Becca Merrill is a researcher and evaluator at Education Northwest. Her content expertise is in the teacher labor market, with methodological expertise in both quantitative and qualitative designs. Her recent work focuses on teacher working conditions as a lever for teacher retention, informed by work experience as a middle school teacher. Sign up …

Stephen was a middle school Social Studies teacher for 20 years before becoming Chief Learning Officer of a blended learning platform startup. His interests are ancient history, archaeology, and travel and he is an outspoken advocate for teachers, mental health, and LGBTQ equity in the classroom and beyond. Sign up for the DivingDeepEDU Newsletter …

Dr. Dana Goodier has taught World Languages and English and has worked at the middle and elementary school level as an administrator. She often speaks professionally, writes blogs for the Teach Better Team, and is the author of Out of the Trenches: Stories of Resilient Educators. Sign up for the DivingDeepEDU Newsletter Post a DivingDeepEDU podcast…

After navigating her own career transition from teaching in 2017, Daphne Gomez founded Teacher Career Coach to support other teachers thinking of making a change. She launched the first complete coaching program of its kind, the Teacher Career Coach Course in 2019 and also hosts the popular Teacher Career Coach Podcast each week. Daphne has created…

Melissa Arnold Lyon is an assistant professor of public policy at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY. Melissa studies the political economy of education policy, focusing on inequality, governance, and teacher politics and policy. She's interested in how political structures shape and get shaped by…

Lindsay Donikian is the Executive Vice President of Teacher Growth at Elevate K-12. Lindsay focuses much of her time on teacher shortage, how to retain teachers, and live teaching as a potential solution. Sign up for the DivingDeepEDU Newsletter Post a DivingDeepEDU podcast review Subscribe to DivingDeepEDU Music: Believin Stephen Links: elevatek12…

Grace is a doctoral student at the University of Washington Evans School for Public Policy and Governance where she studies urban policy and the impact of segregation on social equity. She has a bachelor's degree in economics and English from Davidson College and worked at Brown University as a pre-doctoral researcher with Prof. Matt Kraft before a…

Chuck Keller is a Leadership & Instructional Coach with over 20 years experience in education. Having taught at day schools, boarding schools, single-sex and mixed gender schools, Chuck brings a broad collection of experiences to his work with teachers and school leaders. Outside of the classroom, he is a motorcyclist, dog-lover, baker, and aspirin…

Dr. Fredeirck Buskey’s mission is to help assistant principals live and lead better. Through The Assistant Principal Podcast, daily leadership email, virtual courses, and online community, he teaches APs to move from spending time on tasks to investing time with people. Sign up for the Newsletter Post a podcast review AND Subscribe to DivingDeepEDU…

srimati is one of my heroines and i do not use that word lightly. i look to her often as a model of how to live a courageous, honest, spirit-led life. it was a tremendous honor to have this conversation with her. srimati “has spent decades seeking the divine in all of her life experiences. living from a deep place of devotion, srimati is a living s…

nina lombardo is a woman devoted. it’s in the way she speaks and the way she moves, in what she teaches and what she lives. it’s in her body, her heart and her whole being. “nina is a yogic intimacy teacher and wisdom keeper of the sacred feminine arts. she supports women in embodying their most authentic spiritual and sexual expressions so they ca…

i first met allana pratt over 13 years ago when i interviewed her for a summit i was hosting on pleasure and sensuality. i loved her candor, kindness and deep devotion to her work. allana is an intimacy expert, the podcast host of intimate conversations, and author of six books. she has interviewed whoopi goldberg and alanis morrisette, coached lee…

Tuan D. Nguyen is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Kansas State University. He applies rigorous quantitative methods (quasi-experimental designs and meta-analysis) to examine 1) the teacher labor markets, particularly looking at the factors that drive teacher attrition and retention, and 2) the effects and i…

when i began reading radical wholeness by philip shepherd i cried. these words, this man. how did he put into words what was lining the insides of my soul? how did he know the answers to questions i’d held on to for years? philip teaches embodiment but “unlike the prevailing view of embodiment which involves sitting in the head and ‘listening to yo…

i don’t know how i found rachel rossitto but a handful of words on her website changed the way i understood myself in this world. i had to know more. rachel is a teacher, guide, mystic, and fairy of rose medicine. having devoted the last 16 years of her life to “studying temple arts, earth-based feminine wisdom, eastern spiritual philosophy and pra…

Leena Marie Saleh, 'The Edtech Guru', is a former educator with 10+ years of classroom experience. She has always been extremely passionate about the modern world of technology and how it transfers into the classroom to make students #workforce ready. Leena has also been a long-time teacher transition advocate. Sign up for the Newsletter Post a pod…

Chad Alderman is the Policy Director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, where he studies school finance and teacher labor markets. He's the founding editor of TeacherPensions.org, and his work has appeared in the Washington Post, NY Times, and Wall Street Journal Sign up for the Newsletter Post a podcast review AND Subscribe to DivingDe…

Matthew Wheeland is a former classroom teacher that now works at Formative — the world’s best formative assessment platform. Sign up for the Newsletter Post a podcast review AND Subscribe to DivingDeepEDU Music: Believin Stephen Links: Matthew Wheeland on Linkedin and Twitter Shout out: Holly Owens and Jeff Patterson Connect with Matthew Downing: L…

Eric Sarb taught middle school math and science in Chicago and San Francisco for 6 years before pivoting to the ed tech sales world. He's worked at various levels in sales, completed multiple policy fellowships, and worked in education leadership development. Eric lives in Oakland, California, and has stayed (mostly) sane inside and outside the cla…

Nick Covington taught high school social studies for 10 years in Iowa. He is the Co-founder of the Human Restoration Project, a non-profit educational organization committed to systemic change toward human-centered learning experiences. Sign up for the Newsletter Post a podcast review AND Subscribe to DivingDeepEDU Music: Believin Stephen Links: ww…

Josh Bleiberg is the Assistant Professor of Education Policy at the University of Pittsburgh and was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in School Reform at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. He is also the author of an interesting paper he wrote while at the Annenberg Institute, What Happened to the K-12 Education Labor Market During Covi…

Sign up for the Newsletter Post a podcast review AND Subscribe to DivingDeepEDU Connect with Matthew Downing: Linkedin TwitterBy Matthew Downing

nadia is the author of three new york times bestselling memoirs, pastrix:the cranky, beautiful faith of a sinner and saint; accidental saints: finding god in all the wrong people, and more recently shameless: a sexual reformation. she is an ordained lutheran pastor and the founder of house for all sinners and saints in denver, colorado, a quirky co…

when i think of daje, i think of power. wide-eyed, full-bodied power. the kind of power born of tension and tightness, emergence and transcendence. power that roots in the earth and spreads, like tendrils, through their poetry, song and space holding. daje is “a storyteller, flower essence practitioner, and space-holder for wild-hearted leaders and…

in this episode i share my stories: the stories that make up my song. stories that defy logic, go beyond rational thinking, and yet were the exact experiences i needed to understand my place on this earth and my work in this world. this is my most personal solocast. i hope you enjoy it. you can listen to all past episodes with beautiful, amazing fo…

in some way i am changed by every interview but then there are the ones that uproot my knowing and shift the soil below me. this is one of those interviews. mandy is a poet, peace advocate and public speaker. her list of accolades and accomplishments is long. in brief (but hardly complete), mandy is the author of two collections of poetry, glenn go…

in this episode i talk about the hardest thing when crafting your own life, singing your own song: fear. as elizabeth gilbert says, "creativity is a path for the brave, but it is not a path for the fearless. bravery means doing something scary." i talk about the fear i live with every day the truth of this journey how to let your life speak the ter…

Chris Unger shares an epic conversation about his doctoral journey. He details how he ended up at Harvard, what helped him succeed, and how current Ed.D. students can navigate their own doctoral journey. The conversation is filled with examples, thoughtful contemplation, and applicable next steps. Dr. Unger's email: cunger.neu@gmail.com https://www…

anna is an edge walker. dancing with the wild. beckoning towards the unknown. digging into the unchartered to open eyes, shift sands, and create new. she is as wise as she is brave, as honest as she is strong. anna is a writer, creativity teacher and mother. she is the author of “the creative doer” and the founder of the creative doer community and…

in this episode i explore one of the most powerful questions i know: how do you use your creativity to craft a life that is yours? i talk about moving from domesticated adult to wild animal, going beyond your personal belief system, learning the language of your body, how to use your body as a tracking system to bring you home and specific strategi…

i first met carrie when i interviewed her for the podcast several years ago. her story of pain, loss and rebirth captivated me. her colorful paintings of flowers and women delighted me. her success as an artist intrigued me. then we became friends and i fell in love with her passion for creativity, her devotion to the creative spirit and her wild, …

welcome to my first solocast. in this episode i talk about one of my greatest loves: questions. i share about hearing a voice that changed my life, how to ask big questions, why questions matter and how they bring us freedom. you can join me and artists, writers, makers from around the world every day, monday through friday, for illumine: a free sa…

sometimes we have to go through the darkest nights to live into the lightest days. emma was recovering from two serious health diagnoses when covid hit. within a month she was divorced, had closed her art store, and moved back in with her parents. thus began a spiritual awakening that led to her getting sober, becoming a poet, finding buddhism and …

Check out the NEW Ed.D. Pathway podcast! This podcast aims to help potential and current Ed.D. students navigate the doctoral journey towards success. We will do that through concise conversations that seek to help others along the Ed.D. path. Check out Eddpathway.com for helpful resources on your Ed.D. journey. Free Resources Courses Blog Podcast …

andrea is a wonder seeker. she looks for it in the easy moments – a kiss, friends gathered together, traveling to other countries. and she looks for it in the hard moments – beset by anxiety, in the midst of divorce, struggling to stay afloat. we talk about this – about turning towards the hard, making space for the all of it, in order to give wond…

meggan is a feminist theologian. she writes about mary magdalene and the divine feminine. one could listen to this conversation and think, initially, that it is about religion, christianity and what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated theology. but it isn’t. it’s about soul work and having the courage to sit still and listen for what’s true.…

asia is a writer, teacher and medicine woman who runs her own online apothecary and offers courses on intuitive plant medicine, business as a spiritual journey and the pussy portal. when asia was a teenager she became ill with a chronic pain condition, vulvodinia. allopathic doctors told her there was no cure. they told her she would be in constant…

in the middle of my conversation with mariana, i broke down crying. i had to stop talking to gather myself, to find words again. it was, in part, in response to mariana’s words. but it was also in response to mariana herself. mariana mae is an artist, visionary, founder of easy to breathe, unearth, and origen raíz, an “organization in alliance with…

jess scheer is a business strategist who supports “indigenous leaders and earth keepers with a powerful vision for the world to bring their message to the masses.” in this conversation, jess speak about many things. about the unshakeable stability of the inner world and our connection to all things. how she began to experience a deep peace while fo…

ashley river brant is a “multi-dimensional artist, writer, teacher and bridge between worlds.” she is a “spiritual alchemist with a vision of bringing more beauty to this planet […] a mystic sharing the teachings of the otherworlds, a channel for Mother Earth.” her work is “about reconnecting you to your creative genius–the whole ecosystem of life …

What can we learn from Mr. Rogers in respect to blended learning? Mr. Rogers transformed the television experience for kids decades ago, and there is much we can continue to learn from him today. He encouraged listeners to slow down, established routines, created deep connections, and experimented with new ideas. These are all lessons we can bring …

What does an online school look like that elevates self directed learning, utilizes learning challenges, and taps into student agency? Let me introduce you to The Forest School Online. This conversation with Maxwell Smith seeks to elevate unique elements of The Forest School Online in order for us to see a different path forward in respect to onlin…

What if technology made the educational experience more impactful, reduced stress, and allowed us to get more done in less time? William Minton and Matthew Downing discuss these critical questions and much more on this helpful podcast episode. William showcases Canopy, a new learning management system, as a way to grapple with these questions. Cano…

Consistency is essential within a blended learning environment. More than that, consistency transcends technology and blended learning models, which makes it an ideal foundational element to build effective learning environments. Richard Byrne discusses this with Matthew Downing and why it is so critical. They also explore examples of what consiste…

Blended learning has forced teachers across the globe to modify their teaching practice and experiment with new tools and ideas. Dom Traynor and Matthew Downing discuss this as well as the ability of blended learning to encourage teachers to be learners at the same time as the students. Teachers don't have to be the expert on every technology tool …

How can we utilize the blended learning environment towards deeper learning? Dr. Scott McLeod chats with Matthew Downing about this topic and much more. They also explore the need for thoughtful planning, the temptation towards wishful thinking, and the way 4 Shifts Protocol can guide towards success. Tune into the blended learning mini series to h…

The experiences throughout the past year have helped us grow in our understanding of using technology in the classroom and being able to ask the "why" when considering technology classroom application. Monica Burns and Matthew Downing discuss this as well as the many possibilities of participation within a blended learning environment. Tune into th…

Blended learning is not for every student or educator. Todd Nesloney and Matthew Downing discuss limitations of the blended learning environment for both students and teachers. We also consider unique ways blended learning can serve students well along with the significance of relationships within a virtual environment. Tune into the blended learni…

Risks can be a powerful tool within our learning. Blended learning has offered numerous opportunities for teachers and students to take risks they wouldn't have taken otherwise. These risk taking experiences have led to unexpected learning opportunities, new ideas, and expanded exploration. We cover this and much more on this past paced episode. Tu…

Organizing a blended learning classroom serves as one of the biggest obstacles for educators. Matthew Rhoads shares examples of how to best organize a blended learning classroom while offering practical examples that can be easily applied to a variety of classroom settings. On top of that, we discuss the importance of routines and embracing the les…