gonna be working with their clear touch and sometimes you are going to be starting on this platform but then you always have the option to go grab scratch paper. You have the option to go grab your journal. You have the option always to use paper and pencil and then use the platform that we're on. As we're finding out in like Texas, every standardized test is digital so they need to be able to transfer that anyways. So giving them that option all the time, like it's setting them up for success later on. So it was like perfect because when I first got here, everyone was like, what are you using? No, we use this or something. And I said, no, I think this is where it's a way to go. Done a couple of trainings here. They're like, oh, we see now. And I'm like, right, the transfer there is there. The connection's there. And that was before we went full standardized testing online. And they're like, oh, that makes sense now that they need that organization skill to go from paper to that online platform. And I use so many digital tools, but nothing Lexi's all because it's just so friendly. Like the creativity is just so friendly for students. They absolutely love it. And that's my favorite part. Yeah, I love that. My favorite quote that you said here, and I wish that we could just make this bold and sing it from everywhere. When you said, what I want from my students is less about what I prefer and it's about what they prefer. I think that is, that's such a powerful switch that you've made in allowing your students to own that learning and showcase what they understand in their own way that, you know, I'm sure your students just love that empowerment that they have and the ability to have that flexible way of showing their understanding. Right, I hope so. Yeah, for sure. Oh, I'm sure they do, I'm sure they do. Final question here, when we think about closing up our episode, we always try to provide advice to people who are listening to any last quick steps or things that they can just take away and build right into their routine and into their understanding. So what advice would you give to a teacher who is either new to CESA or new to teaching and wants to start to use CESA the way that you do? What advice would you give them? Maybe one, two, three steps that they could start with that just really would help them again to get to the point that you are eventually. But what would you ask them to start with? One of my favorite things to start with is a CESA created lesson about using the tools. I start with this every year. I've made it my own a little bit, just kind of put some bitmojis in there of course or kind of put my own voice in there. I like arrows, I like the CESA arrows, so I like point to things. I like to pop those in there. But there's a CESA created lesson and it's specifically about how to use the tools and it's like get to know me, get to know CESA and so they're talking about themselves but they're also getting to know CESA and they're using the tools. Teachers also are making an example of it. So before they're sending it out and assigning it to students, they're able to make their selves examples so they're getting used to the tools. And then because CESA created it and y'all are fabulous, there's teacher notes on how do you edit? How do you create your own? How do you guide your students through this? Something I didn't have a back in the day that I love now is that present to class button. So that's encouragement too. Like, oh, it's so beautiful and that's where I would start too. And now I'm starting there almost every lesson. I'm like, this is so awesome. It's so nice. And then I always say, don't be afraid to use the sample student and do the whole entire lesson. Do it quickly. They're not gonna remember. It's okay. You can just do it, do the lesson, which be like, wow, this is what you're doing on CESA today. And then you can move on. They can go try it out. It's okay. But it looks exactly like yours. To start out, you want it, them to be still successful and happy. And so that's my advice. So good, so good. Very, very practical steps too. And easy things that can be quickly and easily found for any teacher who's jumping into CESA brand new. So I think that's the best advice that I could ever give as well. So I do think that's perfectly spot on as you shared them. Thank you. Rachel, we are at time. I just wanna say thank you, thank you so much for everything you do for kids and everything you're doing for the larger community around you who's learning from what you're doing in your classroom. Thanks for taking time here today to be with us because we so appreciate your wonderful answers and the steps that you gave us for everybody to take away to continue their journey with CESA in their classroom. Awesome, thank you. I appreciate you having me. Of course, thank you so much. Bye.